Lectionary 27C/ Proper 22

Luke 17:5-10

For all of us who were in school before the internet and search engines like Google, John Bartlett’s “Book of Familiar Quotations” was a standard reference where you could find well-known sayings from Scripture and from poets, authors and politicians. You didn’t have to know the whole quote, just a keyword or phrase or perhaps whose words they were.

Today’s gospel reads a little like an entry in Bartlett’s. The first ten verses of this chapter are a collection of seemingly unrelated sayings of Jesus, first about forgiveness and then about faith and then about servanthood.

Instead of trying to find a thread that connects the different themes, I’m going to focus on verses five and six where Jesus and the disciples are talking about faith.

The disciples have been traveling with Jesus and listening, as we have, to his parables and watching how he responds to the people around him. And after another series of hard teachings, the apostles say to him, “Lord, increase our faith!” They plead with Jesus to add to what’s there or give them more of this thing called faith.

It’s something every one of us probably has said at some point in our lives. “Lord, increase our faith.” Because we fall captive to the lie that the answer to whatever challenge we face is located in being more or having more.

Jesus rebukes the disciples and that way of thinking.

Faith isn’t an object or an asset that can be measured or quantified in ounces or pounds, square feet or acres.

I had the privilege on Friday of listening to Pastor CeCee Mills speak in Durham. Pastor CeCee is the new Associate Director for Evangelical Mission in the North Carolina Synod. And she was talking about ministry in small congregations. Or rather, given that 80% of ELCA congregations now have fewer than 100 people in worship on an average Sunday, she was talking about ministry in our churches today.

And one of the first things she asked us to do was to define the word “small.” I’m going to ask you to do the same thing. Not out loud and I won’t ask you to write it down, but take a minute to think, if you were going to look up the word “small” in Webster’s Dictionary, or on Google, what would it say?

And now, I’m going to ask you to listen, and pay attention to how you react, what emotions you feel and what adjectives come to mind, when you hear the following:

small car              big car

small house         big house

small tumor        big tumor

small church       big church

small group         big group

small debt            big debt

What are the associations you made?

Efficient, nimble, precious, intimate and visible were some of the words we used to describe the small things she named.

Through our conversation with Pastor CeCee, we recognized the lie that says, “bigger is always better.”

With his rebuke, Jesus tells the apostles, “You are worried about the wrong things.”

Earlier in Luke, Jesus had described the kingdom of heaven as a mustard seed that was sown into the ground and became a tree where birds could nest. (13:18-19) And here in our gospel text, Jesus describes the power of faith as a mustard seed. (17:6)

In our humanity, we think the kingdom of heaven is more visible when the church is big and boisterous and there are more people in worship, but Jesus says, “Listen, you are paying attention to the wrong things.”

In our humanity, we think faith must be big and boisterous to be any good at all, but often the Spirit of God comes upon us as a breath or even a whisper. (Ezekiel 37, Isaiah 29)

And the Lord says to us, as he did to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”[i]

Faith is surrendering ourselves to God, admitting our weakness and our dependence upon God in all things.

Four times in Luke leading up to this exchange with his apostles, Jesus bore witness to the power of faith active in the lives of the people he meets.

First, he encounters the friends of the man who cut a hole in the roof of a building to lower their paralyzed friend down to him. Luke tells us, “When [Jesus] saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you." (Luke 5:20)

Next the centurion whose slave is sick sends friends to Jesus and when he receives the soldier’s message through them, he says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And the slave was healed. (Luke 7:9)

Then dining at a Pharisee’s house, Jesus defends a woman who bathes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair and anoints them with perfume, saying to her, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (7:38 - 50)

And finally, Jesus is on the street when the woman who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years touches the hem of his cloak, and he tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace." (8:43-48)

“Faith is putting our trust in God, in life and in death.”[ii]

However, it is important to say out loud that these verses have caused harm at bedsides and in exam rooms and emergency rooms when doctors have explained a difficult diagnosis or condition and someone has responded, “If you have enough faith, they’ll be cured.” Faith isn’t a magic charm or potion that can promise a cure or prevent death.

In Martin Luther’s “Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans”, he writes:

Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.[iii]

When we are afraid, the Good News is that the answer is not found in getting more. God’s grace is sufficient. God’s promise that we have life in Christ and power in the Holy Spirit sustains us and God provides for us all that we need.

Thanks be to God.

[i] 2 Corinthians 12:9
[ii] Bishop Mike Rinehart. https://bishopmike.com/2019/09/29/pentecost-17c-proper-22c-lectionary-27c-october-6-2019/, accessed 10/1/2019.
[iii] Martin Luther. “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” http://www.projectwittenberg.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt, accessed, 10/5/2019.