Spirit of God, unseen as the wind, gentle as is the dove:
teach us the truth and help us believe,
show us the Saviour’s love.

Faith is the message of our readings today. Abraham and Sarah have such faith that, though they were so old as to be as good as dead, as Paul puts it rather bluntly in his letter to the Romans, (tact not being his strong point!) but by which he means that really they are well and truly past it, at least as far as child making and bearing goes, yet they still had faith in God’s promise to them that they would be the Father and Mother of a great family.

Actually, we know that they struggled, and doubted, and took matters into their own hands – and made a bit of a mess of things – creating some tricky relationships as a result, but they did have faith.

As I’m sure you’ve heard before – doubt is not the opposite of faith – certainty is.

Without doubt there is no faith.

‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for but unseen’…Hebrews 11..

And as Paul writes to the early church in Rome – a rather challenging place in the first century for Christians to grow in the faith – ‘For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all Abraham and Sarah’s descendants. Abraham believed in the presence of the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

How extraordinary is this passage –  the last sentence especially!

The God who gives life to the dead and creates something out of nothing!

And just look at how in Jesus and his work, this is exactly what we see happening – life is given to the dead, and something is created where there was once nothing…

What was more likely – that a girl might be raised to life from death, a woman healed of the bleeding that had blighted her life for twelve years, a leader of the synagogue believe that Jesus would be able to heal his little daughter, or a tax collector turn his coat and become one of Jesus’ followers?

All of these things are extraordinary and unlikely, impossible even.

Just as impossible was that Abraham and Sarah would have a child in their extreme old age, just as impossible that God’s promises were to be offered and shared with all people for all time.

Just as impossible that Paul himself, a dedicated destroyer of early Christians, should turn completely about and become the most passionate apostle of Christ.

And of course, completely unbelievable, incredible, that God should raise Jesus from the dead – and even more than that – that this should be done for love of us, to bring forgiveness of sins and to wash away all our iniquities and give us a new start again and again.

Jesus said to the religious leaders who were shocked by his eating with sinners and tax collectors – I have come to call not the righteous but sinners. He hadn’t come to reinforce the club, to collude with the in crowd – but to throw wide open the doors of the temple, the church, our hearts, and welcome in everyone, especially those who are usually excluded.

God’s promises are for all people – but some people are going to have a harder time hearing them and receiving them and believing them than others. Perhaps because of life circumstances, or because no one has ever told them of the stories of faith – they have never heard of the God who raises the dead to life and makes the impossible possible!

For us who have been told these things, who have grown up in the faith, who have come to know God in everything, all of God everywhere, as Becka described it last week, well we’re the lucky ones, we’ve been given this inheritance, as had the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ own time. But we need to be careful not to then assume a greater right to these mysteries than those who haven’t been brought up in the faith. The parable of the workers in the vineyard, hired at different times yet paid the same wage, has something to say into all this.

You see, life can be so challenging and so confusing and people get lost in the wilderness of this world.

I have come to find and save the lost says Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, and in the passage we’ve heard today from Matthew – to heal the wounded, to be a physician of the soul.

People today are soul-sick, bone-weary, heart-sore – we need God’s mercy more than ever.

And we need to grow our faith and our love for God and each other in the midst of the challenges we face.

Then we find it easier to hear God’s voice and believe God’s promises, then we can share this hope with others, those who have not yet heard or recognized God’s voice, those who are lost in the confusions of this world and don’t know which way to go.

Matthew, living off the ill-gotten gains of excessive taxes and a collaborator with the Roman enemy, taking money from his own people for the benefit of the occupying power, somehow recognizes something so compelling about Jesus that he simply gets up, leaves everything behind – his booth and his money bags – and follows him.

Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, one of the religious leaders who are opposing Jesus, finds through his desperate fear for his little girl, a faith and hope that Jesus can save her – and invites him in.

The woman suffering from haemorrhages, who surely after twelve years of failed treatments must have lost any hope that anyone can heal her, has such faith that she stretches out her hand to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe – and trusts him.

They had hope, they had faith – they couldn’t know that this man was truly the one to save them – they hoped and trusted that he could.

In the midst of our confusions, in our desperate fears for others and doubts for ourselves, can we follow him, invite him in and trust him?

What does that mean for us? And how can we share this faith, this hope and trust with and for others?

Do we need to follow him more closely, as Matthew did?

Or bring him to others , those we love and care for, as Jairus did?

Or trust him to help us when so much else we’ve tried has failed, like the woman did?

Today is the day the Church remembers the apostle Barnabas, a fellow-worker with Paul, the cousin of John Mark, the evangelist, author of Mark’s Gospel. Barnabas, whose name means ‘son of encouragement’ and who helped spread the story of Jesus to the wider Mediterranean world, sharing the faith, offering hope and bringing others to Jesus.

Abraham, Sarah, Matthew, Jairus, the unnamed woman, Barnabas, ordinary people with extraordinary faith – Lord , help us to be encouragers, to be sharers of the good news, to be tellers of the story of God’s love, to be hopeful, to be trusting, to be faithful.

Amen.

Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston – 11th June 2023

Readings: Hosea 5:5-15 – 6:6, Romans 4:13-end, Matthew 9:9-13. 18-26