10th Sunday Sermon Matthew 17:14-23 2024/9/1 Osaka Church
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
Everyone! Are you confident in your faith?
You may be wondering why I am asking this out of the blue, but reflecting on the question, the more serious the Christian, the more troubled they would be considering the answer. But is it even possible to have confidence in one’s faith in the first place? And even it was, would it be faith?
One day, when Jesus entered a town, a man ran out of the crowd and knelt down before Him. “Lord, have mercy on my child. He is suffering from epilepsy. I begged your disciples but they could not cure him.”
Jesus had the father bring the child to him, and with just one word, he drove out the demon that had possessed the child. The child was freed from an illness that had plagued him for a long time and which, at the time, was completely incurable.
After the curious crowd had left, the disciples asked, “Why could we not heal him?” Jesus answered,
“Because of lack of faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you will say to the mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.”
The disciples had been called by the Lord and had been given by Him “authority to cast out unclean spirits and to heal every disease and every kind of infirmity,” so they were full of confidence in the face of the father’s request.
But they failed.
Meanwhile, according to Mark, who also reports this incident, the father cried out, “I believe; help me my unbelief!” He was a man who had absolutely no confidence in his faith. But he went before the Lord himself and obtained the salvation of his son. The incurable disease was healed. The mountain moved. The Lord saw “faith the size of a mustard seed” in the man’s honest and earnest plea: “I believe. Help me, my unbelief…”.
And how much more must the Lord nurture our “faith the size of a mustard seed” when we give up our morning sleep and travel all the way to church on Sundays like this. No matter how small or uncertain it may be, even if it is merely a sense of duty to the family religion inherited from our ancestors, to Christ God it is the bud of a precious love for Him that is priceless. There is no way Christ would not embrace us tightly and say, “Oh, I’m glad you came here today.” Our faith is not the kind that can be expressed in a nice way, but rather a faith that tends to be stammered. But Christ blesses our faith, which we ourselves are not even aware of, and encourages us by saying, “Continue to gather here and grow in your faith. Listening to my words and receiving my body, the Eucharist, is your best daily bread for that.”
Now, do you understand the answer to the question I asked you at the beginning: Is it possible to have confidence in your faith? And if so, can it be called faith?
Actually, “confidence” in faith is a strange word. …Because what we believe is in “oneself,” （In Japanese confidence is 「自信」） not Christ or God. As Christians, we do not “believe in ourselves,” as the powerful people of this world, or the athletes who are admired by others often say. We believe in Christ, God. We believe not in our own thoughts or convictions, but in the words that Christ speaks to us. We do not mistakenly believe that we are supporting ourselves with the money we have earned ourselves, but believe that we are being supported by God. By eating the Eucharist every day, which is food given to us by God, we firmly confirm this to ourselves.
We are nothing special. There is no such thing as “confident faith.” Faith is not believing in oneself, but believing and looking to God. Amen