Mustard Seed Faith

 

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 17:1-10                                                                 

October 2, 2022

Proper 22C                                                

Dear saints of our Savior~

          There’s no doubt about it; the theme for today is faith.  The prophet Habakkuk reminds us that the righteous shall live by faith.  St. Paul tells Timothy to fan into flame the faith he had been given, and to guard that faith carefully.  And right in the middle of a sermon from Jesus, the apostles exclaim, Lord, “Increase our faith!”  Jesus tells them that even a mustard seed-sized faith can do great things.

          Would you say that your faith is great, or small?  Is your faith strong and steadfast? Or weak and wobbly?  Donald Deffner who taught preaching at the Fort Wayne seminary tells the story of a woman who was known far and wide for her great faith.  She had endured all kinds of loss and tragedy and disappointment in her life.  And yet, her faith in Christ remained steadfast.  But whenever anyone would say something to her about her great faith, she would always respond by saying, “I don’t have a great faith.  My faith is just little—the size of a mustard seed.  I have but a little faith in my great Savior, Jesus Christ.”  Perhaps you have known someone like that.  I certainly have.

          In today’s Holy Gospel the apostles were feeling like their faith was too small, too weak, completely insufficient.  What got them to that point was Jesus.  Jesus was teaching them, giving them a heavy dose of the Law.  His first topic was temptation.  Temptations to sin are sure to come, Jesus said, but woe to the one through whom [those temptations] come.  Wherever there is faith, there are going to be stumbling blocks that trip people up.  Whether false teaching, false preaching, false hearing, false thinking, false religion, whatever.  The road of faith is always littered with potholes of temptation that threaten to twist your ankle and bring you down.

          But woe to those who are responsible for those pot holes.  Woe to those who would mislead the little ones who believe in Jesus to turn their eyes away from Him.  Woe to those who would rather entertain than proclaim the gospel.  Woe to those who choose to give those little ones what they want instead of giving them what they need.  Woe to those who would rather preach anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea.  That’s how seriously Jesus takes the faith of His little ones who trust in Him.

          Pay attention to yourselves! Jesus warns.  As surely as Jesus is risen from the dead, your faith will be challenged and tempted.  Likely sources of this temptation might be:  The teacher or professor who is deliberately determined to destroy the faith of his or her believing students.  The pastor who preaches on the dangers of global warming instead of the Gospel.  Your fellow Christian who causes you to doubt the power of your baptism, and who leads you to question the forgiveness of your sins, or the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.  Let’s be clear:  Jesus has zero-tolerance for those who try to weaken or destroy the faith of His little ones.

          With that stern warning still hanging in the air, Jesus lets loose with another bit of unvarnished truth sure to humble His hearers.  This time the topic is forgiveness:  If your brother sins, rebuke him.  Tell him he’s wrong.  Show him his fault.  Name the sin.  Bring it out into the open.  And do this for one reason:  Not for your own smug satisfaction and not to prove your spiritual superiority.  Do it for this reason:  If he repents, forgive him.  And—even if he sins against you and repents seven times in one day—you must forgive him.

          That’s a tall order!  Are you up to the challenge?  One time, of course, I forgive you.  Two times?  Probably.  Three times?  Well, okay.  But I think most of us operate by the three-strike rule.  Three strikes and you’re out.  That’s it.  But seven times in one day?  It’s much easier said than done; but frankly, I’m not sure who’s capable of doing it at all.

          Apparently the apostles felt the same way; because it was just at this point where the Twelve cried out to the Lord: Increase our faith!  They felt their faith was too small, too weak.  Increase our faith!  Super-size our faith!  But Jesus

declines to deal with faith in those terms.  Instead, He says, If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to a Mulberry tree ‘Go jump in Lake Michigan,’ and it would obey you.  Can you do that?  Do Mulberry trees take orders from you?  Perhaps your faith is even smaller than a mustard seed.

          This might be a good moment to clarify a few things about faith.  The Bible really describes faith in two ways.  First of all, there’s saving faith—trust in Jesus.  You either have that faith and the salvation that goes with it, or you don’t.  Saving faith is all or nothing.  God sees it and recognizes it even when we don’t.  In fact, we can’t.  Saving faith is all God’s doing in us—not our own doing; it is the gift of God, so that no one can boast.  But on the other hand, the Bible also describes faith as something we can perceive and feel—something that can been seen and heard that might cause others to sit up and take notice—something that might lead you to conclude, “She really has a great faith.”

          Martin Luther had a great way of teaching about the two ways faith is described in the Scriptures.  Luther was quick to point out that when God gives saving faith, He gives the same amount to you, me, and all believers.  The faith that God gave St. Paul—the faith that God gave Luther—that’s the same faith that God has given to you.  What they had, you have.  The difference is that we don’t believe it quite as firmly and fervently as they did.  Luther compared faith to holding a bag of money.  It’s the same amount of money regardless of who’s holding it.  The difference is in the hand that grasps it.  One hand may be strong and have a firm hold on the bag.  Another hand may be weak and shaky.  This means that when we pray with the apostles, “Lord, increase our faith,” what we’re really asking for is a firmer grip—a tighter hold—on the gospel promises of our gracious God.

          Faith is as great and as strong as the Savior to which it clings.  And even faith the size of a mustard seed clings to Jesus—with all of His devil-crushing, death-destroying, grave-opening, life-restoring power.  The righteous shall live by faith—by faith in the Jesus who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel—the Jesus who was crucified for our sins and raised again for our justification.

          And what happens when our grip on Jesus and His promises is strengthened?  Faith gets busy.  Faith gets to work.  Strong faith doesn’t lead a person to sit around like little Jack Horner who sat in a corner eating his Christmas pie only to declare, “What a good boy am I” or “What a big faith have I.”  Not at all.  Faith works.  The faithful are busy.  This is what Jesus had in mind with the short parable He told about the servants who are busy working all day and well into the evening before they sit down at the table.  Faith doesn’t kick back in some padded pew and say, “I ain’t gotta do nothin’.”  Even faith the size of a mustard seed is busy moving Mulberry trees, if that’s what the orders are. 

          But more likely than moving Mulberry trees, your faith leads you to the work of your vocations and callings in this life.  Here’s what great faith looks like among us:  Children obey their parents.  Husbands and wives love, honor, and forgive each other.  We speak the truth in love to those around us.  We forgive those who sin against us.  In those everyday relationships and conversations is where your great faith does great things.  And at the end of the day (or perhaps at the end of all of our days), we will simply say, We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.

          You don’t need to claim any credit for yourself because you’ve already been given the perfect record of Jesus.  His sinless life has been credited to you through faith.  Jesus made Himself the servant of all, doing the hard duty His Father had laid upon Him—all the way to Calvary’s cross.  “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  Still today He comes to serve you with faith and forgiveness, life and salvation.

          Your score in God’s grade-book couldn’t be any higher than it already is.  Why?  Because you’ve got faith—faith in Jesus Christ, given and sustained by the Holy Spirit.  Your grip on the gospel is tightening because the risen Christ has a firm grip on you.  It takes faith to believe that.  Thank God, He gives faith to believe just that. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.