I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the frailty of truth, love, and beauty in the world. Those are the underdogs, compared to the powerful, evil systems that run most things. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why Jesus describes the Kingdom as a mustard plant, or yeast working its way through bread dough… slow, subtle change that eventually transforms the whole. I’ve been thinking about what it means to have faith. After journeying all this way with Him, I don’t think I could ever come to doubt the existence of God (been there, done that). But I’m coming to see that faith has to do with a lot more than believing in God’s existence or His power. For me, the essential question is whether, in a world of so much suffering, the Kingdom will actually come. Do I believe in resurrection? Not just Jesus’ resurrection, but the restoration of all things, the redemption of all that is evil and broken, the new creation growing out of the old? Do I believe that God has the final victory and will make all things well, even though I see so few signs of hope in the present?

I suppose that our decision to move into a slum was a huge act of faith in the first place. It was a choice to live in hope that God will bring transformation, and a declaration that we are so convinced of that inevitable change that we are willing to stay here until it happens. I know that as they struggle with hunger, sickness, abuse, and systemic injustice, a lot of our neighbors feel hopeless about life ever changing. But today it occurred to me that in Mark chapter 2 when that paralyzed man was lowered down to Jesus through the roof of a packed house in Palestine two thousand years ago, it was because of his friends’ faith that he was healed. Who knows whether he was feeling confident in that moment of whether he would be healed or not, but his friends were certainly taking some drastic action on the assumption that he would be.  Perhaps his own mind was ablaze with fear and skepticism, but that mustard seed of faith from his friends was enough. And I wonder if maybe that can be the kind of faith that we hold on our neighbors’ behalf here. If there are even just two people out of the thousands in our neighborhood who believe that transformation is possible, is that enough? Is that the mustard seed that can grow into a wild, vibrant mustard plant and take over the garden? I’m living on the assumption that it is.