More faith?

Los Angeles Cathedral

But the Master said, “You don’t need more faith. There is no ‘more’ or ‘less’ in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Go jump in the lake,’ and it would do it. Luke 17-6  Translation from The Message

When the apostles came to Jesus and asked him to give them more faith, this was his answer.  The familiar translation uses "mustard see" instead of "poppy seed" but we get the point.  The size or amount of faith is irrelevant.  In other passages, Jesus uses yeast as a metaphor for faith.  Even the tiniest bit of yeast is enough to transform dough into what seems like a living thing.  As the dough rises, there appears to be something alive that in turn animates what was before just bit of flour and water.

So it is with faith.  It changes us because it is a principle of life that works a change in our very being.  Faith is a relationship with the Divine One.  As Paul points our in today's second reading,

We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it.  2 Timothy 1:9.

We cannot somehow increase our faith because it is a gift.  In the history of Christianity there has from time to time been confusion about who is offered this gift.  The truth is simple:  everyone is offered this gift.  In fact, everyone has this gift already incipiently if not explicitly.  The Divine One is in each of us, all of us.  We don't deserve that and there is nothing we can do to increase or decrease that presence.  All we can do is simply accept that presence and let it shine through in our words and actions.  It is the yeast of our lives meant to transform us in our own consciousness of who we are as children of the Divine One.  But, no matter how we respond or what we do, we are, always were and always will be children of that Divine One.

Nothing can change that but we can let that reality change us.  I can only let that reality change me.