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!’”

Friends, let’s do some Theology 101: what is faith? Is it the same as trust? Belief? Conviction? Relationship? If I say “I have faith my car will get me home”, what am I saying?

What about if I say “I have faith that God is love, and Jesus Christ is the truth of God” – is this an intellectual achievement? Is it the result of my theological study? My ordination, that puts me in the VIP box with God? One would hope not! No, my faith is a gift of God. I believe God gives me faith, so that I can choose to be in relationship with God. Faith is a choice I choose every day.

In the passage we heard this morning, the apostles cry out “increase our faith!” This raises a couple of questions. First – can faith be increased? Is faith a binary reality, or is there a spectrum? And secondly, why do the apostles ask this? Perhaps they had some form of free-floating anxiety. Perhaps they just felt like one could always have more faith, so they just periodically asked for more. Or perhaps they felt like they were duty-bound to ask for more faith.

After looking at the preceding narrative, I discovered that the real reason was simpler, but also much harder. Just before this, Jesus has asked the disciples to do something they know they cannot do: “If a person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

No wonder the disciples were crying for an increase. Perhaps they could forgive seven times in a lifetime, but seven times a day? Even the most forgiving person couldn’t do that.

Sometimes we find ourselves shaking our heads at Jesus’ disciples… but they are more like us than we realize. They start out, willing to do what is reasonable and even exceptional to follow Jesus. They have left their homes and their jobs and their families to travel with their Master. But now Jesus begins to ask impossible tasks and they don’t know how to do them. As a matter of fact, they know they can’t do them.

When they come to this brick wall, they want him to wave some magic wand. They want him to give them some superhuman powers to do what they know in their hearts cannot be done on their own. They want some clear manual that offers seven easy steps for being a disciple.

In short, they want to be transformed, but they don’t really believe they can. They have become so accustomed to seeing their world as it is that they cannot imagine the world as God wants it to be. They cannot imagine seeing the people who have wronged them as their brothers and sisters instead of villains.

Here we are, soon to be voting in a plebiscite about same-sex marriage. If there was ever a divisive issue, both within and beyond the church, this would be it. Political experts tell us that our country has become so starkly divided along ideological grounds. Generally speaking, everyone is either for or against this issue. The problem is, so deep is this division that we cannot even engage with one another, let alone hear the truth the other has to say to us, wherever we stand.

We can very soon think that the world is simply pro or anti, unable to imagine that there is an identity deeper than that. Our world so readily gives us labels that we too readily accept. Just ask someone any of those hot-button questions: immigration, Indigenous issues, same-sex marriage, abortion, war – and immediately, when they answer, we think that we know who the other person is.

Once we have that identity, it is difficult to believe anything else. And yet, Jesus says to us that if a person repents seven times in one day, seven times we are to re-see them as a child of God. Jesus calls us to look again at the person who has offended us, and see them as God sees them: not as inherently villainous or stupid or misinformed or evil, but as a child of God, capable of blessing and evil. For Jesus, true forgiveness is not about white-washing the past; it is about seeing the present in a new light, and looking towards a future of redemption. Forgiveness insists that people are not just conservative or liberal, Liberal or Labour, pro or anti. Instead, they/we all belong to the flock, with Jesus as shepherd.

No wonder the disciples cried, “increase our faith!” Jesus is calling for them to see their whole reality in a new way.

Since they don’t know how to do this, Jesus gives them an answer, but it’s not the one they expect. He tells them, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.” The disciples want a diagram for getting from point A to point B, but they don’t get one. Faith isn’t a game plan for solving our problems, nor is faith understanding why things are the way they are. At the end of the day, faith isn’t about answers.

Faith is about the love of God through Jesus Christ. Faith is about being grasped by Jesus so that you know in your heart and gut and bones that your life and his life and the life of the world are mixed together. Once that happens, you can’t help but see yourself and your neighbour and your world completely new. Once that happens, you know that the only thing that matters is that love and that the only reality is grace. Once that happens, you can forgive because you are a new creation; and, therefore, you see everyone else as a new creation.

The hard truth is that we cannot earn this gift nor can we achieve it. It’s a gift. All we have to do is open up a little and God does the rest. We need faith the size of a mustard seed; that is, we need a small crack in our lukewarm hearts and God will transform us.
When we think about how we can change the world, we always despair. But let us remember it’s not about us, it’s about God working through us. We can do little, but is there anything God cannot do? Our task is to pray for faith and to trust in the giver.

