Have you ever prayed to have more
faith? Wished you had more faith? Or shrugged your shoulders and figured faith
was either there or it wasn’t and there wasn’t much you could do about it?
The disciples,
I suspect, when they said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” were worried about
their faith because of what Jesus was teaching them. Jesus taught the disciples
tough stuff. He told them to follow him they had to take up their cross. They
heard him tell a man to sell all his possessions. And, last week weeek the Gospel
was about the gulf between the rich and the poor. Earlier in this same chapter of
Luke, Jesus told the disciples if someone sins against them seven times, they
have to forgive many more times. No wonder the disciples thought they needed an
extra shot of faith!
Jesus doesn’t
appear to help them much. Instead, he tells the disciples if they have faith no
bigger than a mustard seed they can uproot trees and plant them in the sea. And
furthermore, once they’ve done this, they don’t deserve thanks because they’ve
just done what they were supposed to do.
The best way I can think of to
illustrate what Jesus is saying is to tell you a real life story of how a mustard
seed of faith in this congregation grew into a large plant, a plant that I’m
sure will keep on growing.
Many of you know this story, but
because like the disciples, we don’t think we’re doing anything big I think
this brings the gospel into reality here, in this church.
We think we need more faith so we can
do something big. We think how can a little thing matter to a grand and
glorious God? What could possibly come from a little seed of faith?
How about this? From this small
congregation, from a place where I’m willing to bet most of you think what you
do doesn’t really matter much in the plans of our grand and glorious God, a
mustard seed of faith did something really big. Besides, children have parents,
so what role can the church really have except providing good Christian
education? It’s difficult for parents in today’s world though: brutal work
schedules, hustling to get kids to school and themselves off to work, and then
all those other things that need to be done. Can a mustard seed of faith really
help them? Can it really help their children?
A mustard seed of faith is all it
took though. It was all your mustard seeds together that made this happen. This
is a letter I received recently from a young member of this congregation who
left this congregation to serve our nation. Here is what he asked me to tell
all of you. “I am doing well and am getting closer to God here. We don’t have a
lot of time for free time but I make the most of it. Tell the church that I
love them all and I just want to thank all of you for helping raise me.”
I’ll bet when
you nurtured him and talked to him, fed him breakfast or pizza or snacks, you
didn’t think it was a big deal. It was just a mustard seed, a tiny mustard seed
of your faith. But this is what happens when you use that tiny mustard seed.
And this is how all of the mustard seeds from each one of you combined into a pile
of mustard seeds, enough seeds to help influence a young boy’s life and make him
a faithful and loving Christian young man.
There’s the
answer to how you increase faith. Take the faith you have and plant a mustard
seed. And do it not because of any threats of hell or promises of heaven, but
because it is sheer joy to see the plants that grow from God’s tiny mustard
seed planted in each one of us.
That’s what Jesus had in mind for the
disciples and has in mind for us. And that’s what you did. You made it happen
because you did what you ought to do. You were a slave to Christ with your
mustard seed of faith, not expecting any thanks or any reward. That’s how you
increased your faith and someone else’s faith, and that’s how you follow Jesus.
AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
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©2016
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