Luke 17:5-10
When I was a little boy…I was given a small necklace…in Sunday school.
- It was a Christian necklace…but it held…not a little gold cross or a silver Jesus fish Ichthus symbol…No.
- Hanging from this gold chain was a small…clear…plastic orb…
- That contained within it a tiny round seed.
- OK…You see where this is going.
- Yup…it was a mustard seed.
- If you have faith the size of this tiny mustard seed…Jesus said…you could uproot a huge tree and throw it in the sea.
- The Lord be with you.
Well…I don’t know…but I need some help here.
- I have never understood why…if given such vast power over physical objects…
- One would…out of all the options available…choose to uproot trees and throw them into the sea.
- I have no idea what good that does.
And regardless of the relative merits of mulberry bush uprooting…
- This text has often made my faith feel inadequate…
- Because I have always heard it as this syllogism:
- With only a teensy-weensy amount of faith…Pastor Chip…could perform miracles.
- Pastor Chip does not perform miracles…
- Therefore…Pastor Chip has so little faith…it’s not even as big as that mustard seed around his neck.
- And well…for the record…that necklace was super cheap and turned my neck green…so…I didn’t wear it much.
Many years ago…I had an interesting experience around how some people struggle with what they think it means to have faith.
- It was a four-week community faith event in which I was the speaker.
- I was asked to give four talks on four different aspects of faith.
- And what I really love about these kinds of events is doing the Q and A.
And hearing these questions…I realized the sheer number of questions that were so similar.
- Things like…is it ok to feel distant from your faith when you are going through a really hard time in life?
- And… What does it even mean to have faith?
- And…What if I am not sure what I believe?
- And…Is doubt…ok?
- And one was really a statement and not at all a question…someone said:
- Sometimes I wonder if there really is a God because of all the hurt and suffering in life.
And so…with these questions and the texts for today rattling around in my brain…
- I started to think about how often we assume that having faith means not doubting.
- We assume that having faith means not struggling with faith…
- That having faith means being totally trusting and peaceful…
- And serene when tough stuff is happening to us or around us.
But here’s the thing: When the hard stuff in life happens…
- Not only do we feel bad…
- But then we add to it the feeling of total inadequacy about our faith…
- Which just makes it all worse.
We think having faith is like being the little engine who could:
- I think I can I think I can…and if we just muster up enough…
- A tiny mustard size amount of faith we can do anything…
- We can trust God when things are bad and never struggle or doubt…
- And we can even uproot bushes into a watery grave if for some reason we think that’s what is called for.
This Gospel feels like Jesus is scolding us for not having even the tiniest amount of faith.
- Which can easily lead us think that if we have the right amount of faith…
- Then the hard things in life will not be hard and we will never doubt.
OK then…here’s the thing: In Greek there is a future conditional clause:
- That is…If you were to have the faith of a mustard seed…implying that you do not have that faith now.
- But there is also an…according to present reality conditional clause…meaning…If you have the faith of a mustard seed…and you do.
- So…Jesus is not scolding them for not having even the tiniest amount of faith.
- Instead…when they ask him to increase their faith…
- He is affirming that the disciples already have the faith to do what is expected of them.
So…the disciples do not need more faith.
- The disciples need to realize that they already have faith…
- And even if it’s a small amount…that is enough.
[Jesus is asking me how much faith do you have?
- And I say…I don’t know Jesus…it’s not very much…it’s tiny…
- And Jesus says…good enough for me!]
And this brings me back to the questions I got during the four-week community faith event.
- People there said that they were struggling with the fact that hard things in life are hard.
- That somehow since they doubt God amid their own suffering…
- That this somehow means they lack faith and this worries them.
- We tend to think that having faith means unwavering belief…and never doubting…
- And always no matter how awful things get…
- Never ever having negative feelings about God.
It’s like we have forgotten the strong…and awesome tradition in the Hebrew Bible of complaining to God.
- It is called lamenting…and we should reclaim this part of our tradition.
I have a friend who says if you are going to have a praise band in your church…
- That’s fine…but only if you also have a lament band too…
- Because being the people of God has always meant a whole lot of both praise and lament.
- And yet we think that being in a place of praise is having faith…
- And being in a place of lament is lacking faith…but that is simply not true.
I love the way some the characters in the Old Testament really have it out with God.
- How they confront the Almighty…it’s wrangling at its best.
- Often…when we are angry with God…we just give him the silent treatment.
- But not so with our ancestors in the faith.
- If they felt there was some serious neglectful or abusive or absentee parenting from God…they complained.
- And their complaints were not a sign of faithlessness.
- Quite the opposite…
- Their complaints…and their questions about God…were a sign that they were in relationship with God.
The central theme of Habakkuk…the text we heard as our first reading is…unlike the proud…the righteous live by their faith.
- It is easy to think that the righteous means the same thing as the religious…the pius…the priggish.
- But righteous in these texts is not primarily a moral category…
- It’s a relational category.
The faith of the Righteous then…is not as much about never doubting…
- As it is about having a heart which longs for that which it cannot create for itself.
- To be righteous is to be a person…to be a people…
- Who take the promises of God seriously enough to be unafraid of lament.
- Who know that doubt is as much about being in relationship with God as faith is.
Jesus was right…
- Even if our faith is a tiny mustard seed amount…it is enough.