Sermon preached at Bradford Cathedral by Canon Ward

February 11th 2007

Luke 8: 22-25

I'd like to try a small experiment this morning. Would you close your eyes for a little while? and open yourself to the presence of the living God?

He said to them: "Where is your faith?"

It crossed my mind-momentarily-to continue to repeat that same question for the duration of the sermon time. He said to them: "Where is your faith?" It would be an interesting experiment! And maybe, one day, I will. To do so would be to put into practice a particular way of praying, a way used by those who follow a Benedictine religious life called the Lectio Divina-holy reading. Benedictines ruminate on the words of scripture: they chew them around-just a few words, such as these, repeating them, slowing them down, digesting all the goodness and richness to be found there, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak into a mind and heart stilled by the gentle repetition of the words. Perhaps you come to focus on the insight that yes, Jesus does speak to you today in these words. Not simply to those poor disciples tossed about on the waves, fearing for their very lives, but you too, buffeted by the anxieties and sense of panic that can so easily overwhelm us. Or your mind comes to rest with the word "Where?" where is your faith? Did you leave it behind somewhere, as a child, or at some point of intense difficulty in your life? Or is it in the future, in your hopes that one day it will surprise you again into a knowledge of the presence of God? Or perhaps it burns bright on a Sunday morning, but where is your faith on other days? Where is your faith? My faith. Where is that sense of living, daring confidence in God's grace that brings me alive, that strengthens my hope, that inspires me to reach out to my neighbour in love?
David Foster writes of the Lectio Divina: "I like to think of a triangle linking myself the scriptures and God: I can read the scriptures to develop a deeper understanding of God; I can find God using the Scriptures to help me reach a better understanding of myself; and in my conversation with God, I can begin to get a clearer understanding of how he uses Scriptures to address me and draw me to himself. Always the aim is to deepen my sense of friendship with him and commitment to him."
Reading the scriptures slowly and carefully can take us deeply into our present situation and reveal God's presence there, supporting and challenging us through the divine word.

But perhaps that way of praying is not for you. Maybe it's a real struggle to stay centred into words like that. Perhaps you much more naturally use pictures to help you to pray. You can see yourself there, one of the disciples, with the wind in your face as it strengthens, pulling hard on the sheets to reef the sail. You enter into the experience and it becomes an imaginative and spiritual exercise, speaking directly and without words to your heart, to the underlying feelings that you carry through the day. You can imagine sinking deep into the angry water; through the deep waters of death. It's as if you are there, powerfully transported into the presence of Jesus, hearing his words for the first time with all their freshness and immediacy. Where is your faith? You share with the disciples their sense of amazement that even the winds and the water obey him. You are alive.

Those who pray in the tradition of St Ignatius Loyola will often use images in this way. They will also try to discern the feelings that have surfaced over a past period of time, 24 hours, for example, and reflect on the negative and positive feeling they have experienced. What am I most grateful for? What warmed my heart? What made me most open to others, to God?
Or what am I least grateful for? What closed me up to others and to God? What do I regret? Such a process is called an Examen-an examination of the state of one's soul in the company of God. So, reading this passage we may particularly ask God to show us the ways in which it speaks to the times when we are discouraged, and encouraged in our lives. Ignatius referred to these different aspects as 'consolation' and 'desolation'. And as Jesus says to you Where is your faith?" then the remembrance of love and goodness returns; the foreboding and guilt washes away. The imagined story becomes a reminder of baptism with its promise of renewal.

Christians have been praying for centuries now: there are rich, rich resources and traditions to draw upon-the Benedictine and Ignatian only two. Yesterday here at the Cathedral there was a day on exploring prayer, and our Lent course is going to enable us to go further into these traditions so that we deepen the sense of God's presence in our lives.

But to what end? It could be the case that such exploration of prayer lays each of us open to the criticism that we are just navel-gazing, that it leaves us feeling nice and warm inside, but nothing more. Or perhaps one of your friends comes back at you, saying-well, what's the point in that? What do you say?
That central question "where is your faith?" is at the heart of things, it seems to me. For with faith in God we do lead lives which are richer and more fulfilling, happier and less anxious. There are real benefits to faith-and largely because it takes us out of ourselves. We are stretched by our faith in God by God's love and grace; stretched into service, stretched into a passion for justice that means we leave self-centredness behind. In Christ, the other, our neighbour becomes central, not me, myself, I. To return to the words of the collect, faith in God enables us to see ourselves made in the image of God-the image of a self-giving, kenotic God who is overflowing love and grace. We too become transformed by the glory of the Saviour's cross into loving, grace-filled people. We learn to discern God's hand in the world and God's likeness in all God's children.

Jesus said to them, "where is your faith?" I wonder. I wonder if Jesus knew that he would wake and all would be well-the sea and wind would calm, and peace would return. A 'Jesus'll fix it' type of faith. Or perhaps Jesus is offering a more profound challenge. For if the disciples had had faith enough, they would not have needed to wake him. They would have known that they were already in the hands of God. In life, or in death-faith means that all is alike to us. We need fear nothing. With faith in God's love, we can contemplate our own mortality without fear. We know that in life, in death God is with us. Whatever befalls us-the most extreme of our fears-all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Jesus says to you and me today, just as he said to them: "Where is your faith?"

Some aspects of this sermon are drawn from Anne Long 2006 Reflective Practice for Spiritual Directors (Grove Booklet Spirituality Series S98)