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This summer I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to El Salvador . I met a woman, Marta at her small farm and we shared a simple meal of potatoes and plain spaghetti. I would like to share her story with you. Marta told me about her life which has been filled with more challenges and adventures than anyone I know. There was a civil war in El Salvador from 1982 – 1992. Marta told me of how for her safety she had to flee from El Salvador during the war. She went to Panama while her husband stayed behind in El Salvador to fight for their home and freedom. In Panama , Marta lived for a while in a home built on stilts over the water. She lived there that is, until a hurricane came through and tore her home apart. Only sticks remained where her home once stood. She didn’t have any family in the area with whom to stay so she decided to leave this destruction behind and move on to Honduras . She had heard that there would be work available in Honduras . Marta booked passage on a boat to take her there. Unbelievably, the boat she sailed on sank in the middle of the night. Marta swam and floated for hours praying all the while to be rescued. Incredibly, she had faith that she would be saved, in spite of the sharks that constantly circled her through that long night. Fortunately, Marta was picked up by a rescue boat the next morning. Undeterred and with no other options, she continued on with her plan to establish a new life in Honduras . Shortly after she arrived, monsoon rains of historic proportions swept in turning everything to mud. Marta resolved to stay and do what she could to make a living, in spite of daily having to slog through mud that often was up to her thighs. Eventually a peace was declared in El Salvador . Marta eagerly returned home to find her husband, filled with dreams of farming and starting a family. However, Marta soon discovered that her home had been reduced to rubble. Even worse, she found out that her two brothers had been executed during the war.

Thankfully, Marta’s husband survived the war and they did start a family. They began to eek out a living on a small farm in Ciadad Romero. Life was hard due to an unending series of droughts or floods that ruined their crops, but they carried on. Marta gave birth to four sons and two daughters. Her sons have grown up to be strong, young men of whom she is very proud. Unfortunately with no work for them in El Salvador they had to go elsewhere. They now live as undocumented workers in the United States . They send money home whenever they can to help Marta raise their two sisters and 5 year old cousin. Marta knows that it is unlikely she will ever see her sons again. While relating her story to me and rummaging through her memories, Marta alternately wept and laughed. Overall she feels that life has been okay for her. She is very thankful for her life and her family. She prays to God each day. We said a prayer of thanksgiving before I left her. She has just enough faith ( emphasize).

Marta’s story was incredible to hear. I wondered how was Marta able to maintain her faith in Jesus Christ through all of the trials and suffering she endured. I certainly know that at times in my own life it has been hard to find, let alone maintain faith even if it is only the size of a mustard seed And, at the times when we have faith and hope, we often wonder if things will ever get better in the way we want and expect. Some times they do, sometimes they do not seem to. “These are trying times” for all of us. Indeed they are and always have been. It can be hard to conjure up faith in troublesome times. As we have recently found out, even a saintly woman like Mother Theresa had periods of great doubt and small faith.

I console myself during such times with the refrain of a song by the great Mavis Staples which goes:

Have a little faith, I say,

Have a little faith my friend.

These are trying times that we’re living in.

Have a little faith.

I grew up in Michigan and came out east to go to college. During my second year in college, I received an urgent call from my mom to fly home to Michigan as soon as possible. While I have three older sisters, she had initially only called me. She was troubled and anxious and uncertain of what to do or say. You see, my dad had just been rushed to the hospital after a potentially lethal overdose of pain medication. My dad struggled through much of his life. He grew up extremely poor, and he endured major illnesses including tuberculosis, cancer and chronic pain in his spine that could not be alleviated. Even though my dad achieved professional and monetary success after struggling for years to put himself through medical school, he was never able to never get over feelings of inadequacy and fears of failure. And, as happens much too often in our society, he turned to unhealthy habits to cope with these feelings. First it was alcohol and then later he became addicted to and abused painkillers. Unfortunately, the last couple of decades of his life were consumed by addiction. He was overtaken by self absorption, pity and self destructive behavior. My dad never fully recovered after that overdose and his life went into a slow decline. He lost everything almost everything he had achieved by the time he died 20 years later. My dad died a very sad and lonely death, a broken man.

Today’s readings about faith and hardship make me wonder what is the difference that made it possible to Marta to endure her troubles and still hang on to faith and my dad who seemed to lose his faith along with everything else.

I also wonder about my own faith. At times I was angry with God – I wondered how could all of this illness happen to one person? My dad was not a bad man. In fact he cared very deeply about his family - although he had a difficult time expressing it. Where was the justice in his suffering? Well, as you can imagine there were and are no clear answers to these questions. Suffering simply seems to be part of the human experience.

Indeed in today’s Hebrew Scripture readings we hear the laments of God’s chosen people after the Babylonians destroyed the temple along with the city of Jerusalem . These lamentations were written when most of God’s “chosen” people had been exiled to Babylon . You can hear the grief and pain of these people in this Scripture. You can wonder as they did about how this destruction could have happened to God’s holy city. We also hear in these writings that one way of dealing with pain and loss is to lament. Oh, I know in today’s society we often told to suck it up and get on with life. But, the Israelites knew that they could not move on without appropriately and publicly sharing and crying out their sorrows. And, perhaps they knew that faith can be found in these moments of doubt. I heard a quote once that goes something like: “faith isn’t faith until it is all you are holding onto”. The lesson seems to be that if we do not honor our feelings and allow ourselves time to lament, we may not find or create room for the faith that enables us to go on with life.

In today’s gospel, when the apostles ask Jesus to “increase their faith” he tells them that the size of their faith does not matter. In fact, he says faith the size of a mustard seed is sufficient. It is powerful and it is sufficient to get us through the tough times. Have you ever seen a mustard seed? If I held one up, you would barely be able to see it. It is that small! Jesus lets us know that what really counts is whether or not you have opened yourself up and allowed faith to be instilled in you at all.

In my own experience with my dad’s illness, although at times my faith felt quite small in the face of the sadness in my family, I know that faith was the only thing, the only thing (slowly and with emphasis) that helped me get through the dark times. As I already mentioned, this faith was not rewarded with a miraculous recovery but I realize now that God did use this as a time to bestow grace on my life. My faith in God enabled me to go on. And, my father’s illness taught me compassion for those suffering from addiction. These two incredible gifts emerged from what was at the time a small amount of faith. What did I actually do to cope? I simply tried my best to do as Paul exhorts Timothy in today’s Epistle reading, I entrusting God with my life and I held on to “the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” I prayed and prayed deeply ( emphasize).

I think there is also something to learn from the comparison of faith to a mustard seed. In order to produce, the seed needs care and attention. It needs to be planted in good ground, watered and nourished. We have heard other parables about what happens to seed that is not cared for or that falls on rocky ground. Paul speaks of faith and the need to periodically rekindle it, to nourish it. In today’s world that takes courage, but as Paul tells us, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love.

If we place our faith in God, no matter how small, this faith can help us get through. We may not get the answer we want or the result we think we need, but we can take comfort in knowing that God is with us in the struggle, he does not abandon us. God did not abandon the Israelites, he did not abandon Marta or me or even my father. God only asks us to have faith, to support each other through the tough times and ultimately to trust in the grace of God. Yes, these are troublesome times but I have found they can also be grace filled days.

Closing meditation (not read as part of the sermon)

I want to write about faith,

about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,

like a new moon, slender and barely open,

be the first prayer that opens me to faith.