Faith So Small - Luke 17: 5-10

Faith. It’s one of the necessary and vital parts of our Christian teaching. But is also amongst the most abused. I don’t know about you – but I’ve heard this passage preached many times throughout my life in the church. And very few of those messages were appropriate. I’ve been taught that faith lacks all fear. That the only way to test our faith is by doing extraordinary things. I’ve been told to disregard all that God has blessed me with in order to really learn what it means to trust God.

If I would sum up most of the teachings about faith I’ve stomached throughout the years, one word comes to mind – foolishness. Another would be arrogance. Faith becomes equated with noticeable works that are divorced from our inner lives. One winter I was blessed to be on a vacation with three of my best friends. One of my friends, who had been struggling with mental illness for many years, started to have increasingly concerning episodes on vacation. Being a group who believed in the power of prayer, we took her to a Christian worship center that had places of healing. We worshiped for a while before one of my friends went to ask if someone could pray with us for our friend in one of the healing rooms. I will never forget the answer he was given, “We only pray for physical diseases.” In other words, we only pray for that which can be seen.

I left that worship center livid. And to this day, I have mixed feelings when their name comes up in conversation. At the root of my issue was a question of faith – should we pray for the things we cannot see, cannot imagine, as an act of faith, or is faith only praying for the believable, the obtainable.

And it is that question that I bring to today’s text – What does it mean to have faith? How should it lead us to pray? What would a life of faith-filled living look like? And to be honest, after a week of studying the text, I’m still left in the paradox of Jesus’ teaching – but maybe that’s where the answer to my deep questions lie, in the messiness of the paradoxes.

Let us now turn to the text. The apostles come to Jesus, once again, asking for more. On the surface their request, plea, demand, sounds a lot like ours today, “Increase our faith!” But Jesus answer begs us to question what exactly was the motive behind the disciple’s request. And consequently, what is behind such a request on our part today. Why do we want more of anything – let alone faith? Has God not given us the means to nurture the faith that we have? What have we done with what we have been given in order to deserve more?

Or do we link faith with power? Listen to the following lyrics from a popular Christian Band: “ I have read about the days of old. About the men who followed You. About how they saw the supernatural and became the chosen few. So I come before You now, tearing off my earthly crowns. For this one thing I have found – I want a faith like that. To see the dead rise or to see you pass by. Oh I, I want a faith like that – whatever the cost, I’ll suffer the loss. Oh I want a faith like that.”

The more I’ve listened to this song as I’ve become older, the more it disturbs me, deeply. The song goes on to say: “I’ve caught a glimpse of what you want from me, and what I have is not enough.” In so many ways, we today are still like the disciples telling Jesus to increase our faith. At the root of our request are so many ugly things that we don’t realize: We want what someone else had or has, we want tangible signs of our faith, and by the way Jesus, you haven’t given we enough to live out a life of faith. Better try again.

I’m somewhat surprised that we didn’t have a repeat of Jesus in the temple with the tax collector here. What brings us to ask God to increase our faith? My guess is mostly we ask when, like a selfish child, we want what someone else has. My roommate and I are in the midst of a deep theological debate right now – and at the root of her discussion is wanting to know why she and I have different question and answers about what it means to live a faithful life. Because we aren’t the same! And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t meant to be! What you experience on your faith journey may not be what I experience on mine! And even if we have similar experiences, we cannot replicate exact moments. Even in my own life, I have had some beautiful moments that have torpedoed my growth – but even if I go back and try to recreate that moment again, I don’t think it will have the same effects. Because God is a creative God who uses moments and stretches of time, a lifetime in fact, to help us grow in faith.

There have been times in my life when I have been blessed with signs of assurance, maybe not as profound as seeing the dead rise or seeing Jesus walk by, but things that meant something to me. But what is the purpose of such a sign? Are they supposed to be seen as tangible markers that we are walking the right road? Lived expressions of our faith? Or just something that tells us to keep on keeping on? For me it is most certainly the later. The moment I remember the most clearly was camping out in a farm in Australia. I have back issues and camping is not recommended, but I went because it was required. After a few days of camping, the pain was so intense that I couldn’t sleep. So I slipped out of my tent earlier, hoping to have a shower and a time of devotions before everyone else arose. And this is what I saw. A sky marked by the sun rising in blue and pinks and deep oranges and yellows in different color combinations everywhere I turned. It was as if God had blessed me despite of and through my pain. And that spoke volumes to me. But I do not feel that it was a sign of my faithfulness. It was God’s gift to me, not vise versa.

And then like a child in a candy store, throwing a temper tantrum, sometimes we demand more faith, because we feel like what we have been given isn’t sufficient. But God’s grace is sufficient to meet us in any lack of faith we may have. And maybe a lack of faith is a good thing – because it reminds us that we can’t stand apart from God. We are meant to have faith in the one who gives us faith – not ourselves.

Moving past the disciples initial request – we see Jesus giving two interesting responses that have been threaded together. The first is about the mustard see – if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to the mulberry tree to throw itself into the sea to be planted and it would obey. That folks is a sign. In other gospel narratives it has been described as the faith that can move mountains. Jesus seems to be telling the disciples that they do not realize what enormous power they have in what they were given. But on the flip side, who realize deserves to have that power apart from God? Maybe there is a reason that we can’t perform acts like these as signs – and its because it would make us a little too much like God. I want to have faith to trust and obey God and not to think that I can survive on my own.

Jesus goes on to talk about the slaves who were called in after a long day of field work in order to set the table and cook dinner. In other words their service never ended. But they faithfully did what they were commanded. This my friends, is the type of faith that I want at the end of the day. The type of faith that doesn’t come through signs and wonders, but obedient living moment by moment. Yes, this is the more trying road, the longer road, and the rocky road, where I have to admit that I don’t own myself. But at the end of the day, what stretches, tests, and grows our faith more? Signs or faithful living?

Part of being in seminary is about reflecting – reflecting on who has impacted you and what makes you tick. And brothers and sisters, I’ve come to realize that at the end of the day, the people who have impacted my life the most are those who walk step by step, day by day, year by year in faith. People who put others above themselves. Who’s sole purpose of getting out of bed in the morning is to glorify God. People who may not even realize that they are living faithfully and have greatly impacted my life.

We live in a culture of immediate gratification and power that sides with moving mountains and commanding others, but how radical is it to feel blessed with the measure of faith that you have been given? To nurture what you have instead of demanding more? To prove yourself worthy of the faith you were bestowed by walking in it each day, being obedient to the will of God? I know which type of faith I would choose – what about you? What demands have you been making from God and have you taken a look at your bountiful blessings as they are?