Kendall's Notebook, Page 71

Title: Mustard Seed Faith

Date: Oct. 7, 2007

Text: Luke 17: 5-10

By: Kendall H. Brown

Attached to the desk portion of my pulpit in Massachusetts was a small paper cross. And attached to the cross was a smaller packet containing a smaller seed. The seed was a mustard seed. If you have ever seen a mustard seed you know they are small. About the only seed smaller is an orchid seed. Jesus was probably unfamiliar with orchids, so he went with what we know is second best. Maybe there is a lesson in that alone.

I learned that this little cross with a mustard seed had been placed there a few months before I came to the church. It had been a part of the youth presentation and left behind - probably accidentally. Twenty two years later, it was still in that pulpit when I preached my last sermon - and for all I know, it still might be there another ten years later.

That little memento was a good reminder to have in the pulpit. First of all, I was well aware that Jesus used the image of a mustard seed in a sharp rebuke of his disciples. The seed reminded me to preach in a way that served my Lord first, and not be anxious about serving other Lords. There are many others to choose from – being popular, for example, trying to please the biggest giver in the congregation, trying to maintain a false peace when a little conflict is called for, or serving the Lord of safety by avoiding issues and ignoring the costly demands of discipleship.

There are times fo pulpit persons, just as there are times for pew people, when we like the disciples are challenged to say, “Lord increase, our faith.” “If only I had a little more (stronger –the same idea) faith, I could accomplish this task or face this obstacle or overcome this difficulty or meet this challenge. Who among us at one time or another hasn’t thought that? We really are not all that much different from the apostles in today’s lesson.

The apostles in today’s story have just heard Jesus give them some instructions as to what was required of them as disciples. In particular they had just heard Jesus instruct them to forgive – seventy times seven – or in others words without ceasing.

Bill Gulledge’s ( a parishioner) words might apply here to the apostle’s response. “You could hear all of the air in the room being sucked out!”

Then, after catching their breath, the apostle’s cried, “Lord, increase our faith.”

Jesus’ response is, “If you had faith, the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry bush, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.”

A mulberry bush growing in the sea is an image that is impossibly ridiculous. Uprooted Mulberry Bushes don’t grow in the sea. They need earth for their roots. They would die if planted in the sea. Jesus knew that. The image is impossibly ridiculous. That is why Jesus used it. The apostles had heard him instruct them to do something seemingly ridiculously impossible. Forgiving 70 times 7 is as impossible to many as the idea of planting a mulberry bush in the sea.

The apostle’s are not the only ones to be faced with the impossibly ridiculous. As a congregation we face the impossibly ridiculous. It is our job to make sense in a senseless world. It is our job to offer genuine community in a world that embraces separate and disconnected. It is our job to be a people of peace in a world that is quick to pick up arms. It is our job to be hospitable in the face of hostility. It is our job to make the invisible realities of this communion table visible to others that they may see what we have seen, and hear what we have heard.

The job of preaching often appears ridiculously impossible and that is one reason why that little mustard seed cross was so helpful to me. A couple weeks ago, I preached a sermon on suicide. I wrote that sermon out of my own faltering faith and struggle with some personal and distant situations. I had no idea, how deeply and on how many levels that sermon would touch people in the congregation. In August, I preached in Maine a sermon that I had preached on Father’s Day here about my own struggles with human sexuality and growing up in the faith. Different parts of that message spoke to many different people on many different levels – more than I could ever imagine. What we cannot imagine, the spirit can accomplish. I think that is a basic lesson in the mustard seed parable. Believing and trusting the unlimited power of God is mustard seed faith.

We need to look carefully at this story. What did Jesus really say to the apostles after they said, “Lord increase our faith.” Listen to Jesus answer, “If you had faith.” “If you had faith….” Jesus is saying, “You faithless apostles.” By their question they are basically admitting that they have no faith or at least they are unequipped with the faith needed to be a follower of Jesus and do what Jesus had demanded. Their question is about size, give us more, make our faith bigger, enlarge our faith, etc. Jesus’ answer makes obvious that size is a non-issue in matters of faith. He points to the smallest thing around that quickly came to mind – a mustard seed and said: all you need is faith the size of a miniscule mustard seed and then you will be connected to a God who can do the impossible and then you can be connected with and a part of the impossible accomplishments of God.

It is important to ask the question, “What is this thing called Faith?” And more specifically what is faith to the characters in this story, to Jesus and to the

Apostles, who in their question and answer seem to be passing each other like two ships in the night.

For the Apostles, faith here seems to be the ability to do what is required of them. Another way of saying that is: to face life’s difficulties and challenges. They ask Jesus to increase this ability. In Jesus’ rebuke there is also the implication that to the disciples, faith is a matter of expecting reward. Jesus makes it pretty clear that in matters of faith, attention on the reward renders the faith faithless. A servant does a servant’s work because such is expected of the servant. The true servant doesn’t expect to be rewarded for doing what was the servant’s to do in the first place. Jesus also at other times had made it quite clear to them that the expectations were high – go the second mile, forgive seventy times seven, sacrifice one’s self for another for another, and so forth.

On this world communion Sunday, a story from another faith tradition is in order. This week, I read a story about a Christian traveling in India among the Hindu there. The traveler got into great trouble – I can’t remember the details but they don’t matter. A Hindu played the role of the good Samaritan and rescued him. The Christian spoke to the Hindu about the great reward coming to him and said, “Thank you.” The Hindu responded with the Hindu response for a word of thanks. Our response is “Your welcome.” In Indian if you are Hindu, the response is “It is my duty.” The whole idea of reward for good behavior is not a part of other world religions. It the idea of reward is not biggest thing on Jesus’ mind either.

The Apostle’s definition of faith is the ability to do the job with a huge interest in the reward to come because we have done the job. Their interest in the reward comes out in other places. Remember the argument about who will sit at the seat of honor?

Jesus’ definition of faith is in terms of a mustard seed.

A seed has no choice where it is planted. It may end up where ever it does carried by a farmer, squirrel, mouse, bird, insect, wind or rain. A seed has no choice about the difficulties if not impossibilities it may face: Planted on rocky soil, drought, or becoming food for some animal or bird. The seed is not the plant that it will become. The plant will have it’s own life, it’s own difficulties and it’s own role in the creation – to produce more seed.

Only one thing is required of the seed – that is to just be the seed. There is only one human quality that the seed might need to be a seed if it needed a human quality. That quality is trust. Trust that recognizes that even what seems impossible the spirit can accomplish. Trust that lets God be God and lets God accomplish what God will accomplish often with us, (and we can then take joy in being a part of the creative process and that is reward enough), and trust that lets God accomplish through us and sometimes in spite of us. Trust the size of a mustard seed is all it takes.

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