Saugatuck Congregational Church
©Ms. Linda Bruce, Member in Discernment
October 2, 2016
Scriptures: Lamentations 3:19-26 & Luke 17:5-10
From this reading, it seems to me that is hard being a follower of Christ. The disciples cried, “INCREASE OUR FAITH!” “If we had more faith, it would be easier to be faithful!” What? Is this some sort of transactional God? Let’s go to the ATM and take a withdrawal from the Faith Bank. Or rather, “God, put a deposit into our account!!” Then, when we have more, we can do the things that are ours to do.
I remember when the kids were little and I said I didn’t have any money. We couldn’t buy whatever it was someone wanted. The response was, “Don’t worry mommy, not a problem; we can just go to the bank and buy some money,” Huh? The child does not understand how the money got there. We just needed to buy it back from the bank. Guess, what kiddos, the money was there because we put in there in the first place. It’s already there, just not accessible at the moment.
What about the disciples’ faith? Not enough? Too small? Or just not accessible? I think it turns out to be not accessible. Jesus tells us, if you have the smallest faith, the size of a mustard seed,
you will be able to do miracles. You will be able to move, maybe not mountains, but in the Luke passage: trees. What’s that all about? In the context of ancient Jerusalem, the mustard seed was one of the smallest seeds, if not the smallest. But that seed could sprout and grow and grow very large to harbor birds. Accordingly, the birds could eat the mulberries, fly away and yes, do their business far and wide, including into the sea and thus mulberry trees would be propagated.
But, as is usually the case with Jesus’ sayings, the disciples are scratching their heads thinking, “We don’t get it!” “Jesus, are asking too much of us!” And to understand this, it makes sense to go back to a couple verses prior to today’s passage. Jesus tells his disciples, “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”No wonder why, in verse five, the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Can you imagine? Forgiving someone seven times in a day! Maybe the disciples are thinking, “Sure, two or three times; but seven times!?” “I need more faith!” For me personally, I’m pretty uncomfortable with this forgiveness business. It doesn’t seem like the sinner is truly repenting if he keeps on repeating his action! What am I supposed to do with that? I would struggle with this type of literal forgiveness requirement.
What does Jesus reply? Jesus says, Do what you can do. Do what you ought to do. What your heart is capable of doing. The true message is not necessarily the literal message of the particular verse; rather we are called to be forgiving people. And we have faith enough to do what we need to do.
My own faith story with Saugatuck Church is all about the mustard seed. I had been teaching Sunday school for a number of years and never joined the church. Marty McMane and Alan Johnson were the ministers. I attended several potential new members getting to know you sessions and social activities. I met with Marty to go over the covenant, promises and affirmations that a new member would make before and with the congregation. The “only” problem I had was the language around my relationship with Jesus. Kind of a key fundamental point! It was Marty who looked me in the eye and said, “If you have this: a thoughtful intention, a wondering about Jesus Christ, a questioning, even if only the size of a mustard seed, and you can let that rest upon your heart, you should join Saugatuck.” And so I did. And here I am what, twenty years later, still growing in faith.
So, it’s not what we do if more faith is given to us. It’s what we do with the faith we have. Moreover, it’s not something that’s given to us; it’s something that grows. It grows in us. We grow into authentic faith. And faith transforms us, so that we do what we ought to do for others. We work together in community to extend extravagant welcome, to be a servant church, to address issues of injustice. It’s hard sometimes to address all the issues with which we are faced. We are very uncomfortable. We don’t have the answers! And I think that was going on with the disciples. They were uncomfortable with their own shortcomings and perhaps trying to do too much to compensate. To cover up vulnerabilities. They were looking in the wrong places for what they already had inside.
Funny how we resist doing what we know we should, could, or ought to be doing, because we think we are in charge! Not the case friends. And not the case disciples! More faith won’t give us greater power! We’re not the master, we are the servants. It is God’s love and our faithfulness to accepting that love that transforms us. It’s a mistake to think that when we do what is ours to do is some sort of proof of our faithfulness or worthiness and thus a ticket to a life everlasting.
It’s not that kind of transaction. In fact, it’s not transactional at all. It’s all about our relationship with God. Because of our faith, and those seeds of faith, we are being transformed by and through God’s love and support and thus we are able to give love. With love in our hearts, we are able to go out and do what we ought to do. That’s it.
You may be thinking, “Well, that’s all well and good, but what about all the suffering and sadness I see around me?” I believe it’s an act of faithfulness that we hold on to hope. It is a particular kind of hope that we are called to offer. I came across a powerful poem this week in my sermon preparations and I would like to share it with you:
The Gates of Hope—A Poem by Reverend Victoria Safford, White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church, Mahtomedi, Minnesota
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.
In Rev. Safford’s poem, I am drawn to what I would call a core faith, the mustard seed, and let me repeat those verses: “The place of truth-telling about your own soul first of all and its condition. The place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be; as it will be.”
Truth telling; being faithful to the truth and what we ought to do; a true accounting of being faithful to our own gifts and to be intentionally aware of the needs around us. To take your place at the table is to join a community to hold hope through suffering where we faithfully seek those places where our personal and community gifts intersect the needs of those around us.
Truth telling also involves showing up; taking our place at the table with our whole selves,
including our vulnerable parts, the places where that mustard seed has yet to sprout, maintaining faithfulness to our formation, trusting the process of our spiritual growth.
Faithful that the seed will sprout as we learn to take chances. To take leaps of faith. Sometimes the greatest discomfort occurs when we are taking that first step to try something new. The bigger the step, the greater the discomfort and the greater the need for faith. Yet it is not necessarily our faith in Christ alone that sees us through, rather God’s faithfulness to us that serves as our safety net.
So say yes, take your place with courage and faith. Show up as your whole self and let’s stand together at the gates of hope.
Scriptures
Lamentations 3:19-26 – New International Version (NIV)
19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
Luke 17:5-10 – New International Version (NIV)
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. 7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”