The Finitude of our Faith Luke 21

I feel a little more fit to talk about this passage now that a) I've preached on it and b) I received feedback that my sermon was neither heretical nor boring. So...that's good news!

The main thing I want to say about it is that just like the Jewish believers received this faith challenge regarding their "place" of faith (i.e. Jerusalem and the Temple) we, too, are challenged to re-think our spiritual and religious identities. Who are we as believers if we don't have a house of worship? What kind of religious identity do we have as "refugees" dispersed around the globe without a sense of home?

When we really meditate on the suffering of Jesus, his cry from the cross: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" and that our Messiah who came to dwell among us and to tackle our sins once and for all.....that OUR GOD actually DIED and was carried to the tomb....WOAH....this is definitely a challenge to our faith. These are vulnerable places.

So I use the phrase "finitude-of-our-faith" because our faith is small, slippery, and we might doubt it at times. But we are called upon to hand it over and trust God to carry us through a world that is shaky, broken, and hypocritical -- at best. But we relinquish our little mustard seed, saying: "I don't know, God, what's goin' on...but I trust that you are here and that there is a path to follow through the wilderness...."