Increasing our faith bit by bit

It’s that time of year, when your phone rings and you pull out it out of your pocket and… it is someone doing a survey. I don't know about you but sometimes I just hang up… sometimes I bite and answer the question.

Well, I don’t think that Survey Monkey has anything to worry about, but I want to do my own unscientific survey. Right here. Right now. Here’s what we’ll do: Using a scale from this small (finger and thumb close together) to this big (arms wide apart) answer these questions: 1. How much faith do you want? 2. How much faith do you have? 3. How much faith do you think you need?

Well, you’re not alone. Jesus’ disciples felt like they needed an infusion of some faith because they are feeling, well, a little overwhelmed.

In this second of three parts of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is journeying towards Jerusalem. On the way, Jesus teaches the life of discipleship—about how to do and learn God’s work. Jesus talks about hospitality, welcoming and helping strangers, visiting prisoners. He talks about finding lost coins, seeking lost sheep and tells stories about prodigal sons, the rich man and Lazarus, and dishonest managers. Then he really lays it on in Chapter 17, which we heard today, by saying if you cause anyone to sin, you may as well be wearing cement overshoes and sleeping with the fishes! Jesus says you must forgive those who sin seven times a day…and that’s just for starters! Look how Jesus is often startled by his disciples lack of faith. We hear him say “You have such little faith?” more than once. “Where is your faith?” he asks on the stormy sea.

Whew! Is it any wonder the disciples cry out, “Increase our faith?” I mean with every passing step and every new parable, they see the job getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

It is a familiar cry. Whenever the church is faced with challenges, we say we need more: we need more resources, we need more planning, we need more people! The job is so big, this Gospel ministry we’ve been called to, it naturally seems as if we need more, more, more of everything before we can possibly do what Jesus calls us to do!

So, all we all know just how the disciples are feeling. We feel like we could do more if only we had our act together. We put off leading Bible study until we know more about the Bible. Or we put off increasing our pledge until we are making just a bit more money. Just tap into those feelings of “need more” before listening to Jesus’ response.

I am reminded of a cartoon I saw in the New Yorker. It shows a man crawling through the blazing hot desert past one glass of water after another. He says, “Half empty. Half empty. Half empty.”

Jesus’ response to his disciples cry for more faith is to tell us that you do not need to increase your faith. All you just need is the tiniest bit of faith imaginable. You don’t need this much (arms wide), you only need this much (finger and thumb close together.) A grain of mustard seed’s worth of faith can empower you to do great things.

Our catechism in the Book of Common Prayer tells us that we are to bear witness to Christ wherever we may be, and “according to the gifts given us, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.” This is the definition of lay ministry in the church. For this we were baptized.

Even so, there are days when we feel overwhelmed. There is so much more to do and it seems like there is so little of us. In today’s epistle, I think that Paul’s disciple Timothy was having one of those days…or weeks…and that prompted Paul to write a letter to his friend. Once Timothy was Paul’s scribe, his servant, his assistant. Now Paul is in jail and Timothy is out there doing the work that Paul started: planting new Christian communities and teaching the members about the faith. He is feeling a little overwhelmed. He is asking “give me more faith.”

Paul tells him some of the things he can rely on to deepen his faith: rest on the traditions he received; look to the examples of others he knows whose faith bore them up when things were tough; stick to the teachings and patterns of the Church.

And this is why I so appreciate our Prayer Book tradition. When I have run out of steam, when I find that I have no words to pray, I find the gift of the prayer book, the rhythm of prayer it sets out, reminds me that the rest of the church is praying if not the very same words at least something very close. I don’t have to make it all up and I am not alone.

I don’t know about you but knowing that I don’t have to invent it or make it up as I go. It is good to know that I am somehow surrounded by not only the saints living and dead, but also the prayers of all those people who read the Daily Office, who read Forward Day-by-Day, or who say a little prayer before their meals, or who also set out and do the work of God in their homes, their jobs, their schools and in the church—this is a real source of comfort and strength.

Jesus hears that we want this much faith, and he knows that we feel as if we only have this much. With all the pain and brokenness out there, it can all seem pretty overwhelming. But Jesus reminds us to watch out for those mustard seeds. The way we grow our faith in bit by bit by bit. 

I am no gardener, but I do know that there are some plants that once you set them loose in a garden, they take over everything. Mustard, they tell me, is one of those plants. You may have one tiny seed, but plant it in the right place and soon you don’t have one mustard plant. You have mustard plants everywhere.

Jesus is saying we could, with just a little faith, we can do the work of restoring one another and all of creation into unity God and each other in Christ. Jesus is saying that with even the smallest of starts, even as little as this (fingers close together) we can (and do!) transform and change the world.

Bit by bit by bit.

Trust what you have – what you have been given. Trust what you have to give. It is more than enough. You can uproot trees. You can move mountains. The lame will walk, the blind will see. Loaves multiply so there’s enough to feed everyone. As you sow, you shall receive. As you follow Christ, you will begin to lead. If only you have faith as small as a mustard seed.

And allow your faith to grow... bit by bit by bit.

I don’t need to do a survey… All this week, I have been watching ordinary, workaday Christians doing amazing acts of charity and care and love. I’ve seen people checking in on neighbors, friends, and fellow St. John's parishioners before, during and after the storm this week. Along with your friends at Good Neighbors, we'll fill up a van full of  bottled water, food, and household supplies, and we'll take it to our neighbors and partners at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, just a short distance from here. They are filling up a U-Haul truck with supplies going to Naples and not just from us but folks from St. Alfred's and other Episcopal churches in our Deanery plus other churches and synagogues in our neighborhood are joining in. And the wider church and faith community are doing their part, too. Episcopal Relief and Development, Lutheran Social Services, and Church World Service are all on the ground in the areas hit by the Hurricane, not just in Florida, but in South Carolina, and all along the Atlantic Coast, just as they were there after Hurricane Fiona after it hit Puerto Rico and other places in the Caribbean.

The funny thing is that most of the folks I saw doing these ordinary acts of service may or may not have been conscious of their faith at work, but there it was. It may have seemed this small to them, it might have seemed pretty ordinary; just fit into a busy schedule (as in "I'm already at the store, let me pick up an extra case of water to take to church....") From that angle, it might have looked like a teeny tiny bit... but it looked this big to me! And this is how the reign of God is built, bit by graceful bit by generous bit.

So here’s the question: How much faith do you have? Probably more than you think!

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Here is a link to the bulletin for the Seventeen Sunday after Pentecost  at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.