The Miracle Mustard Seed: Luke 17:5-10 - Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” ⁶The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
  ⁷“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? ⁸Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? ⁹Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ” (NRSV)

Mustard Seed Macro by Laurence Cymet on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

Earlier this week, I attended the Future Forward Churches at Amplify Church in Plum.

Amplify is the epitome of a megachurch—with a state-of-the art sanctuary with theater seating, professional musicians, a coffee shop, a youth theater, numerous paid staff, programs for every age, need, and interest, and satellite campuses all over the Greater Pittsburgh area.

This church is effectively attracting young generations and bringing them into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Yet I find even the concept of a megachurch intimidating—and I get nervous as I see them popping up all over the place.  Why can’t we be like them? What are they doing right that we’re doing wrong? Are churches like ours heading for extinction?

Does bigger really mean better?

As 21^st century Americans, we are culturally conditioned to think big, dream big, and live big. Bigness is the American way—that’s why we eat double cheeseburgers and drink “Big Gulp” soft drinks. It’s why you shop at Big Lots, Giant Eagle, and Super Walmart. (Apparently “Big Kmart” isn’t big enough anymore.) We fly on jumbo jets and drive on super-highways. Our heroes are Superman and Wonder Woman—and we watch them at IMAX theaters and on large-screen TVs.

When it comes to God, we think big—as we should. God is Almighty and All-Powerful; the creator of the universe; all-knowing and all-loving. Yet we automatically associate bigness and strength and might with God. If a Church is big, then God is there. If someone is happy, healthy, and prosperous, they must be favored by God. When it comes to races, rulers, and nations, might makes right. God made the strong and powerful to dominate the weak.

And if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you should be able to move mountains and mulberry trees. Jesus said so.

But is this why we ask Jesus to increase our faith? What if God doesn’t want that mountain or mulberry tree to be moved?

Given our propensity to think big about everything, Jesus is challenging us to think smaller today. Mustard seeds are so small that you season food with them. Drop one on the floor and you’ll never find it. But in the same way that you cannot MAKE a mustard seed, you cannot CREATE faith—no matter how miniscule it may be.

Faith is God’s work in you. It’s not something you create in yourself.

Just consider this: God gave baby Sylvia faith at her baptism. She can’t speak, she can’t read, she can’t walk—and I’m fairly certain she won’t be moving any mountains or mulberry trees today. But God planted faith in her, like a seed. Even now, God is acting through that faith. She is magnifying the power and the presence of God. She is proclaiming the love of God. She is doing the work of God. All the while she is held in the arms of her parents.

What this means is that before you can think big of God, you must think small. Before you think big about our church, you must think small. Before you think big about faith, you must think small.

That’s difficult, considering Jesus’ uncharacteristically harsh parable. There’s no gratitude and no rewards for the slaves having done what they were supposed to do. “We are worthless slaves,” they cry, “we have done only what we ought to have done!” I’m reminded of the basic human tendency to do only as little as it takes to get by. We call that adequacy and sufficiency. But this is America—and we think big. We venerate the overachievers; the workaholics, the risk-takers. Before you know it, the great becomes the enemy of the good.

The biggest problem for today’s Christian isn’t the lack of big faith and big works; it’s the lack basic faith practices and works.

As a congregation, our opportunities for growth have nothing to do with organizing more programs and activities. We’re doing that better than most congregations three and four times our size—and to God be the glory! It’s the basics where we need to grow: daily prayer, biblical literacy, nurturing relationships with each other, tending to those who are absent; sharing God’s love in the mission field of everyday life. These are the mustard seeds that grow into a vibrant faith.

Truth is, most of God’s works in your day-to-day life will begin as mustard seeds. If you’re not regularly connecting to God, you won’t notice them. Your faith will grow stagnant. That’s a shame—because even when God works in small ways, those sprout and grow. The seeds God sows even today may change your life and change the world in big ways.

Think about all the hurting people all around us… You can’t make all their problems go away. I don’t care how strong your faith is. But what if you seasoned their day with a few mustard seeds of grace? What if you found one little thing you could do well to serve someone who’s having a bad day, who’s panhandling on the street, or who doesn’t know Jesus Christ? Is there one thing you can do well to lift up the sick and homebound in our church? To show young people how much they matter to God? What if you took that one thing and did it as often as you could?

Mustard seeds have a way of becoming miracles. God’s mustard seeds, sown even in the wretched soil of this troubled world, grow into peace, healing, and resurrection—and slowly, but surely, the mountains of hopelessness, hunger, and despair vanish amid the flourishing Kingdom of God.

Because, of course, Jesus will increase your faith—but with mustard seeds of grace. Anything that God begins, however small, will flourish.