10/3/04

A Mustard Seed Faith

Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:1-10

A third-grader came home with her first report card of the year and was in tears because of some challenging comments her teacher had made in the report. "But I tried my best," she kept repeating to her mother. She had this notion that if you tried your best, the teacher was obligated to give you a decent grade. Once her mother helped her better understand what her teacher's job was, she rose to meet the new challenges and did much better in the next marking period. Challenging words are never easy to hear, but they're often the very things we need to hear to spur us on to grow to new levels. (i)

In today's Gospel lesson we hear some challenging words that Jesus speaks to his disciples - and to us as well. The first word is a stern one - don't do or say anything that will cause these little ones to stumble. Who are the "little ones?" - those new to the faith. What would be a stumbling block for them? - anything that would cause them to lose faith. We're not to do anything intentionally or unintentionally that would cause someone new to lose faith or wander from the faith. It would be like if a new family came to church, sat down in one of the pews, and a minute later an active member came along and said to them, "Uh, excuse me, but you're sitting in my pew!" Not exactly welcoming. Or, if a new person to church came to the fellowship time, and stood there with a cup of coffee in her hand, but no one spoke to her. Oh, everyone's speaking to one another, just not to the stranger in their midst. It sounds like Jesus has zero tolerance for these kinds of behavior. But there's more.

The second challenge Jesus throws down is about forgiveness. If someone sins against us, and then repents, we must forgive them, even up to seven times a day! This is incredibly challenging. Yet, forgiveness is essential to human relationships. Not to forgive imprisons us in the past and locks out any possibility for change. An immigrant rabbi once made this startling statement: "Before coming to America, I had to forgive Adolf Hitler. I did not want to bring Hitler inside me to my new country." For sure, often the only person healed by forgiveness is the one who forgives - but that's enough. To forgive is to set the prisoner free, and then discover that the prisoner was you! (ii) But to forgive seven times a day? When the disciples hear Jesus throw down this challenge, they respond, "Lord, if this is what you want, then you've got to increase our faith! Your teachings are much too difficult. We need a spiritual booster shot. We need more faith to accomplish them!" We'll come back to this shortly.

The final challenge Jesus throws down is perhaps the hardest. The unsavory analogy of slaves is hard to swallow; maybe substituting "servants" would be better. Servants do not sit down with the family for a meal, nor do they expect to be thanked for doing their duty. Jesus is saying in effect, "You are servants of the Lord. Don't expect a reward for doing what God commands. Just do what you're supposed to do!" We disciples cannot put boundaries around our service to the Lord. We can't say, "Oh, I taught Sunday School when my kids were young; let someone else do it now. I've done my time; I've paid my dues." In God's kingdom, a servant is a servant is a servant. By doing what we're supposed to do, we are achieving the essence of morality and right living. Back to the disciples' request, "Increase our faith!" What do they want more of? Faith. According to Hebrews, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen ..." It's the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. For many of us, the foundation on which we stand is the assurance of our bank account, or stock portfolio, or IRA, or pension fund, or the assurance of insurance. Many of us stand on the faithfulness of relationships, marital vows and other covenants. We place our faith and trust in these things, until the market crashes, or until we realize that all the insurance in the world cannot take the place of a lost loved one, or until our spouse leaves us, or until our business associate defrauds us, etc., and then we become aware that we need much more. (iii) We need faith in something or someone much greater than ourselves. So, we also might cry out, "Lord, increase our faith!"

Jesus' response to the disciples and to us is simply embrace the faith you already have. A mustard seed faith is sufficient, is more than enough. In our society where more is better, this is hard to understand. We want the biggest and the best, the newest and the shiniest, all the bells, lights, and whistles. But Jesus says to us, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed (and that's really, really tiny), you can say to a mulberry tree (and that's a huge tree with deep roots), 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you." For sure our faith often does increase over time. Like a mustard seed, our faith can grow, mature, and blossom. But for this to happen, it needs the steady nurture, the right conditions, and the patient vision of a long-haul discipleship, which we get when we're connected to a faith community, to a church that nurtures us in the faith, and to other Christians who share our faith visions. Yet ironically, as followers of Christ, we can accomplish much with the faith, even a mustard seed faith, we may already have, even a simple faith in God's ability to use us to do the impossible. (iv) What's impossible to do in your life and in mine? How about not doing those unintentional things we all do at times that cause another pain or discomfort, or cause another to lose faith - in us, or in the church, or in God? How about forgiving others over and over again? How about getting to the root of relationship problems? How about serving the real needs of others? How about just doing what we're supposed to do? If these are not impossible, they're pretty darned difficult. The good news is that the more challenging the task, or the more weak and unprepared we may feel, the more God can work in and through us - if we'll only have a little faith. Faith isn't about us and our ability to get things done; it's about God's ability to do the job through us, because with God "all things are possible." (v)

The Apostle Paul, writing to his young protégé, Timothy, acknowledges the young man's "sincere faith," that came from and was nurtured by his mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois. Parents, grandparents, church school teachers, do not ever underestimate the importance of your role in nurturing the faith of those entrusted to your care. Faith is always God's gift and never our accomplishment, but it is nurtured in loving, caring families and faith communities.

Faith, even a tiny mustard seed faith, is a response empowered by an amazing grace that comes from beyond ourselves and our own efforts. Faith enables us to entrust ourselves willingly to the One we have found trustworthy. (vi) There's a food kitchen for the needy I read about called the Catholic Worker House, where they pride themselves in never running out of food. The meals prepared may be with mismatched foods, like all vegetables or mostly bread, but there's always food. However, one Saturday night they ran out of food completely. Two of the volunteers, Fran and Brad, were there alone, talking about what they were going to do without food for the Sunday noon meal. They earnestly prayed that somehow food would be there in time. At 9 p.m. that night, just as they were closing up to go home, an unexpected group came to the back door with five large pans of lasagna, and a big quantity of rolls, cookies, and potato chips. The next day at noon, over 100 guests showed up, and they were treated to a lasagna feast. No appeal ever went out, except that prayer. Now, do you suppose that Fran and Brad's faith and prayer caught God's attention and caused the food to be given? Well, not exactly. The food was already cooking in someone's oven when the two entrusted their anxiety to God. But what happened was that their prayer nurtured their seed of faith, enabling the potential for trust to grow larger than their concern and anxiety. Their prayer held their hearts in hope, filled them with peace rather than worry, and assured them that what they needed would come their way somehow. (vii)

Shortly we will be gathering for another kind of feast, what we sometimes call the "joyful feast of the people of God." On this World Communion Sunday, we celebrate with other Christians around the world the common faith we've been given, recognizing that we are all recipients of costly grace, abundant life, and fabulous feasts, where even the tiniest bit of bread and wine are enough to satisfy our deepest spiritual hunger and thirst. And let us also remember that the faith that we have, even if it's the tiniest bit of a mustard seed faith, is sufficient for the tasks that God gives to us, is enough for us to accomplish the difficult and at times daunting acts of discipleship that God calls us to do. A mustard seed faith is enough to move mountains; it is enough to cast a big mulberry tree into the sea; it is enough ... it is enough. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall

i Rev. Bill Lamont, Preaching Word & Witness, 10/3/04.
ii Autoillustrator, #31844 and #31666.
iii Donna M. Claycomb, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 32, No. 4, 10/3/04.
iv Homiletics, Vol. 16, No. 5, 10/3/04.
v Ibid.
vi John Rollefson, The Christian Century, 9/21/04, p.21.
vii Joyce Rupp, Homiletics, op. cit.