October 3, 2010
(Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 22)
(From The Lectionary Page)
Increase Our Faith
“Increase our faith.” There’s an old story about faith that you may have heard before. It begins with a man who falls off a cliff, but manages to grab a tree limb on the way down. The following conversation ensues: ‘Is anyone up there?’ ‘I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?’ ‘Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can't hang on much longer.’ ‘That's all right; if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch.’ A momentary silence follows, and then: ‘Is anyone else up there?’
What is the nature of faith? That seems to be what today’s gospel is addressing, though it is also one of those that it is hard to see in a positive light. It begins in the negative, and seems never to go anywhere else. For example, if you can’t uproot trees with a single command, you must have no faith whatsoever. And, by the way, God thinks you are a worthless slave. And you should be happy about it. But as we know from so many other biblical readings, we have to know what produced this discussion before we can know what to do with it.
What preceded today’s reading from Luke is Jesus’ teaching about the extreme forgiveness that his followers are to be responsible for. In the verse immediately before this, Jesus had taught that, “If someone sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” The disciples’ response to Jesus is, “Then increase our faith.” They know how difficult it will be to come even close to doing this. We know as well, how difficult it is to live such forgiveness.
The error that Jesus goes on to correct, then, is not the smallness of their faith, but rather their understanding of faith. “You have all the faith you need,” he is telling them. You might rephrase Jesus’ first statement like this: “If even the smallest faith can move this tree with a command, how much more can happen through the faith God has given you?” “In other words, to question whether one has enough faith is to miss the mark.” In fact, faith is not quantifiable in the first place.[1] It is not something that is “stockpiled in a storehouse for the working of spiritual wonders…”[2] Faith is a gift from the Father, and He never gives too little.
It is not coincidence that Luke uses the image of the mustard seed to illustrate smallness. A few chapters ago the kingdom of heaven was compared to a mustard seed. That seed will do what it is made to do, but the gardener had to do his part in planting it. He didn’t have to do this, though. He could have done any number of things with that seed. But in those choices, nothing more becomes of the seed, and it benefits no one. But in faith that the seed will grow, he sows. And in doing so, it does become much more. It is no longer simply a tool in the gardener’s hands, but it is now a tool in God’s hands.
And such is the way with forgiveness, Jesus seems to say. You know that forgiveness is the only life-giving choice. All other choices are toxic to relationships. In faith that something greater will come only if you choose to do so, you plant the small seed of forgiveness. That seed is multiplied by God, and grows into something beyond calculation. Forgiveness is the only life-giving choice we can make. To see that, is faith and to act on it, is faith. When someone has broken relationship with me, it often feels like all I have left to hold onto is my grudge. It feels like the last little bit of control left to me. Do I really have to give that up as well? But only when I have done so can I look back and see how toxic it was to hold.
So if forgiveness is an instance of faith, we can say that faith is what connects potential for good, with realized good. Faith is already there. But it must be acted on. It must be participated in. When Jesus wants his disciples to consider themselves as “worthless slaves, who have done only what they ought to have done,” it seems that he wants them to understand that they have not done something in and of themselves. Rather, they have participated in something which God brought about, and in participating have themselves been changed. Our faith, our participation, feeds and strengthens the image of God that is in all of us.
And that participation begins closer to home than makes any of us comfortable. Who in your life remains un-forgiven by you? Your forgiveness will act as soil and water act on the mustard seed, and the very kingdom of God will draw near. And it will grow. You have the faith to do this.
Amen.
[1] “Luke 17: 5 – 10: A Pastoral Perspective.” Barbara Brown Taylor & David L. Bartlett, editors. Feasting On The Word (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010) p. 142
[2] “Luke 17: 5 – 10: A Pastoral Perspective.” Barbara Brown Taylor & David L. Bartlett, editors. Feasting On The Word (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010) p. 143
