Expression of Faith
Picture this: You get yourself and your family up on Sunday morning. After taking the time necessary to get engaged with the day at hand, you begin to get ready for Mass. For those who have little ones, you deserve a meritorious achievement award if you make it on time. And if you don’t quite make it on time, you need the same meritorious award. Now I ask you to consider what you and your family have just done. Just as surely as you will express your faith with the gathered assembly at Mass, you have just expressed your faith through all the actions and activity that enabled you to attend Mass.
You went through all the busyness of getting to Mass because your faith assures you that the God who created you also provides for you, protects you, sustains you, and even carries you when necessary. Your family’s attendance at Sunday Mass is your statement of faith, knowing that Jesus will never leave you or forsake you. Every Sunday, we make our further public expression of faith as a Church when we pray together the words of the Nicene Creed: a complete account of what we believe.
Our expressions of our faith are also found in our prayers. Why do we pray? What do we expect when we pray? We don’t expect anything. Instead, we know that Jesus assures us that our prayer is our expression of our faith that God hears and always answers according to His perfect will for each of us. Faith truly can move mountains.
But there is something more to consider. Just as we express our faith in God, did you ever consider that God clearly expresses His faith in us? In the Gospel for today—a continuation of our study of the Sermon on the Mount—God vividly expresses His faith in us to do what we might consider impossible in our own power. “Turn the other cheek, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Does God live in a fantasy world? NO! His faith in you and I is so grace-filled that these commands are actually a statement of God’s faith in us, His children.
So many voices seem to be speaking to us both from within and all around us, reminding us of our limitations, how wounded we are, how dysfunctional we are. God’s faith in each of us compels Him to encourage us to greatness. It is God alone, not the world that admonishes us to be all that we can be. God’s faith assures Him that each of us are capable of change, able to grow and mature in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The faith God has in each of us is expressed in His invitation to self-discovery. It is God’s faith in us that is the grace we need to express our faith in Him. “I Believe in one God, Creator of Heaven and earth…” When we pray the Creed this morning, realize that in a very real way we are thanking God for His faith in us.
Deacon John Murrell