I've found that constructing something that people can follow, that people can connect with, that people will remember, is quite an art.
In the hope of gaining some feedback I've decided to post some of them, starting with the last two I gave at my local church in 2011.
So, here it is:
Sermon on John 4:46-54 - The Nobleman's sick child
I hate to see my children sick or in pain. I'm fairly sure that no parent likes it when their kids are unwell. It just makes us feel so helpless. When my daughter Rhiannon was born in March this year, she wasn't a well little girl. She couldn't breathe. For that first week of her life I sat by her crib in intensive care, on a small stool surrounded by busy nurses and aloof doctors, flashing lights and alarms sounding at random intervals at the most annoying pitch. I sat by her crib and I held her tiny, frail little hand, and I prayed. I prayed because my belief was all I had, was all I could give her. I couldn't hold her, I couldn't feed her, I couldn't make her better. But I could surround her with my belief in God's plan for her life.
Part of me grieved. And I was told by the social worker on the ward that this was completely normal. She went through the seven stages of grief with me and told me that, if I could hold on to my faith, it might help me get through.
Now, I have always been a person of faith (I think) but when life is going well, it's easy to take it for granted, to get a bit absent-minded about God. It's during those heart-wrenching distress, like when we are faced with a sick child, that we recall our faith, when our faith can be transformed, strengthened, grown by God and our gospel story today details a man's journey in faith and belief.
The seven stages of grieving are quite well known. There's Shock and Denial, Pain and Guilt, Anger and Bargaining, Reflection and Loneliness, The Upward Turn, Reconstruction and Working Through, and finally Acceptance and Hope.
What aren't so well known, are the seven stages of faith. As my daughter grew in strength and health to be the chubby little girl we have today I realised that I had been travelling along that path, those seven stages of faith and when I read today's gospel I thought, what a perfect way to share them with people, because here they are, demonstrated in the man from Capernaum.
The first stage is Crisis. Faith and the growth of faith almost always starts in a crisis, when the world spins out of our control. It was certainly so for our Royal Official. We can imagine that he was a man of power and wealth and influence. He was probably a man used to giving orders and having them carried out. But now he was faced with a problem he couldn't just order away: his son was ill.
We don't know the details of the illness, only that it had weakened the son nearly to death. That's a crisis if ever there was one.
Which brings us to stage two. Humility. When our Royal Official heard that Jesus, a healer and worker of miracles, was in the area, he set off at once to see him. He doesn't send a servant. He could have done. Sent a servant so he could stay at his son's bedside. Just in case. But he chose to go himself, not even really knowing who Jesus was, he chose go and humble himself by asking the help of a man of lower class, of no social standing.
How often do we do that? How often do we ask for help? It's difficult. I am quite stubborn and as a teenager I used to get myself into a jam and struggle and struggle with it until eventually I would have to swallow my pride and confess my problem to my dad. And he would ask me: “Why didn't you just ask me for help? You know I'll always give it to you.” But I just didn't like to admit that I couldn't do something on my own. Humbling ourselves before another person is difficult. Humbling ourselves before God can be surprisingly difficult too.
But we need to do it, cos that's stage three. Requesting, asking, praying. So much of humanity's genuine prayer is born of desperation. It is needy people who pray. Those who aren't needy don't need to pray. And they don't. That's why people in hospitals call for priests and chaplains. They don't want to die with burdens on their soul. They want healing but if they cannot be healed they want to make sure that they are ready to meet God. When times get hard, we cling to God like a drowning woman clings to the life guard's hand. In this case desperation turned a powerful man into a beggar.
He begged Jesus to come and heal his son. No flowery language, no argument about deserving preferential treatment or offers of a reward or payment. He supplicated himself before Jesus, showing that his faith had reached a point that he knew Jesus could save his son.
The response he gets from Jesus is almost a little bit rude. “Oh, you people, unless you see miracles you won't believe.” But Jesus isn't saying it because he wants to be rude, or because he's a bit miffed at the great horde of people following him around and gawking at him and he doesn't say it because he can't be bothered walking from Cana to Capernaum. He does it because the Royal Official is only halfway through his seven steps of faith and step four is persistence. Jesus was putting this man's faith to the test. If he went to Capernaum a crowd was sure to follow and witness the miracle and Jesus would become very popular but the faith those people had in him would be stunted.
So Jesus' response to this man isn't rude, so much as it is a Spiritual Challenge and the man from Capernaum meets it head on. He isn't looking for signs and wonders, he isn't looking for a good show. He is there because he knows that Jesus can heal his son and that belief is not going to be squashed by a refusal. He begs Jesus again. I know you can heal my son.
And so Jesus gives him what he asked for. Just not what he thought he was asking for. He healed the man's son right then and there and issued him with another challenge. “Go.” Because the fifth stage of faith, is obedience. If humility is hard, obedience is terrifying. I wonder if I could do what that Royal Official did. Could I have walked that long road home alone, empty handed, with only Jesus' word to keep me from succumbing to despair? That kind of faith is believing without seeing. Naked faith, simple faith, faith in the word of the Lord.
I like to think of it as the proper outlet for my stubbornness. Digging in my heels and declaring that I Will believe that's God's word to me is true and that walking in obedience is not walking with empty hands.
St Augustine wrote: “Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what we believe,” And stage six is this reward for faith, confirmation. This story has a warm and fuzzy ending. The Official is met on the road by his servants and told the amazing news that his son has recovered and that his recovery took place at the moment when Jesus declared it. I can only imagine the flood of emotions which must have run through that man on hearing that news. And then upon seeing his son.
That sort of experience, of faith solidified, leads to the final stage of the faith journey; commitment. The Royal Official moved from the simple belief in Jesus' miracles which brought him to Cana, to a deeper belief in Jesus' word, which he carried with him when he left Cana to the solid faith in Jesus himself which greeted him when he arrived home.
And he didn't just keep that faith to himself. He swept his family and all his household up in the enthusiasm of his dedication.
The story ends well. Of course, not every story turns out that way. My daughter's road to health was gradual and many times it feels as if God has not answered our prayers at all. Sometimes the fever does not leave our child, it snatches our child from us. God's plan is not necessarily our plan and sometimes being obedient to God means sitting with someone as they fade from this world or comforting those who are left behind.
God works through our adversity, our pain, our trials, our sorrows. When we are in the midst of desperate circumstances, we see only our problems and we come as children to God, begging for help, “Jesus come quick. W need you. The world is falling apart and only you can help us.” And Jesus says to us, “Go your way. Be in peace. I will take care of your problems.” So, will we have faith to go in peace, trusting him? When we do we discover that Jesus is true to his word. Quite often too we look back much later and say, “I didn't see it then. In my sorrow and pain and frustration I thought the Lord had forgotten me. I thought my prayers were being ignored. But now I can see that Christ was there all the time, and he answered in ways I didn't expect. And if it hadn't been for Christ, I wouldn't have made it at all.”
Crisis
Humility
Requesting
persistence
obedience
confirmation
commitment
We cycles through these seven stages of faith many times through our lives as we face the ebb and flow of daily existence. Some stages will be easier, some will be much, much harder. But we know one thing for certain. When we set out from home, looking for Jesus, we will always find him. And when we pray that little prayer, that desperate prayer that is the seed of faith, he will always find us.
Amen.
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