NO FAITH REQUIRED
October 7, 2007
sermon given at St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, Washington
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
And the Lord replied, “If you had faith like a majestic Lebanon cedar …” No, that’s not right. The Lord replied, “If you had faith like a sturdy oak …” No, that’s not right. The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed …”
The mustard shrub is a weed. It’s hard to control, but it’s plentiful with seeds about a millimeter in length. Mustard grows very well in temperate climates. It is much in demand the world over, and the demand is easily met. In fact, mustard is so common that it’s been suggested as a potential source of biodiesel. And mustard isn’t the least bit glamorous, but my cheeseburger isn’t complete without it.
This morning, we heard Luke’s abbreviated parable of the mustard seed. We’d have to go to Matthew’s Gospel to hear the longer version, but we won’t. Instead, let’s stick with Luke and talk about what Jesus says next. He says that even if the apostles had the tiniest, least glamorous bit of faith, they could tell a mulberry tree to go jump in a lake, and it would do it! OK, that’s a bit bizarre, but we get the point: it doesn’t take much faith to make seemingly impossible things happen.
Then Jesus points out to his disciples that none of them would ever prepare dinner for a servant, would they? The servant would prepare the meal and then eat in the kitchen after cleaning up. This is the servant’s expected role. Do you, at your job, get special credit for following your job description to the letter? Probably not.
(It’s worth mentioning that the phrase we heard, “useless slaves,” may be better translated as “servants who have only done our duty.” And it’s worth speculating that Jesus might well ask a follow-up question to those who would not invite the servant to join them for dinner: “Well, why not?”)
But what do the servant—and the mustard seed—have to do with faith?
Well, as usual, I think it has to do with the disciples not “getting it.” Remember their original request: “Increase our faith!” And Jesus seems to be saying, “The amount of faith is not the issue. God will do what God will do. All God asks is that you do your job as well.”
Now there’s a thought. We don’t need to believe. Our faith will not change the world. But our work will.
Our first reading today is from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. In 586 B.C., the Babylonians destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and led the Jews into captivity. This was the first of two temple destructions that are so pivotal in Biblical history; the other happened shortly after Jesus, around the time the Gospels were being written. So the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which describe the immediate aftermath of the destruction, were just as relevant to the early Christians over six hundred years later.
And the language is bleak: “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! … all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.” Many ancient Jews believed that God literally lived in the Temple. So when the Temple was destroyed, what could that mean?
At the very least, Jeremiah had warned his people well in advance that they had turned away from God and were doing evil things. So maybe they had brought this calamity on themselves. Jeremiah, in his grief, could cry out, “Why didn’t you listen to me?” Can you imagine having faith in a time like this?
Psalm 137, which we sang with the choir, was written at this time. Beautiful and heartbreaking, it relates the experience of being in exile: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion” (that is, Jerusalem). The Babylonians saw the Jews as a novelty, a cultural oddity, and asked them to sing their curious native songs to entertain them. But, “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Can you imagine having faith in a time like this?
In today’s epistle, Timothy has apparently had a crisis of faith, enough for Paul to order him to rekindle the flame. Paul even seems to accuse Timothy of having been a coward! But he does it gently, urging Timothy not to be ashamed of his ministry. This sounds closer to our everyday experience than the fall of Jerusalem does. I can understand feeling like my work will require more courage than I am capable of.
Have you had a time like this? Has your world come crashing down around your ears? Have you been in exile, forbidden to do the things that give you life? Have you dreaded waking up in the morning because everything you knew was wrong, and you didn’t know how to proceed? Or maybe you’ve just felt blah about your life or doubted God’s existence. You may well have cried out, “God, increase my faith!” Yet, according to Jesus, faith is not the remedy.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about how one can go about becoming a Christian by looking at children. He writes: “They are always pretending to be grownups—playing soldiers, playing shop. But all the time, they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits, so that the pretence of being grown-up helps them to grow up in earnest.”
Similarly, he says, Christians play dress-up, putting on Christ, though God knows how ridiculous our efforts are. In our game of let’s-pretend-to-be-Jesus, Christ is actually there helping make it a reality. The faith we sorely want is simply our willingness to play the game of life and see what happens.
Did you know that the mustard seed shows up in Buddhism as well? A young mother named Gotami is driven mad by grief after the death of her young son. She goes to the Buddha and demands to know how her son can be brought back to life. The Buddha orders her to go from one house to another and retrieve a mustard seed from a family that has not been touched by death. Presuming that the Buddha plans to brew a remedy, she embarks on the hunt.
After searching and searching, Gotami realizes that she will never find such a seed; every house she visits has been touched by death. But in this realization, she comes to her right mind and moves past her crippling grief. She buries her son and joins a community of nuns to live a fulfilling spiritual life.
Counselors tell us that one of the best strategies for dealing with grief is to keep busy. And maybe that’s the prescription offered by both Jesus and the Buddha: Just do the work. In your quest, you may think that the elusive mustard seed of faith will fix the situation. But what if that seed doesn’t exist? What will you do then?
In the Babylonian exile, Jews and Babylonians began to marry each other. The Jews realized they were in danger of losing their identity. Carefully and deliberately, they began to record their oral tradition for posterity. Their hard work eventually became the Bible. Out of the tragic destruction of Jerusalem came Holy Scriptures that sustain Jews and Christians to this day.
Paul, in prison, could see what work Timothy was gifted at. And he urged Timothy, in all his despair, to continue spreading the Good News of Christ.
In his sermon last week, Jeff talked about the recently released journals of Mother Teresa, who apparently had not a “dark night of the soul,” but a “dark fifty years of the soul” in which she felt totally abandoned by God. Even in her despair, she went about saving the poor and helpless in Calcutta.
The author of Luke’s Gospel may have written in the wake of the second destruction of Jerusalem. The early Christians did their work at a time that was hazardous for Jews and Christian alike. This was Luke’s audience: despairing people who wanted Jesus to increase their faith. So let’s paraphrase Jesus: “If you have faith as ordinary and unglamorous as a mustard seed, you will be unstoppable. You’ll spread out everywhere. Life will be spicy! And the mustard you produce will sustain you, the few, as well as the many. So just do the work that needs to be done—no faith required.” Amen.