Sermon 10/7/07
Be Careful What You Wish For - Luke 17:5-10
(view lectionary notes for this text)
We’ve been looking at a series of the parables of Jesus – the Lost Sheep and Lost Coins, the Shrewd Manager, the Rich Man and Lazarus. But today we shift our focus a bit. After Jesus finishes teaching about the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus turns back to his disciples and tells them that one of the worst things we can do is cause someone else to stumble in their discipleship. But Jesus also tells them about forgiveness. If someone sins against you seven times in a day, Jesus says, but repents and asks for forgiveness seven times, then seven times you must give them forgiveness. After Jesus says this, we come to today’s passage – not a parable really, but just Jesus teaching the disciples – and challenging teaching at that.
After Jesus talks about the dangers of leading others astray and the necessity and grace of endless forgiveness, the disciples make a request of Jesus. “Increase our faith!” they say. Actually, their words are more of a demand than a request. Perhaps they are overwhelmed by these things Jesus has just said to them. They don’t feel like they have what it takes to do what Jesus is talking about. They can’t do what he wants with just the resources they have already. And so, they tell Jesus: Increase our faith! Have you ever made such a request? The disciples were questioning if they had what it took – give us more faith, Jesus, they cried, otherwise we can’t possibly meet up to these standards. Increase our faith!
Jesus responds to them by saying, “if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” A mustard see, you may know, is an extremely small seed – about the size of the head of a pin. A mulberry tree is a tree with deep and extensive roots. It isn’t something you could tear up easily. So Jesus is saying that we only need to have a very small amount of faith to be able to command a tree to tear itself up and replant itself in the sea. Simple lesson, right?
Well, the trouble is – and here I can only speak for myself, but I have a hunch about the rest of you as well – I have never uprooted a mulberry tree on command. Actually, I have never caused anything to be uprooted on command. Have you? And in fact, I don’t really believe that I have this ability tucked away somewhere in an unused corner of my brain. I don’t believe that I will ever be able to make a mulberry tree, or anything else, act in such a way. I just don’t see it happening. But the problem is that my apparent inability to perform such awesome, moving tasks seems to lead to only a couple possible conclusions: Either 1) Jesus was talking crazy talk, and didn’t mean or didn’t know what he was saying. Or 2) I don’t have even faith the size of a mustard seed.
Well, we have a problem. Jesus always knows what he’s talking about, even when we find it hard to hear or do what he is teaching. So we can scratch that choice. Can it be that I don’t have faith even the size of a mustard seed? Now, I don’t want to say my faith is so great, or so deep, or so profound. But I think I can say with some boldness and sureness that I may even have pumpkin-seed sized faith! So, maybe, just maybe, Jesus was trying to get us to understand something that we’re reluctant to believe: We already have been equipped, been gifted, with everything we need to follow Jesus, change our lives, and change the world. Jesus says to us, “your faith is already big enough. You already have all the faith you need to do whatever you want.” We only need a little faith to do great things. We just have to use the faith we have.
Increase our faith! Have you ever asked God for greater faith? I admire the disciples for asking. They were overwhelmed by what Jesus was asking of them. I can relate. Sometimes I think about all the things I think I should be doing, things I need to be doing. I’m not sure I can do what is asked of me. I think I need something more than I have in me to be who God is really calling me to be. What does it take for us to ask for more faith? And if we ask for more faith, what do we expect as a response? Perhaps the disciples were hoping for Jesus to be pleased with them. Not everybody desires to go deeper in their discipleship – not everyone would ask for more faith, but the disciples do.
But Jesus doesn’t seem impressed with their request, does he? Jesus tells them about what faith even as small as mustard seed can do, and then continues to ask them if slaves would be rewarded by the master for doing just what the master asked of them. “Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?” Jesus asks. “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” What is Jesus saying here? I think it can be made very simple for us: We have faith – some, at least. We’re expected to use it.
That’s the real questions, the real challenge here. By the time we encounter this story in the gospel of Luke, the disciples have already been with Jesus for some time. They’ve been following him. They’ve been listening to his preaching and teaching. They’ve been with him, seeing what he’s been doing. They’ve been given power and authority to preach the good news about God’s kingdom already. They clearly have some faith already, or they wouldn’t be hanging out with Jesus anymore. So what, Jesus wants to know, are they doing with the faith they have? What do we do with the faith we have? I have enough faith to do more than I’m doing. We talked about squandering what we’ve been given a couple weeks ago. Talk about squandering – we squander even the little faith we have. I have faith. I believe. And yet, what is the result of that belief? What do I do with the faith that I have?
Mostly, I think, like the disciples, we try to let ourselves off the hook with the faith that we have, because we think it isn’t enough. We look around us, we see people who are heroes to us, saints to us, because of what their faith causes them to do in the world, because of their commitment to discipleship – we see them – people like Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr., or even those right in our congregation who are our faithful saints, and we think our faith isn’t big enough to be like them. Dorothy Day, who founded The Catholic Worker movement, was and is an inspiration to many for her commitment to helping the poor and living with very little herself so she could give to others. She was so admired that people often sought her out just to see or touch her. Sometimes she would overhear people saying of her, “she is a saint.” But she hated to hear people say that about her. She would respond, "Don't say that. Don't make it too easy for yourself. Don't escape this way. I know why you are saying, 'she is a saint.' You say it to convince yourself that you are different from me, that I am different from you. I am not a saint. I am like you. You could easily do what I do. You don't need any more than you have; get kicking, please." (1)
Get kicking, please. That’s exactly what Jesus is saying here. He’s telling us that even the tiniest speck of faith can bring about world-changing and life-changing consequences, if we just use that faith we have. It isn’t what God is asking of us. It’s what God expects of us, of those of us claim the name disciples. That’s what it means to be a part of this family of faith. We are people of faith. Let’s use it! Already among you, in this congregation, you have seen what faith can do when faith is put into use. Next Sunday is Anniversary Sunday, and I don’t know all the history of the church yet, but as I look through pictures and read through documents, I’m starting to get a picture. And I can say for sure that a church doesn’t have over 150 years in ministry without people of faith acting on that faith is discipleship. A church doesn’t expand and build and add on without putting faith into action through discipleship. And just so, this congregation will continue to be a vital presence in Franklin Lakes as long as people continue to be willing to act on faith – even a little bit of faith – in discipleship, in service to God through Jesus Christ.
Get to work, Jesus says. You have what you need already, so just get to it. In fact, in the concluding verses from our reading today, Jesus asks – are we to be thanked for doing what we are commanded? We are commanded to act in our faith to love God and love neighbors, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, give to the poor. Jesus doesn’t want us to view the living out of our faith as optional, but essential, not as an elective, a choice, but an imperative, as a command, an absolute necessity.
Today, as we celebrate World Communion Sunday, as do other Christians around the globe, as we come forward and receive again the body and blood of Christ, let yourself be encouraged and strengthened by this holy meal, and let yourself be resolved and inspired to action. We have the faith, small faith, big faith, new faith, faith tested over years. We have faith to move mountains and changes lives when we act to follow Jesus. Let’s put our faith to use. Let’s get kicking.
Amen.
(1) as quoted in sermon at http://www.umsl.edu/~newman/cnc/homily/fs01/27ot.html, UM-St. Louis Catholic Newman Center