Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 7, 2007

Sermon by Pastor John Marboe

The Holy Gospel according to Luke. (Luke 17-5-10)

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “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.

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ’Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 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!”

The Gospel of the Lord.

If you are like me, you’ve always read this passage in a self-denigrating way. “If you had faith like a mustard seed”—hmm, I wonder if I do—“you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea.’” Well, that rules me out. I have never had, nor ever felt I had, this kind of faith, the kind that can uproot trees or move mountains. Nor do I know of anyone who can do those things.

But we must ask ourselves, what would be the point of that? Do you think Jesus is suggesting that the point of our faith is so that we can perform feats of superhuman strength, so that we can go out to the parking lot and demonstrate to one another how much faith we have by lifting up cars and hurling them across Snelling Avenue? Shall we imagine that Jesus intended to make miracle workers of people? And shall we imagine the fact that none of us seems to be able to do these things represents our miserable failure to believe? But this sort of thing is taught and believed. And what a disaster, I think, it is.

I went once to a church service in Lansing, Michigan, at a very large, enthusiastic church, and the point there seemed to be that faith gets you what you want. During the sermon, the pastor spoke directly to a particular woman in the crowd, and he had noticed that she was driving a brand-new Cadillac. He remarked on her faith, and he noted that God had really blessed her and implied that it was her strong faith that had gotten that car. And then he went on to say that he himself was living in faith so that he, too, could drive a Cadillac. That’s a gross example; I know that. But when we imagine that the point of faith is fundamentally to make us happy, healthy, wealthy, or successful, we are in the very same territory as that horrible preacher. We are into at that point what Emile Durkheim, the father of sociology, called “magic,” not religion.

The prophets teach us that faith can also make us miserable, as was Jeremiah, or Hosea, in the service to others who won’t listen or don’t care. I think we need to look more closely at this image of faith Jesus uses, faith as a mustard seed, to discover quite a different meaning.

I’m going to bring around for you mustard seeds. Take one, if you can. This is a mustard seed. This is the image Jesus uses for faith—mustard seeds. He says, “If you have faith like a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree . . . .” I wonder what it is about a mulberry tree. I couldn’t bring a mulberry tree today; I could only bring these seeds. Take a little seed, pass it down. It’s almost impossible just to grab one.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, how we read the Bible. You know, when Jesus says “Faith like a mustard seed,” we don’t take that literally, do we? We know Jesus is speaking figuratively about faith. But then when it comes to his next image, the mulberry tree being uprooted and thrown into the sea, then we get literal. Isn’t that funny? We have this kind of tendency to read the Bible literally whenever we can. Unless Jesus says, “It’s like this,” then we know that there is a metaphor. But really there are two images in this passage—one is this mustard seed and the other is the tree. And the tree is also a metaphor, speaking figuratively.

Look at it; pass it down. Feel that seed. Let the mustard seed show itself to you. Jesus did not actually say, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,” that’s the English translation. But in the Greek, it’s just the word “as,” “If you have faith as a mustard seed.” And the difference is enormous—pardon the pun. When we imagine faith is about size, large or small, we think of it as an amount, we think of it as a thing, something you have or something that you don’t have, in some measurable quantity. Now, size is germane to the image of the mustard seed, but it’s not the point.

How many of us remember the story about The Little Engine that Could? “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” This is a story similar to Jesus’ image of the mustard seed. Is the point of the story of The Little Engine That Could the size of the engine? Is that the point of the story? No. The point of the story is that the engine believed it could do it. “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” The size of the little engine matters in the story because it stresses, in fact, that size is not the point. One’s attitude—no matter how big or small one is—is what matters. Just so with the mustard seed.

Jesus cannot be saying that our faith needs to be bigger. He chose the smallest possible image, a tiny little mustard seed, which, as we know from another Gospel, grows into a rather large tree where birds can build their nest. The point of the mustard seed must be precisely that its size does not matter. The size of one’s faith is not relevant. Stop worrying about how much you have. The disciples asked for more, and Jesus responds that more is irrelevant.

So what might Jesus be saying instead? Well, think about the seed. Look at it. Faith is like that little seed. And what does a seed do? In another place, Jesus explains that seeds go into the ground and die, but then there is new life, that’s one thing. Another thing is that seeds grow, and they grow naturally without effort or toil. Still another thing is that seeds bear fruit. Still another thing is that from small beginnings come big results, when growth is nurtured by sunlight, rain, and nutritious soil. Still another thing is that seeds don’t produce for their own sake. That growth is not for their own benefit, or pleasure, or reward. They live for others, quite naturally, for birds and animals and soil and air and humans.

This, too, may be the point of the following comments about slaves and masters. We must forgive Jesus for drawing from a cultural reality of his day that we no longer countenance. Jesus’ comments don’t endorse slavery. It’s a figurative example drawn from the world around him. And the example is clear. A slave didn’t live for him or her self, but rather for the master. Bob Dylan said it musically: “You have to serve somebody.” So the point is true for everybody, not just slaves, you have to serve somebody. And the question is: who or what will we serve?

A seed can’t grow on its own; it depends on its environment. But when it grows, it contributes to the sustenance and growth of everything else around it. And this is the power of faith. The results of faith are not supernatural; they are quite natural. Faith has to do with real life.

A pastor friend of mine and of Joy’s is about to retire at age 71, after a long career, first as a schoolteacher and then as a pastor. His comment on this passage recently was this: “I don’t know much, but a little faith . . . .” “I don’t know much, but a little faith . . . .” He didn’t complete the sentence. Lovely. No bold claim, no conclusion, just an open-ended comment, as if to say, “Here, at the end of my long career and in the autumn years of my life, I’m turning from that seemingly impressive mulberry tree of knowledge to the little seed of faith.”

I spoke this past week to a man who just passed his 90th birthday, and he told me a bit about this tour of duty in the South Pacific during the Second World War. He served on a PT boat and saw plenty of combat. And he asked me, “Have you ever smelled fear?” I said, “No. Not like what you’re talking about.” And he told me that he learned one thing, and only one thing, in the war. He said, “I am no hero. That’s all I learned.” But then he added this: “I also found faith, real faith, the kind that comes to you when you face your own death.”

This leads to a final observation about faith. Faith is not a conscious act. A mustard seed doesn’t expend effort or gain information before it can grow. Neither is faith something we strive for, decide for, or ever fully understand. Luther said, “Faith is a gift of the Spirit. We come to it through no fault of our own.”

Faith can’t be defined, controlled, willed, or increased. Faith is powerful, as powerful as the life force pulsing through creation itself. And its best seen in small things—small children, small acts of kindness, small seeds. Or how about the atom? Have not the smallest things proven the most powerful, even scientifically?

Faith is our relationship to God, through Christ. It can’t be seen or measured, but the effects are powerful. To want our faith increase is to miss the point. The very smallest amount can move a tree or a mountain, all by itself—not literally, but almost.