Faithfulness in an Unfaithful World

Let’s talk about faithfulness. What comes to mind when you hear that word?  Maybe you think of a friend who consistently showed up when you were going through a difficult situation. Maybe you think of a husband or wife who stayed faithful through sickness, disappointment, or grief. Maybe you think of a parent, teacher, priest, neighbor, or saint whose life was marked by steadiness.

When I think of faithfulness, a great illustration is a story I was once told about the city of Pompeii. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the city was buried beneath volcanic ash. Years later, as archaeologists uncovered the ruins, they found people in all kinds of places. Some had hidden, others tried to run, and many had looked for safety wherever they could find it.

According to the story, however, they also found a Roman soldier still standing at his post near the city gate. Think about that! The ground had shaken beneath him, ash and fire had filled the air around him, the city itself was being buried, and yet, he stood there, weapon in hand. Why? Because that was where he had been stationed, and he was determined to remain faithful to his charge.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be that kind of faithful. When my friends and family stand up at my funeral one day, I would love for them to say, “Chase was faithful. He always kept his word. He showed up for his friends. He loved even when it wasn’t easy. He stayed at his post.”

I wish I could say I’m always that kind of faithful, but in my heart I know I’m not. And I’m guessing I’m not alone. Faithfulness is a struggle for most of us. I think this is why scripture contains so much instruction for us on faithfulness. In Matthew 24 and 25, for example, Jesus teaches about the importance of faithfulness. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says a good steward is one who is found to be faithful. In Proverbs, we’re told that a faithful person is hard to find. And in Revelation, Jesus tells the church to be faithful even unto death.
And that’s just skimming the surface.

God probably speaks to us so often about faithfulness because He knows how much we struggle with it. We struggle to keep our word, be consistent, finish what we start, and keep loving when love becomes costly. We struggle to stay at our post.

Now, we do need to take responsibility for our own unfaithfulness. However, I do think we can name one of the big culprits behind our struggle to be as faithful as we want and ought to be: We live in an unfaithful world.

Many of us have been shaped by broken promises. Maybe it was a father who left or mother who could not be trusted. It could have been spouse who betrayed you or a friend who disappeared when you most needed them. Possibly, it was a church that wounded you or a company that promised one thing and did another.  Whatever it is, I know we have all been affected by unfaithfulness.

We then turn around and act out our pain through our own unfaithfulness. We all have made promises we did not keep, loved people when it was easy and resented them when it became costly, acted like one person in public only to be someone else behind closed doors, abandoned our post.

We Were Made for Faithfulness

However, and this is a big HOWEVER, we were made to live in a world where people can be trusted. In fact, we cannot function without trust. Every day, we put our lives in the hands of other people’s faithfulness.

We have to trust our car every time we go barreling down the 101 or the 51. We have to trust pilots when we get on a plane and our. We have to trust teachers with our children and for politicians to tell the truth. Well, maybe that one is a stretch. But at the very least, we hope they will be trustworthy enough not to make everything worse.

The point is this: although we have experienced unfaithfulness and been unfaithful ourselves, life depends on faithfulness.

Faithfulness is not a small matter. When faithfulness breaks down, life breaks down. This is why unfaithfulness wounds us.

Someone once put it this way: if things were right only 99.9 percent of the time, there would still be one hour of unsafe drinking water every month. There would be two unsafe landings every day at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. There would be 16,000 pieces of lost mail every hour. There would be 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions every year. There would be 500 incorrect surgeries every week. Fifty babies would be dropped at birth every day. Each person would miss 32,000 heartbeats every year. And 22,000 bank transactions would be deducted from the wrong checking account every hour. And that is if things were right 99.9 percent of the time.

Do you see what I am saying? Faithfulness matters. We were made for faithfulness. We were made to live in a relationship with our faithful God. We were made to be people who reflect His faithfulness to the world.

Jesus Shows Us Faithfulness

In Matthew 24, Jesus tells a parable about a master, a household, and a servant. The master goes away, leaving the servant in charge. His responsibility is not too demanding. He is simply asked to care for the household and give the other servants their food at the proper time. In other words, he is asked to be faithful.

The master is away longer than expected. Jesus says there are two ways to live while the master is gone. The servant could remain faithful to what he was given to do. He could care for the people entrusted to him and live as if the master were still master, even when the master was not visible.

However, he could also choose to be wicked. Jesus says he could think to himself, “My master is delayed,” and then begin to mistreat others and indulge himself. And here is the sobering detail: he does not deny that the master exists, but he simply could start living as if the master does not matter anymore.

That is often where unfaithfulness begins. Not always with some dramatic rejection of God. More often, it begins subtly and quietly. We become casual with our promises. We let small compromises pile up. We give less of ourselves to the people who need us most. We slowly drift from our relationship with God and the things He placed us in charge of.

Often, it is so subtle that we convince ourselves these little drifts do not matter. But Jesus says it does matter. How we live while we wait reveals what we believe about the Master.

God’s Faithfulness Comes First

Now, if we stop here, I imagine this article will become crushing because all of us have been the unfaithful servant in one way or another. We have abandoned our post. We have used delay as an excuse. We have failed to love the people God placed in our care. We have said, in one way or another, “The Master is delayed,” and then lived as if our lives belonged only to us.

However, the good news is that Christian faithfulness does not begin with us. It begins with God. God is faithful when we are not. He keeps His promises. He does not abandon His people. He does not forget His covenant. He does not grow tired of mercy. He does not change with our moods, our failures, or our circumstances.

We see the faithfulness of God most clearly in Jesus. Jesus is the truly faithful one. He was faithful in temptation, disappointment, suffering, and death. He was faithful when His friends ran away. He was faithful when Peter denied Him. He was faithful when the crowds turned on Him. He was faithful when He was mocked, beaten, rejected, and crucified. He stayed at His post, and His post was the cross.

This means the answer to our unfaithfulness is not simply, “Try harder.” Of course, we need to obey. Of course, we need to take responsibility and repent where we have been unfaithful. However, the deepest answer is not to stare harder at our own inconsistency. The deepest answer is to come closer to the faithful Jesus. We become faithful by staying close to the One who is faithful.

Faithfulness Grows by Staying Connected to Jesus

This is why Galatians calls faithfulness a fruit of the Spirit. Fruit is not manufactured. Fruit grows. And fruit grows by connection. A branch bears fruit because it remains connected to the vine. In the same way, faithfulness grows in us as we remain connected to Jesus.

That happens through prayer, Scripture, confession, the Eucharist, worship, the ordinary life of the Church, and doing the next faithful thing even when it feels small.

Most faithfulness is not heroic. Most faithfulness is ordinary obedience repeated over time. It is keeping the promise you made. It is apologizing instead of making excuses. It is showing up again and again and again and you get the point. It is praying when you do not feel like praying. It is loving the person God has placed in front of you. It is doing the ordinary work God has given you to do.

That is what the faithful servant does in Matthew 24. He feeds the household at the proper time. That’s it. Nothing flashy or impressive. Just steady obedience.

Do the Next Faithful Thing

So what is the post God has placed in your hands? Maybe it is your marriage, a friendship, your child, a ministry, a job, a promise, or a person who needs your care. Where are you being tempted to walk away? Where are you using delay as an excuse? Where have you stopped showing up? Where do you need to return to your post?

Do not overcomplicate faithfulness. In prayer hand that over to Jesus and ask for His Spirit to empower you to do the faithful thing.

When faithfulness grows in us, we become people others can trust. We become the steady anchor people need in their chaotic lives. And we can only remain faithful because we are held by Jesus, the truly faithful One. By His grace, may we all hear the words every Christian longs to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

– Fr. Chase