Walking in Faith

By Lucy Strohl OPA ~ July 7, 2008

Scripture: Matthew 9: 18-26.

‘Dwell constantly on personal disappointments, losses and failures.Set impossible goals.  Think a lot about the terrible state of the world today.Find fault with everything.Always be right. Avoid anything new. Never give a positive interpretation to others' behavior... unless a negative one is absolutely impossible.’ It’s easy to see how a program like this can allow us to live in our tombs-- well before a gravestone is erected.

These rules for tomb-making  came to mind as I read the gospel.A synagogue official comes to Jesus, because his daughter has died. A social outcast, a woman hemorrhaging, approaches Jesus. She was childless, unable to earn a living, desperate. The prominent local person's wealth and status set him in stark contrast to the ailing woman. But his grief  reduced him to the same position of dependence on Jesus. Both take a risk, a leap of faith searching for restoration and new life.  What drew them to Jesus?  The synagogue leader held power; he was a symbol of Judaism.Yet his faith led him to ask for healing for his daughter.Then a woman perpetually unclean, also acts on faith. Jesus’ mission of compassion and healing connects the two.

We might ask ourselves, who are people of faith in our lives?  Who are the risk-taking, faith- filled folks who have helped us learn to embrace our brokenness, our need for healing?Years ago, a good friend told me: Lucy, you are SO negative!  I didn't realize until then--how very good at it I was!  I had stubbornly developed tomb- making attitudes and could easily add a few more to the above list. Thankfully, my friends’ faith in God AND in me was a true source of challenge and at least the beginning of my acknowledging my dependence on God and others.  I'm very grateful for those who walked with me in faith and who still do.  Today's gospel is reassuring.  It is not a matter of Enough faith or More faith.  It is simply about the presence of faith.  Jesus acknowledges and draws on that faith to give back life to the young girl and to the bleeding woman.

Jesus affirms our faith as well.These are challenging times for all of us.  Joye Gros, OP our sister from St.Catharine, Kentucky, urges us: "We enter this new moment in our history with the same fear, questions, courage and dreams of times past.Let us not grow weary or fainthearted in our search for truth, in our deep listening and honest speaking...".  There are so many opportunities for faith- building right here.Our strength is not in ourselves, but in the faith that God has in each of us.  Jesus touches us today, through his Word and sacrament.  He challenges us to be a word of healing, a sacrament of everyday faith for someone. We pray for each other, for our Dominican family, for our global family, for the family of all God's creation. As we continue to walk in faith, we can cup our hands in front of our heart, imagining we are holding the problems and concerns--as well as the possibility of wholeness and healing-- for each person and situation before us.Asking the Holy Spirit for an abiding faith, we lift our hands slowly upward and open them, desiring to turn all over to God.  If we listen closely, can we hear are loving God say: ‘Courage, my daughter, my son--your faith has saved you’?