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Faith can be really hard sometimes. And I don’t just mean… living faithfully can be hard. Certainly, follow our call to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves… actually living that out is crazy hard. We aren’t always the easiest creatures to love. We’re often vindictive… impatient… selfish… jealous… self-righteous… so, yeah… following our call to love one another isn’t always the easiest thing. But… God loves us despite all that… so we need to try to love one another too… difficult as it may be. Certainly, living our faith is difficult… but that’s not what I’m talking about when I say faith can be really hard sometimes. I mean… just having faith at all.Don’t get me wrong… our faith is often reassuring… and comforting… it gives us hope… brings us peace. Faith grounds us in compassion and love. My faith has gotten me through some very difficult times… and has made certain joys that much more joyful. But it’s still hard sometimes. It’s hard to have faith… to believe… to trust in someone other than ourselves… our loving God who we cannot fully understand. We come to know God through the faith of others… and through our own human experience… but what we know of God we know most fully through God’s revelation to us in our holy scriptures… the Bible. And the Bible isn’t always the easiest to understand.Take, for instance… the final couple verses from today’s gospel reading from John… Jesus says to the disciples… “I will do whatever you ask in my name… if in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” Because… nuh-uh. It doesn’t work. If what Jesus is saying here was true… And we could ask for literally, anything in Christ’s name and he would grant it… I think there’d be a lot more millionaires… and the Browns would have won at least one Superbowl by now. Now… we can reason that when Jesus says we can ask for anything in his name, asking in his name means the thing can’t be solely selfish or self-serving… hence the lack of millionaires and Browns Superbowl wins. But what about this… today is Mother’s Day… a day we set aside to lift up and celebrate the gift of mothers. But there are a lot of people who find it hard to celebrate this day… people for whom this day is actually painful… people who are grieving the loss of their own mothers… or who have a broken relationship… women who have lost a child… suffered a miscarriage… or who struggle with infertility and the inability to have a child of their own. I’m sure many of these women have offered fervent and humble prayers… for a child… for the life of their child… for healing… for reconciliation… for the health and safety of their pregnancy… and it didn’t happen. I’m sure because I’ve been there. I’ve asked Christ… humbly… fervently… from the depth of my soul… for the health of a pregnancy that didn’t happen. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that the reason your fervent and humble prayer went unanswered was because you didn’t have enough faith… or that the answer was “No.” Those are cop-out answers… and hurtful ones at that. They are unhelpful ways people try to explain what can’t be explained or reasoned away or understood. Faith is hard. It’s hard to hear Jesus our Christ say… ask for anything in my name and I will do it… in the middle of a pandemic. How many of us have prayed… have asked for this to end? And yet here we still are… with well over a million infected and over 75,000 deaths and no end in sight. What do with do with that? What do we do with that as faithful people? I don’t have a perfect answer for you.I can tell you that when I read things in scripture that really don’t make sense to me… one of the things I ask myself is… is this something that was meant for the people who heard it originally? Or is it meant for all times and all people… us included? Maybe in today’s gospel reading… Jesus wasn’t actually trying to imply that he’s some kind of all-time wish granter… like a genie or fairy-godmother. Maybe his comment really was just for the disciples that day… right then in that moment… so that the disciples who were really, really struggling to understand who Jesus was would have an easier time with their own faith. I don’t know for sure… and it’s not a perfect answer… but it is something I ask myself.Having faith is hard. Because if there are things in the bible that were meant only for their original hearers… and other things that are meant for all times and places… how do we know the difference? Today’s gospel reading begins: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Was that just for the disciples then… or is that for us now too? I think that’s for all of us… for all of God’s beloved children in all times and places. I think Jesus tells all of us that despite the crazy amount of scary things in this world… because of Jesus our Christ we don’t have to be afraid… because Christ has gone ahead of us… and Christ will lead us home… we don’t have to be afraid… not because there aren’t things to fear… but because ultimately, we are beloved children of God… and we will live eternally with God in love and light. That is for all people of every time and place… I absolutely believe that… I have faith in that… but it’s still hard. It’s still hard not to be afraid… it’s still hard to understand God and our relationship with God… and there are so many questions that we just don’t have answers to. Having faith is hard. But in the midst of so many things we don’t understand… in the midst of our fears and uncertainties… in the midst of so many questions… it is brave. People of God… your faith is brave… you are brave. You are brave to put your trust in love… you are brave to turn away from your selfishness and your fear… and look to something outside of yourself. You are brave to have faith in something you cannot fully understand… God who asks you to serve others and love your neighbor as yourself. You are brave to have faith in our God of love and to live out that faith in a broken world surrounded by broken people. In this world where there absolutely are things to fear… your faith is brave. Loving God is brave… loving one another is brave. Faith is hard… and we, as the Body of Christ… called together to be the hands of God in this world even when we cannot physically gather together… we continue to do the very hard work of having faith. God bless you all… God bless your bravery and the very hard work of your faith. ................
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