Stories Jesus Told: Mustard Seed Faith

Nov 16, 2014 by: Sam Hestorff| Series: Stories Jesus Told
Scripture: Luke 17:1–17:10

“Increase our faith” . . . seems like a reasonable request from the disciples. Doesn’t it?
I mean, Jesus has been pushing them pretty hard for the past couple of months. Ever since he turned and set his face to go to Jerusalem; toward the cross, toward his place of death, burial, and resurrection, things just haven’t been as fun and exciting as they were when they left their families and livelihood to follow this rabbi.
• They’re homeless. They’re walking all over the place and they don’t have good shoes. They have no idea what they’re going to eat from meal to meal.
• They’ve got all these people following them everywhere they go and they’ve all got needs.
• So, they’ve had to chose and train 72 more people to help them.
• And all along the way, Jesus has been arguing with lawyers.
• He’s constantly at odds with the religious leaders, and those who have power . . . people you just don’t mess with.
• And then he tells the disciples not to be anxious, not to worry, which I don't imagine was helpful by then.
• He’s been hanging out with sinners, prostitutes, beggars, Samaritans, sick people, and dead people.
• He casts out demons and heals a cripple . . . which further upsets the religious leaders.
• He tells a bunch of stories but no one really knows what he’s saying.
• He talks about this place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• And then he says, “I didn’t come to bring peace but division” . . . and the disciples are thinking, “well you’re doing a really good job at that”.
And now Jesus pulls the disciples to the side, this group of guys who have given up everything to follow him, and leaning in close he says, “Things will get hard.”
And they were like, “Yeah, you think?”
“Things will get hard but don't screw it up. It would be better for a big stone to be hung around your neck and you dropped into the sea than for you to cause someone to stumble . . . so you’d better watch yourselves.”
That’s comforting.
And then he goes on and says . . .”If someone sins, no matter what they do, seven times in a day, you have to turn back to them, and you HAVE to forgive them.”
This stuff is rocking their world . . . Jesus is turning everything upside down. No wonder they ask for their faith to be increased. They are exhausted! I am, just walking through what they have lived in these few months.
This kind of discipleship is demanding. It is painful. I mean, they didn’t get into this thing for the rewards; but secretly, deep down, they kind of hope for some kind of reward; something, anything.
So it doesn’t seem that they are making an unrealistic demand . . . they are simply asking for help.
“Jesus, give us the faith to do this better. You talk about being on guard, you talk about forgiveness . . . and we want to follow, we really do. But have you met us? All we do is mess things up. We’re not holy enough to do that. You’re gonna have to give us some kind of superpower or something if you expect us to live up to those standards.”
And Jesus' response, which at first feels painful, isn't quite as bad as it sounds.
He says, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed [which you do have], you could say to this tree ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you”
Have you ever seen a mustard seed? It’s really little.
What Jesus is saying is that even a tiny bit of authentic faith . . . which they already have . . . is more powerful than they can possibly imagine.
Even the small faith they already have cancels out words such as 'impossible' (a tree being uprooted) and 'absurd' (planting a tree in the sea) and puts them in touch with the power of God.
You see this story isn’t about helping them become better people so they can do the work of God. This story isn’t telling the disciples or us that we’d better step up our game.
This story, like all stories in scripture, is about God. It’s telling them and us that God is doing the work and our job is simply to trust, have faith . . . in what God is doing in this world through the work of Jesus.
And if you have faith in that . . . even the size of a mustard seed . . . a really, really tiny bit . . . you can do really, really huge things.
And saying that you need more faith before you can follow Jesus and join him in his work is a cop out.
Being a follower of Jesus, isn’t about collecting a huge amount of faith, or being super holier than everyone around you. It’s about doing the things God has placed in front of you.
So, Jesus starts talking about slaves.
Slaves don’t spend their time imagining what it’s like to not be a slave but instead they just do their jobs. They come in from working in the fields and dinner needed to be served. So they washed their hands and served dinner. And when it was over, they cleaned up. And the next day they got up and started again. They did their jobs.
Now, we could take issue with Jesus talking about slaves like this—he should have been saying that slavery was wrong! But then we’d be missing the point.
Jesus was answering the disciples’ complaint that they didn’t have enough faith to do what was being asked of them by saying: having faith is being faithful. That’s all.
Whatever is next, whatever is right in front of you, whatever you have to do, do it. That’s what being a faithful disciple means.
And I know there are times in life that make us feel vulnerable and scared and make us instinctively close in on ourselves, pull back, feel sure that we don’t have the faith it’s going to take to do the big, scary stuff.
And there are times we want to shake our fist at God and say “increase my faith because I can’t do it.”
But let us remember it's not about us, it's about God working through us.
Jesus is saying, It’s not your job to save the world . . . it’s mine. The work is being done . . . your job is simply to have faith (even as small as a mustard seed) and then find out what role you play in this work.
And when it seems too hard, do it anyway.
When you’re scared, keep going.
When there’s not enough light to see the path ahead; step forward into whatever light you can see.
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.

Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t take magical powers; it’s not for people way more spiritual than you or I are.  It’s for people like you and me, who are scared, unsure, fear-filled, doubters who somehow find the guts to keep doing the right thing; over and over, one little faithful step at a time.

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