As you can see, ‘I have faith’ is between brackets here. It is not part of the original text. This is probably because the authors thought it was superfluous here: faith in God is faith in Jesus. But you could also meditate on the idea that faith is often missing, that we are people of little faith.

What if faith is missing?

Already in the Thora, when he was about to die, Moses feared that his people could end up like sheep without a shepherd. Sheep will go out into the world to find pasture. But in order to find rest, they also need to be brought home again. “Take Yeshua,” said the Lord, “for he is willing to let my Spirit lead him.”
The Thora envisaged an agricultural society with land ownership remaining within each family over generations. In the absence of good leadership, however, wealthy landowners took possession of most of the land, leaving the masses to fight over the rest or live in servitude. Psychologists have argued that such a society full of anxiety and stress is prone to be plagued by many psycho-somatic illnesses.
This is why some 1200 years later Jesus, Yeshua in Hebrew and Yeshu for his friends, went out as a shepherd in Israel. He experienced his calling when he was baptized by his mentor John the Baptist, who spoke about the coming kingdom of God. Herod Antipas, the ruler of the Galilee, feared that John’s message would undermine his authority and had him arrested to stop him from preaching the kingdom of God. But then Jesus called some of his friends and cousins who had also been baptized by John, to continue John’s work. As he did so, John’s message of conversion and hope became Jesus’s message of healing and love. Take a look at Jesus’s preaching. Perhaps read the text out loud. Can you see him walking the roads of the Galilee, addressing the crowds, touching the sick, comforting the weary?
It seems to me that almost everyone is conceived and born full of faith, hope and love. A foetus knows the heartbeat of the mother, who gives it food, warmth and protection. But the foetus must be born in order to receive a name and a history. As a child it starts out in total dependency of its parents, who will do everything to feed it, comfort it and protect it. But as it grows older, it is supposed to grow up and the child loses its innocence. It needs to learn and perform, to earn its place and conform to expectations. True, a child does need to leave its parents behind if it is ever to become a father or mother in its own right. But often, and sadly, it also learns to hide itself behind the mask of acceptable behaviour, and in the end it may forget where it came from. Most of us, if not all of us, live our lives with all kinds of scars and blockades within us that limit us in our living and loving.

Fear as the lack of faith

In the part of his teaching that we read today, Jesus focuses on our worrying. It is the opposite of having faith. It can keep you awake at night. We strive after things that we believe will make us happy but end up fearing to lose them. Or, if we are rich, we have so much of them that they do not make us happy as they used to. That is because we confuse the things that satisfy our senses with being happy on the inside. Our lives become superficial or tiring, when we only go out into the world, and no longer find time to go in, to experience God’s presence within us. As we go out, we worry about the way we look, about our study or career, about our health, about our marriage or about our children. And that in itself is not bad. It comes logically with taking responsibility in an uncertain world. But it becomes bad when we worry so much that we can never let go, that we believe our beauty is dependent on our looks, that we no longer share our possessions out of fear of not having enough for ourselves in the future.
This type of fear makes human beings competitors of each other. But it is easier to survive together than to survive alone. It also makes us ugly, for our attractiveness has less to do with the clothes we wear but more about our openness to each other and the capacity to give someone our undivided attention. Trying to hold on by laying claims on people makes us lose them. We are like sheep in the wilderness, without a safe place to return to and find rest, and without the leadership that would enable us to stand together in times of trouble.
Telling people to stop worrying does not really help when they are staring at what frightens them. The only way to stop worrying is to be less self-centred, more grateful for others, and more attentive to their needs. The shortest way to happiness is love, and for Jesus the shortest way to love is to look at each other with the eyes of the Father of all. Seek the kingdom of the Father, says Jesus, and you will find that rest that you need will follow. We will look again at the kingdom later, but for now I just note that Jesus does not explain it here. Elsewhere, too, he speaks in riddles and mystical language about it. It seems he wants people to wonder about it: What is the kingdom of the father? What does it mean that our father is king? Does he provide for us? Are we supposed to live by his guidance and rules? If he is a king and I am his child, what does this make me? What does it make us for each other?
Jesus loved people. Men, women and children – some of them rich and most of them poor - were touched by him. They regained hope and started to trust in their own community again. They started to support each other and share what they had. Many of them were healed of their pains and of the diseases that plagued their souls and bodies. What was his secret? Perhaps he did not have a secret. Perhaps this is what faith in God and in each other can do for people. Perhaps the real question is what is wrong with us, that we do not experience this kind of community and healing more often in our lives today.

Faith grows if we try to live by it

Jesus diagnosed us as people of little faith. For him that was a hopeful diagnosis. It means that there is at least a little bit of faith to start working with - faith in each other and faith in God. To start with the first: Jesus believed that the people could learn to stand together as children of God. Perhaps the most difficult lesson is to learn a lifestyle or forgiveness instead of retaliation. Jesus said (in Luke 17:3-6):

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”

He had used that image before, in Matthew 17:20 where he says “You have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” You will be able to forgive. You will be able to bow before each other. The point is, we don’t need a lot of faith to start with. We just need to act on the little faith we have. Baby steps are enough to start learning to walk. That is what makes the kingdom of grow in and among us (Luke 13):

18 Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”
20 Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21 It is like [a little] yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

“Do not be afraid, little flock,” the Shepherd says, “for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.” This is like a fairy tale: the old king, has selected us, his beloved children, to inherit his crown and rule like kings and queens. He calls us to go out and go in, he sees us growing in faith, hope and love, and he has faith in us that we will be ready to be the kings and queens of his kingdom. Noblesse oblige, they say, and so Jesus encourages us to live royally. To sell our possessions and share them with those who have less. To live a life of gratitude and generosity, and not be ruled by the anxieties of today and worries for tomorrow.

*      *

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, the older son. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and was in the field sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Suggestions for dialogue

A moderator can explain the dialogue steps and invite people to contribute:

• Check in with yourself. Share with each other how you are in this moment. Then take a moment again to seek stillness, humility and openness. 
• First round: Share something from the text or image(s) that stood out to you and that you would like to explore with the group, briefly indicating the thoughts and feelings that it evoked within you. Listen to the others do the same: what resonates with you? Responses in this round should be limited to questions for clarification.
• Second round: Name one or two things that resonated with you from the things that others just shared. 
• Third round: Having heard the group, the moderator names the main topics for exploration. The moderator may also propose a common thread that emerged in several topics. The exploration normally starts with asking the person(s) who brought up the topic to expand on it.
• Leave room for silence and contemplation. 
• Check out by sharing what you take home from this dialogue.

These suggestions are an adaptation of the Estuary protocol. Look for more at https://www.estuaryhub.com