Exodus 17:8-13, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2, Luke 18:1-8

How strong is your faith? We were told if our faith was the size of a mustard seed it would be more than enough. For those of you who don’t know a mustard seed is one of the smaller seeds around. Now this week we are presented with the question “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

So again I ask how strong is your faith? If all we look at is the news and the way our government is working we would think that our world had no faith whatsoever. I would even go so far as to say it appears that we not only don’t have faith, but we turn our backs on the idea of a God to the point of believing that we are God.

We see around us all of those who believe that the biological sex you were born with is changeable based on your own individual feeling. We see abortion as well as euthanasia being promoted as healthcare. We see the death penalty being promoted as justice. We see the poor and walk right past them, either ignoring them or even worse feeling superior to them. We are told that those who are in prison are irredeemable. Migrants that are treated as criminals even when they are trying to be good members of our society. Wars happening all over the world.

So how do we deal with all of this and have any faith in the world around us? Here is the thing, our call to faith is not for things on earth, we are called to have faith in God. We see what this faith in God is capable of in the readings from today. First, we have the reading from the book of Exodus. We see that the battle being waged between the Israelites and Amalek depend upon whether the staff of God remains raised. Aaron and Hur do their best to insure this even making Moses has a seat to sit on and assistance to keep his arms up when they get tired. With this faith in God the Israelites prevail in the battle.

Then in the gospel today we see the widow who continues to ask for a just decision from the judge. She is persistent in her request to the judge, who we know from the reading certainly doesn’t have faith. He still decides to do the right thing, not because of any faith in God, but for self preservation. He does not want to be struck by the woman and be embarrassed, that is his fear.

Based on these readings and what we should already be aware of is we need to begin with prayer, not just occasional prayer, consistent and persistent prayer. Being consistent just as Aaron and Hur were in holding up Moses arms during the battle. Being persistent as the widow was in asking for a just verdict.

Notice though prayer was just the beginning point. We then need to show our faith to the world in how we act. Saint Paul reminds Timothy;

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus,
who will judge the living and the dead,
and by his appearing and his kingly power:
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;”

All of these readings call together the idea of praying unceasingly as well as being persistent in spreading the message of the gospels.

We are mocked for calling for prayer when there is some natural disaster or mass killing, because they believe we should be doing more. Those who claim we should be doing more are right. The action is what seems to be missing from conversation in today’s world. This is the part we need to work on with everyone.

We can start this by changing the person who shows up for Mass once a week to prove to those around them they are faithful. We should stop acting like this is a sign to those we know that we have faith. We should begin to use this as a call to action to put our faith to work through our example. Prayer is a great place to start, then there will inevitably be some action required. Let us not be afraid to take this action because it is inconvenient.

Jesus never promised that if we followed his teaching that we would live of life of comfort or convenience. In one of his most famous lines he actually mentions that we are to carry our cross as we follow him. This means we are to use our struggles, tied to Him in order to show the world a better way to live.

When we are in a situation that we disagree with someone in we should not be abrupt and end the conversation, we should be strong enough and open enough to have that uncomfortable conversation. Who knows, we may even have strong enough arguments to bring that person to see our perspective. While they may not agree with it, there is at least an understanding that we have a valid reason for disagreeing with them. In doing so we are sowing love not hate.

By consistently having these conversations we can help to foster less strife in the world, and more compromise. Less violence and more coming together as one human race.

I am sure there are many of you who like me asks the same question about all of this though. Can I as an individual make that big a difference in the world?  Well we have a number of examples where a single person has that big an impact on the world.

Mahatma Ghandi made a difference by showing through non violent means that there was a way to change the trajectory for India. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the trajectory of race relations in the United States through talk and non-violence. Saint Mother Theresa showed how we are to care for the poor by her consistent example. I left the most well known individual for last.

We who are here all know who it is by now, and for those who may not I am talking about Jesus Christ. He was raised as a carpenters son who knew he had a much higher calling and showed through the strength of his and his Father in heaven’s will that he could change the world. He changed the world so effectively that we still talk about him today. The problem is those of us who believe in his teachings still wonder what we are supposed to do. He gave us a very good blueprint to follow. Be unconventional, counter cultural, and most of all have faith in He and His father. The apostles who followed Jesus and expanded his church believed in him so much they were willing to die rather than deny his teaching. There are still people in the world who are willing to die for Christ rather than renounce their faith in him.

So maybe we individually cannot impact the world as Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King or Jesus did. We can however change how we interact with those around us, the ones we agree with as well as the ones we disagree with, we just need to have faith in God and be willing to call on him through prayer. So I ask one last time How strong is your faith?