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St. Luke’s Institute
Wed of 5th Lent
March 20, 2013
FLIMSY FAITH
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The opening verse of today’s Gospel speaks of
some Jews who believed in Jesus
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It’s really hard to credit them with having
faith in Jesus when, within a couple of verses, this belief seems to have
evaporated, to say the least
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In fact, as pictured in John, some of the Jews
and Jesus are in a hostile relationship
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But shifting, changing, and undependable faith
is a theme in John’s Gospel
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By exhibiting this, John warns us that faith is
not simply a matter of saying the right words
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Instead, faith is something much deeper that
often costs us something
FIRM FAITH
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It is probably always premature to label an
attitude toward God as faith when it has just been declared
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A word, a feeling, or a momentary rush of
assurance needs to be tested in the drudgery and difficulties of daily life
faith probably doesn’t mean much when we’ve never felt the need to be saved
from anything like illness, betrayal, disappointment, the loss of a loved one
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Yet these painful events are what do test our
faith
FIRM FAITH OF FIRST
READING +++++++++++++++++++
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We might link the two readings today by saying
that genuine faith is only such when it has been tried by fire
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The three young men in the first reading were
cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to worship a false god
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They told the king they would stay with their
faith even if they were not delivered from that fire
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To the kings’ utter amazement, they were soon
joined, “unfettered and unhurt” in the furnace by a fourth figure who looks
like “a son of God”
CONCLUSION
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Genuine faith believes that God is with us in
whatever trials overtake us
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We are never alone is what true faith tells us
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In the midst of our own flames that threaten to
engulf us, one is with us who is the Son of God
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