Mustard
Seed Faith: God Makes Up the Lack Luke
17:5-10 19 Pentecost - October 7, 2007
A new habit at our house
is to run our Golden Retrievers at the tree farm where dogs can run off leash.While there we meet other dogs like the miniature Schnauzers I met the
other day.The owner said one was
Bonnie, and of course its litter mate is Clyde. Then I met a Golden Retriever with a name I wish I had thought of.Her name is Joan of Bark.They
call her Joanie.
Like us, animals have
identity and being, though, as poet William Everson says – focusing on birds
– theirs is “another order of being” – another order he finds “wholly
compelling.”He writes about California’s wonderful water
birds in “A
Canticle to the Waterbirds,”written for the Feast of St. Francis.Here
are a few excerpts to whet your interest:
Clack your beaks you
cormorants and kittiwakes, ... You migratory terns and pipers ... [you] pelicans
... and shorelong gulls;
All you keepers of the
coastline ... to the Mendocino beaches; ...
Break wide your ... salt-encrusted beaks
... And say a praise up to
the Lord. ... But mostly it is your way you bear existence …untroubled. Day upon day you do not
reckon, nor scrutinize tomorrow, nor multiply the nightfalls
with a rash concern. ... Yours is of another
order of being, and wholly it compels. ... ... may you teach ... [us] a
necessary thing to know
We do have much to learn
from these creatures “of another order of being.”How wise to go to sleep at night not filled with rash concern about the
day or filled with scrutinizing tomorrow, but simply saying a praise up to God.How good to count God sufficient for each instant of our lives!
Today’s Gospel calls us
to not be filled with rash concern over the amount of faith we have.We don’t have to be like Billy Graham or, we might have said like
Mother Theresa, till her recently published diaries have shown hers was only a
mustard seed faith.But how much
more we might love her now, knowing she lived her life courageously through
doubt and dryness to love.She
wanted to please God whether she got assurance she actually did or not.
Like the diaries of
Mother Theresa that show the world a glimpse of her inner struggle of faith,
today’s Gospel shows us that inner struggle of the disciples.Jesus had just told them in the verses right before these that they were
to hold each other accountable within community – speaking the truth to each
other in love, and forgiving each other seven times – which in New Testament
exaggeration means endlessly.
And the apostles panic.Hold each other accountable?That’s
too uncomfortable!And forgive again
one who has hurt you before?That
seems to border on wrong-headedness.No
one wants to get hurt again when you have been hurt before.But for however foolish it sounds, Jesus does not let them off the hook.
Yes, he says, forgive, seven times.So
the disciples say, then you’ll have to increase our faith!But Jesus doesn’t say, “You are so right!You need more faith.”Instead,
Jesus surprises them, affirming them.They
already have all the faith need.This
is a story of abundance, not scarcity.
“If you have faith the
size of a mustard seed, you can move a mulberry tree into the sea.”A mustard seed!Hold your
palm out.You can hold thousands of
mustard seeds in one palm.The
disciples had already demonstrated they had more than mustard seed faith.They had gone out and fed the hungry, exorcized demons, created new
community.But now they were afraid
of the demands of living as a community shaped by the values of Jesus –
demands like being accountable to each other and forgiving.
They had the faith to
exorcize demons but they cannot now imagine that faith being strong enough for
the demands of the community Jesus calls them to become.It’s often easier to go out and care for the neighbor than to live with
daily forgiveness towards those whose inadequacies we have come to know all too
well – especially when they mirror our own inadequacies.
The disciples were up to
caring for others outside their community, but when it came to accountability in
their own community they shook in their knees.“Increase our faith, Jesus! We aren’t up to this.It’s too great a demand for our inadequate faith.” But Jesus says
“It’s not about the quantity of your faith.Even a minuscule mustard seed will do, because what is lacking will be
made up for by God.” The good news
in today’s mustard seed image is that God is up for whatever is needed for
God’s reign to come on earth as it is in heaven – a way of living that is
good news for all orders of being that share this earth.And we don’t have to be giants of faith to live in this way.
At our Mother’s Bible
Study this past Wednesday a children’s song was shared that sings of this
promise. Perhaps you know it.It
begins:
Our own belief in you,
O Lord,
is only a shadow of your faith in us,
only a shadow of your faith in us,
your deep and lasting faith.
It is OK that ours is a
mustard seed faith, only a shadow of God’s faith in us.It’s easy to stand in judgment of our lack of faith, like the disciples
stood in judgment of their lack, but Jesus says: a mustard seed faith will do!God makes up what is lacking!In
fact, Thomas Merton says, (I think Mother Theresa must have taken comfort in
this.) God is pleased by our desire to please God, even though we may never know
for sure whether in fact we actually do, but God is pleased by our desire to do
so.
Jesus calls us not to
evaluate the quantity of our faith, but rather to come to God with whoever we
are.Next time we watch the egrets
or blue heron take to air “where the flat water rice fields shimmer,” may
they be a reminder to come – untroubled – to the one who meets us where we
are, making up what is lacking in our faith.
In the end, there is
nothing more to do than to say a praise up to God, as the birds do – to God
whose faith in us is enough to move mulberry trees.Look at what God did through Mother Theresa, and she would be the first
to say her faith no bigger than a mustard seed.Do you want to make a difference?Let
God know and watch what God can do through you, but watch out mulberry trees may
begin to move and there will be nothing left to do but say thanks.
Amen.
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson,
to the glory of God
Faith
Lutheran
Church, Chico,
California
