Sunshine and Butterfiles

A few years ago, a Facebook friend let his wife read a draft of a sermon he wrote

When she was finished, she just shook her head.  “Don’t you ever preach on anything happy?” she asked him. “Just once,” she said, “would it kill you to preach on, you know, sunshine and butterflies?”

                                         (David Henson, December 28, 2014 on Patheos)

“Sometimes it seems safer to have just enough God to get to heaven, but not so much that he radically alters our lives.”

― Chris Hodges, Fresh Air

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I wonder if those precious souls

who,

impelled by force I am sure they did not understand,

dropped their lives into the first convenient trash can

and followed Jesus,

ever said to themselves

“What have I done!?”

I wonder if there were ever moments,

when as they listened to him teach,

they felt overwhelmed by the radical nature of the way

they were being asked to follow?

Give up all you have

Turn the other cheek

Love your enemy

Forgive 70 times 7

Die to live

Give to receive

Serve to Lead

Be last to be first

I suspect the disciples felt like they were swimming in a sea of expectation

and drowning

that drumroll of radical, strange, upside down, inside out demands

never stopped

forget sunshine and butterflies

it was all sacrifice

and

No wonder they wailed “INCREASE OUR FAITH” (Luke 17)

there are moments when I too

feel like I am drowning in expectations

and when I too call out increase my faith

and the answer comes

all you need is a tiny seed of faith

that is all you need

I don’t think that is another expectation

I don’t think Jesus was trying to guilt the disciples

Suck it up

Have a little faith

I think he was suggesting God is so big (infinite even)

And God is so close (intimate even)

That even the tiniest bit of faith

Is enough

So give me faith, Lord

Enough to keep swimming

In that sea of expectations

But more

Enough to radically alter my life

That I might give up all I have

Turn the other cheek

Love my enemy

Forgive 70 times 7

give me a seed of faith

so that I might be a seed of change

a pinch of yeast

in a world that needs to be

transformed