Sermon

I keep telling my flute students, faster is not necessarily better.  Louder is not always better.  First one to the end of the song doesn't win.  But with so much of life as a competition where we get our dopamine hits from winning or being first or best or at the head of the line, it's a tough lesson to get across.  So much of learning includes getting faster, getting louder, as part of learning just some of the many musical ideas and abilities that any student will gain over time.  When my youngest students hear my oldest students playing really fast, the younger ones naturally want to strive for the thing that impresses them about the oldest.  I'm impressed with fast too! Key of course, is that playing fast music isn't what makes them good and isn't what defines good.  Playing fast is just one of the things the older students can do.  Fast and loud are skills, but not always the goal.

Even the biblical parable about the mustard seed plays into our “more is better” mentality if we're not careful.  A mustard seed, we learn from Matthew 13, is “the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”  

One teaching from this is not to be discouraged about being small because one day that small thing will be big and then it will be of value to others.  We have to make sure that isn't the only lesson we can glean from the first mention of a mustard seed in Matthew.  There is nothing wrong with being small, and being big is not the only goal to have.  In the original context of this particular Matthew quote Jesus was teaching about how much more grand the kingdom of heaven was, than the disciples could imagine.  In the context of Matthew 13, the mustard seed is used as a definition, without a value judgment implied.

In Matthew 17, we read another story about a mustard seed, perhaps familiar to us.  A man suffering greatly is brought before Jesus to be healed because the disciples were not capable of bringing about healing.

Matthew 17 15-25

…and said, 'Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water.  And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.  Jesus answered, 'You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.'  And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it* came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, 'Why could we not cast it out?' He said to them, 'Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a* mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.'

In this context, Jesus' first response is one of exasperation, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you?  How much longer must I put up with you?”  In this context, Jesus' mention of little faith is an admonishment.  “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a* mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.'*

Jesus puts the blame for the lack of healing on the disciples and then scolds them for having so little faith.  A man was made to continue to suffer because the disciples were not enough.  Think of the guilt and shame that would come with that, if that is what we took home from our lessons about the mustard seed.  Something bad happened to someone else.  You could have fixed it but suffering happened because you lacked what you were supposed to have.  If you were enough, not only could you have healed the man, but you would even be able to move the earth itself, and move this mountain from here to there.  

And similarly, any suffering in our lives is because we don't pray enough; go to church enough; love God enough; say the right words the right way in churches;  And if our lives are going well, we can assume that we're doing everything that God wants us to do.  This transactional nature of God, Jesus, church, faith that works so well with our belief that faster, bigger, best, first is always better, is just not the way God works.  In this second example of the mustard seed parable, there is absolutely a judgment being passed along.  Jesus the exasperated teacher saying, “no, no no!  Faith will enable you to do so much more!” implying that with more faith the disciples would have more power.  

How does the Luke text for today compare to that of Matthew?  Jesus is helping the disciples understand what it means to be a disciple.  One lesson to learn is that of forgiveness.  The lines just before today's reading tell of Jesus explaining that no one is perfect, and stumbling and falling will happen.  There's no fault in stumbling, but a disciple should never be the reason that someone stumbled.  In v. 1, we read, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come!”  As a disciple when someone wrongs us, we should reproach the wrong doing, and if there is repentance we must forgive.  Even if the stumbling continues, if there is repentance we must forgive every time.  Even seven times.  Even seven times seven, times.  The disciples respond not with a question but with a cry, “Increase our faith!”  We need more faith if we are going to have to forgive those who wrong us, and forgive them again and again.  They don't want power as is suggested in the Matthew parable, but they want personal inner strength.  That's a lot to ask – give me the strength to do that!  But faith is not something that we can fill a bucket with, and measure the quantity in numbers of barrels.  Jesus doesn't suggest they need more faith and admonish them for not having enough, being enough, he encourages them – “If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'be uprooted and planted in the sea' and it would obey you.”  Jesus is not saying you and your faith are as the tiny as the mustard seed and therefore unable to do hard things.  Jesus is saying even if your faith is tiny, faith is such that even that is enough to move this mulberry tree.  What you have is enough.  “You already have the faith you need.  Now fulfill its purpose; live it.”

This isn't a lesson about having the right quantity or quality of faith, or how much power faith will give us; it's a lesson about how much power faith has that we can then use.  As difficult as it may be to be a disciple and fulfill our calling for, in this case, forgiving one who has stumbled, over and over again – by having faith at all, we are already prepared for the task.  We can do the difficult thing required of us because our faith is powerful – it is not we who are powerful – it is the power of our faith.

That's the good news.  The less than stellar news is that we're not going to get any kudos for it.  Forgiveness is what is required of us.  It's not an extra.  It's not above and beyond any expectations.  No extra credit; no fireworks; no God-sent “atta-boys.”  It's what is required.

In the social system acceptable in the day, a slave and a master have a relationship to one another based on mutual accountability and expectations.1 “The master expects the servants to perform their duties, and the servants in turn, expect that when their work is done, they will receive nourishment and rest and protection.”

It's this relationship that Jesus wants to highlight, not the slavery.  Discipleship is servant work, not the work of power.  Just as the servant does not expect to be invited to a special place at the master's table just for doing the daily tasks, a disciple does not expect glory for doing only what is expected, even if it is the thing that is difficult to do.  

In an orchestra, everyone is expected to play their part to a superb level.  At the end of a piece, no one gets a solo bow just for doing something great.  Most of you here have been to the symphony and other professional arts performances – even after the most phenomenal performances, everyone gets lifted up.  Solo bows, those chances to send extra appreciation to a select one or group, are not the norm.

There are no awards, medals, ribbons, extra applause, for being a Christian and forgiving one who stumbles.  There are no special treats for those who treat others as they would like to be treated themselves; or who feed the hungry, help the poor, visit the prisoner, treat others with dignity and respect, live life with a generous spirit.  Whenever any of that seems daunting or is difficult  or even impossible, we are called to try anyway – and look to our faith to be the strength we need.

Let us pray…

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1 Kimberly Bracken Long, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, p.142