Increase our faith!

A Sermon preached on October 2, 2022, at St. Augustine’s and St. Christoph

2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

The image of a mustard seed that Jesus uses in his first short parable seems quite appropriate for today’s Harvest Festival celebration! It is plant based and there is no better metaphor for growth than a mustard seed. It is very small after all (show) and as a plant can grow up to 5 ft/1,5m tall. Jesus clearly likes this image. He uses it twice in Luke’s Gospel and we find similar verses in Matthew and Mark as well. In Luke chapter 13:18-19 Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed “that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” There it stands for massive growth into a place that offers a home for many.

Here uses it to tell the disciples not to worry about the size of their faith, for if they had faith only the size of a mustard seed, they could still tell a mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, (Luke 17:6) and it would obey them; or in the perhaps more familiar version from Matthew (17:20) they could tell a mountain to move from here to there! In both cases it’s actually not just a mulberry bush or a mountain, but this bush or this mountain, so Jesus using something right next to him as an illustration. Perhaps he used the same metaphor on more than one occasion – the disciples could be pretty obtuse at times! In both cases it stands for something that sounds ridiculous or impossible, so his purpose is to emphasise the unlimited power and potential of faith.

In this morning’s Gospel, the disciples had asked Jesus to “increase our faith.” (17:5) Why? Well Jesus had just warned them not to be a cause for others to sin, to stumble, not to lead them astray and to be ready to forgive again and again, whether seven times a day or seventy times seven. They were worried that they might not be the good example that was called for. They thought great faith would be needed to be so forgiving. But if the disciples thought that Jesus would magically transform them, they would have been disappointed. Jesus is concerned not about faith's volume but simply about its presence. God can work with even a little faith, is his message. “You do not need great faith, but faith in a great God,” is how Tom Wright summarises this teaching. The disciple's and our main responsibility are to trust God, to apply what we have and watch it work in the world, growing and transforming.

The second parable also has an agricultural setting. The slave works on a farm, either ploughing or tending sheep. As it stands, as it is written it could simply be a reminder that we are the Lord’s servants: “Who among you would say to your slave . . . ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’?” (17:7) It reminds us that we serve God not for reward, not to put God in our debt, but because God deserves our humble service as our Creator and Redeemer: “We are worthless (or “just”) slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” (17:10) We find similar sayings in the Jewish Mishna, the written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that began when the gospels were being written, for example: “Be not like slaves that serve their master for the sake of a reward.” (Avot 3)

But it is always good to look below the surface. Again, and again Jesus invites those who do not deserve it to sit at the table, to join him for a meal. In John’s Gospel (John 13), he - their teacher and Lord – washes the disciples’ feet. “Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them,” (13:16) Jesus says, but is still willing to act as a servant. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many,” is what we hear in Matthew’s Gospel (20:28) By reminding us of the way of the world, this little parable helps us to see how outrageous is the service rendered by the servant king. And let us not forget that our Lord invites us to a meal each week, long before we finish our tasks, when we gather at the Lord’s Table to share in the bread and wine made holy.

And what about the work that we are called to do? If we turn back to the parable, we read that when the slave is finished with his work in the field, he gets given more work – cooking and serving food. So, when we come in from doing something for God, we should not expect a reward, but only more work? With a sales pitch like this, it is a wonder that anyone ever followed Jesus. But it is true. The work of God, the work of transformation of self and of the world, as we build the kingdom of God is never done. And we do not serve God and others for the thanks we get. We serve others, just as Jesus did, because that is the abundant life God calls us to, and we benefit more than the people we help. Through our service we will grow in faith and love. And there is no need for a reward because, as we heard in the Letter to Timothy, we rely on the “power of God who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.” (2 Timothy 1:9)

Our two parables today are about contrasts. Our faith is small, as small as a mustard seed, but we are still capable of great works with God’s help. And we are nothing in comparison to God, sinful and “worthless slaves,” yet in God’s eyes we are of infinite worth and value and loved more than we can ever love back.

Amen.