In Lamentations the prophet Jeremiah laments the loss of faith in the city of Jerusalem and its peoples dispersal into exile (Lam 1:1-6). Even the roads mourn as no one comes to festival to show their faith through song and dance (Lam 1:4). The inhabitants of Judah and Israel are now cut of from God in their faithlessness. Perhaps, a commentary on today's world that is focussed on the human here and now and not on the possibilities that come with faith. Since the enlightenment and our turn to science so has our faith become side lined from our lives. Faith is no longer a concern and when we do talk about faith we speak in terms of institutions of faith such as churches and other places of worship. It is as if we have scientified our world so much that we cannot but breakdown what we believe into relevant small chunks. Chunks that can be dissected and held up against a specified standard as a measure. For example, Mother Theresa or some other well known personage is the standard to which we must live.
Yet, in the Gospel the only measure is the smallest grain that was known at the time, a mustard seed (Lk 17:6). In this day and age we want the biggest and the best but Christ points out that it is the smallest amount of faith that can do the greatest deed. Unfortunately we have obscured even that small amount of faith within our lives by succumbing to the ultimate understanding of a scientific world view. In such a view we can no longer even have the smallest amount of faith for that will be obscured by our own beliefs and our own understanding of how the world works. We are to a certain extent like those who are railed against in the psalm for we are the ones who have burnt down the towers of the land of faith and have razed the foundations (Psalm 147:8). We no longer are able to understand what the faith journey is about as we have a tendency to try and fit it into a scientific paradigm. We can go on courses to achieve an abundance of faith or find a multitude of resources that will point our way along the path of faith. This is canned faith this is not what God and Christ entice us towards. Faith has to be a struggle for knowledge and understanding that changes our hearts to those that are Christlike. John of the Cross and others have written about the journey of faith not in a scientific manner but in a faith manner a style that is beyond most of us today. The faith that changes everything in the world is a seed that grows in Christ's love and God's presence. It is not something that can be bought over the shelves of a supermarket or exchanged because it has not done anything for me.
It is through grace that we manage our faith not through our own efforts. Grace that has been given to us in Christ. We do that which is commanded of us through our baptism and acceptance of Christ in our lives what we do not do is laud ourselves believing that we are better than others for we are slaves to the cross not to the world. We have forgotten or we are unaware that like anything else faith is built up from a base and solid foundation. If we think about it a small amount we can see that Christ in talking about the mustard seed speaks to the smallest grasp of the foundation of a life that is built on the foundation of faith. In modern terminology we know the power of an atom, aka atomic bomb and nuclear reactions both fission and fusion, which is equivalent to the mustard seed in modern physics. It is also amongst the smallest building blocks of life and this is the power that Christ is referring to when he speaks about faith. Our primitive understanding has not advanced any further than when the disciples heard this story. There have been some who have been able to go beyond but we are caught in a perpetual cycle of unknowing in terms of faith. We can only begin with the basics of prayer, discipline and love to prepare the foundation and build. Our issue, as it is so many times when speaking about faith, is that the rationale understanding that comes with science blinds us to the irrational understanding that comes with faith. To live our lives in faith means that we must give over almost every rational process that binds us to the modern world. We must rely solely on God and the grace of Christ to ensure that we live as Christ has shown and as God demands; in love and charity contrary to the world in which we live.
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