And the truth is, it doesn’t take much. A word, a touch, a gesture can cleanse our eyes. It only takes a faith the size of a mustard seed for God to transform us.

It’s a bit like Jesus was saying, “You want increased faith? Then keep being faithful. You get more faith, more conviction, more trust not by scrunching your eyes shut, trying to feel or believe something. More faith comes through faithful living. In the words of Nike, just do it. Your faith will be increased, not as a result of personal achievement, but as a gift of God.”

God gifts the Church with rituals, sacraments (like Communion), practices and habits that – in the mere doing – God graciously uses to increase our faith. Being a Christian is not simply believing the Apostle’s Creed; it is taking up a new way of life, and by choosing to live this way of life, we are brought closer to God, and our faith is increased.

I grew up in the church, and I remember really enjoying reciting the Lord’s Prayer with all the adults. I loved how they were able to say it in perfect unison, consonants all together. I had no idea what I was praying, but I said it, like you sing along to a song on your car radio.  In my big crisis of faith after the bushfires took our house, I remember talking to my minister about how they were just words that I had said ten thousand times, not meaning anything. Her advice: “just keep saying it. Eventually, they will come into your heart. Until then, we, the Church, will keep believing for you, until you are ready to believe it yourself.” And that is exactly what happened. There I was, one ordinary Sunday, praying the same prayer, and then suddenly, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done” just hit me. I was suddenly overcome with a willingness to let God’s will be done in my life, whether God’s will was easy or difficult. For the first time, I really meant it.

This reminds me of a blog post I read earlier this year, by a theologian called Rachel Held Evans, who wrote about what Holy Week might have been for many of you. Let me read it for you:

It will bother you off and on, like a rock in your shoe, 

Or it will startle you, like the first crash of thunder in a summer storm, 

Or it will lodge itself beneath your skin like a splinter, 

Or it will show up again—the uninvited guest whose heavy footsteps you’d recognize anywhere, appearing at your front door with a suitcase in hand at the worst. possible. time. 

Or it will pull you farther out to sea like rip tide, 

Or hold your head under as you drown— 

Triggered by an image, a question, something the pastor said, something that doesn’t add up, the unlikelihood of it all, the too-good-to-be-trueness of it, the way the lady in the thick perfume behind you sings “Up from the grave he arose!” with more confidence in the single line of a song than you’ve managed to muster in the past two years. 

And you’ll be sitting there in the dress you pulled out from the back of your closet, swallowing down the bread and wine, not believing a word of it. 

Not. A. Word. 

So you’ll fumble through those back pocket prayers—“help me in my unbelief!”—while everyone around you moves on to verse two, verse three, verse four without you. 

You will feel their eyes on you, and you will recognize the concern behind their cheery greetings: “We haven’t seen you here in a while! So good to have you back.” 

And you will know they are thinking exactly what you used to think about Easter Sunday Christians: 

Nominal. 

Lukewarm. 

Indifferent. 

But you won’t know how to explain that there is nothing nominal or lukewarm or indifferent about standing in this hurricane of questions every day and staring each one down until you’ve mustered all the bravery and fortitude and trust it takes to whisper just one of them out loud on the car ride home: 

“What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?” 

And you won’t know how to explain why, in that moment when the whisper rose out of your mouth like Jesus from the grave, you felt more alive and awake and resurrected than you have in ages because at least it was out, at least it was said, at least it wasn’t buried in your chest anymore, clawing for freedom. 

And, if you’re lucky, someone in the car will recognize the bravery of the act. If you’re lucky, there will be a moment of holy silence before someone wonders out loud if such a question might put a damper on Easter brunch. 

But if you’re not—if the question gets answered too quickly or if the silence goes on too long—please know you are not alone. 

There are other people signing words to hymns they’re not sure they believe today, other people digging out dresses from the backs of their closets today, other people ruining Easter brunch today, other people just showing up today. 

And sometimes, just showing up –  burial spices in hand –  is all it takes to witness a miracle. 

How does our faith increase? Turn up, do faith, pray prayers, sing songs – and watch and see what miracles God can do for you. In the words of Paul Kelly: from little things, big things grow. Thanks be to God, Amen.