Year C

Luke 17:5-10

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Seeds of Faith

In 1993, a criminal psychiatrist, a determined attorney, and a private investigator team up in the movie Relentless: Mind of a Killer, to solve a baffling murder case involving criminal psychosis and obsession. Dr. Hellman, the psychiatrist, said this in the movie: “Life is the process of finding out too late what should have been obvious at the time.”How true and yet for those who live a life of faith, faith can help life come out differently. This is what Jesus has hoped the disciples have learned and will remember as they are traveling with him on his journey toward Jerusalem. The theme for our texts today is the power of remembering and holding fast to our hope in God’s saving faithfulness. Doing so, helps us to persevere and prevail in our faith especially during times of despair, in times that threaten our faith or the faith of the Christian community.

The Lamentations text today speaks of human despair and grief but oddly there is hope in the midst of suffering and defeat. The book of Lamentations is a collection of five short psalms or poems written during the time of the Babylonian exile. The reading today is a lament for Jerusalem in the wake of its destruction at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BCE. It speaks of a city as a bereaved, abandoned widow. Yet, the people did not despair, and later in the book, they developed a new trust in God as a ray of hope that shines into the darkness. The writer calls to mind the steadfast love of God that will abide with the city in the future as it has in the past. Our God is the One who is beyond our understanding, yet who stands with us. God’s steadfast love endures forever, new hope emerges through faith.

The hope of the Mustard Seed is what Jesus proclaims today in the gospel. The disciples have asked Jesus to increase their faith and he reminds them that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could do greater things than they can imagine. Matthew makes it even more dramatic in his gospel by promising the ability to move mountains. How cool would that be? In this section of Luke’s gospel, he has lumped together teachings of Jesus that are meant to give us a clearer picture of our role in God’s kingdom and our relationship with God’s grace, God’s love. Given the verses that precede this text we can understand why the disciples might ask for more faith. Jesus has just told them that being a disciple is more demanding than they can imagine and then he lays two heavy demands on them.

He warns them to not be a stumbling block to the “little ones” and to rebuke and forgive sins wherever among their own they are to be found. Even if they sin seven times a day, they are to be forgiven. They are accountable to one another. How can they live up to this? They sense their need for greater resources, they are worried they will not have enough faith to live out the expectation of forgiveness. and so they make their request to Jesus. Jesus says the faith of a mustard seed the smallest of all seeds is all that is needed. English theologian N. T. Wright compares it to looking through a window. It does not matter if you have a six-foot picture window or a peep hole, what matters is what you are looking out onto. If you see a God of love that is all you need to be able to forgive again. Seeing God even through a peep hole reminds the person that God has forgiven so much in them that they can find a way to offer forgiveness now.

Jesus reminds his disciples of what God has promised through the Holy Spirit. He isn’t implying that the disciples lack faith. They would not be with him if that were the case. They already have enough faith to get on with what they are being asked to do. Jesus is asking them to not think of faith in terms of quantity.“We didn’t believe hard enough or pray hard enough” It is not so much what we do or do not do, but what the limitless power of God does. Faith is always related to God, in Luke’s gospel and God’s actions in Jesus. It is openness to God to help live out our faith. If we live the faith that is in our hearts, belief will follow. This is why faith can be compared with something so minute as a mustard seed, and yet can accomplish astonishing things. This analogy is not about meager beginnings and immense conclusions but to the necessary presence of an open and trusting hope in God.

After Jesus uses the example of the mustard seed to say that faith is not about quantity, he tells this parable about a master and a slave to show them what he means. In our world today, it is difficult to hear Jesus speak this way about slavery. If however, we consider this story in the context of Jesus’ society in which some people would work as slaves for a period of time before being freed, we see that what Jesus is describing is a relationship. Does the servant deserve congratulations for doing their job or should they be rewarded for doing what is expected? This relationship Jesus is describing is a relationship where the master expects the servants to perform their duties, and the servants, in turn expect they will receive food, rest and protection when their work is done. We are given a most astonishing demonstration of this relationship of servant-hood, when Jesus knelt before each of his disciples on the night before he died and washed their feet.

To understand faith in this way is to understand it as a way of life; a faith that is to be lived out, an active faith sustaining the life of the disciple as a life of service to God. The text from 2 Timothy today speaks of God as saving and calling us for a purpose. God’s Spirit empowers us to respond to this call by the grace God gives us in Christ. Christ himself is the mustard seed.  He was small and insignificant in the eyes of the religious, political, and economic powers of his day. They got a Messiah easy to destroy with one small cross on a hill. Yet, he abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Faith the size of a mustard seed can move one small tree the size of a cross that moved the boundary of God’s mercy. Faith and love are in Christ, and he is in us.

A love that gives us the power of God to work through the crucified, risen one, to serve the vulnerable, to respond to others suffering. The status quo is not the way things are supposed to be or how they must remain. The gospel is power, not weakness. Mustard seed life,a life of hope and love is one where we can do greater things than we can imagine because God is at the center of our lives. It seems appropriate to end this sermon today with a quote from an extraordinary woman who left an extraordinary mustard seed footprint on this earth. The late Dr. Jane Goodall. She said, “Somehow we must keep hope alive-a hope that we can find a way to educate all, alleviate poverty, assuage anger, and live in harmony with the environment, with animals, and with each other.” May we seek to live “not to be served but to serve” all the days of our life because all it takes is a tiny seed of faith in Christ to love and serve God and our neighbor.