Luke 17:5-10 - Living Faithfully

Luke 17:5-10

This morning’s passage begins with the disciples asking Jesus to, “Increase our faith!  This simple phrase can be heard at least two ways.

I want more! - A plea for something worth having.

Give me more! - A demand for something valuable.

I am not sure the disciples motivation here. Are they are begging Jesus to give them more of something they feel they are lacking like a runner who has just finished a long race begging for water? Or are they are making a demand of Jesus, like a child demanding more sweets.

But either way, whether it is water or sweets, I am not sure this is good or valid question for the disciples to be asking Jesus. Faith is not quantitative. Faith is not a thing; like apples that you can have more of. It is not something you can grasp a hold of, or gather together. It is not something you can own, not something you can hold in your hand and therefore have in your possession. It cannot be measured; it does not have mass or volume, a cup of faith, a cubic liter of faith, a ten pound bag of premium quality faith. So how do you quantify something you can’t count? How do you know how much you have. If you cannot determine how much you have, how do you know if you have more. . . or less? Does faith even work that way?

Can faith be doled out in easy portion sizes until you feel you have enough, or withheld; each person rationed only to the amount they deserve, or  to which they are entitled. Yet the here the disciples are coming to Jesus, “Increase our faith.”

Jesus by passes any questions about whether this is even possible and tell them, a mustard seed of faith can command a mulberry tree get up and move into the sea. Now a mustard seed is small. It is inconsequential. In fact people in the Middle East did not like mustard seeds, they were like dandelion seeds, you don’t plant them; you don’t spread them around. Nobody wants a yard full of dandelions and nobody wants a yard full of mustard bushes. But if you have a despised mustard seed, a tiny yet unwanted dandelion seed of faith, trees can move to the sea.

Removing a tree is hard. Have you ever tried to remove a tree or even a stump from a yard? It takes a lot of force to uproot a tree. A healthy tree does not simply come out of the ground easily. So what uproots trees?  Tornados, hurricanes, high winds, powerful storms, people with machinery, with trucks, cables and wenches.

Do you remember when we had the bushes removed from in front of the church? It took several men, and a wench attached to a truck, all day to take out four bushes. It takes a powerful force to move a tree. Faith is that kind of powerful force. But it is not simply the force it takes to uproot a tree, but faith has that kind of force, the kind of power that can cause a tree to transplant itself . . . into the ocean.

When Jesus is confronted by the disciples asking him to give them more faith, he basically sidesteps the question and tells them if they had even a small amount of faith they could command trees to transplant themselves. Faith is destructive. Is scary!  The disciples ask for more faith and Jesus says a mustard seed of faith can result in uprooted trees. And the disciples, they are for more of this!  Do they really know what they are asking for?

We think of faith as what we believe. What we think about who Jesus is. How we understand the Word of God. What we see our as purpose as Christians. We know it is vital to our understanding of what it means to be people of God and followers of Jesus Christ, but what is faith what does it mean for us to have faith?

Faith is a force with which to rekon, it is wild; it is violent; it is powerful; it is a storm; it has the power of a giant piece of machinery and the ability to get things to act in disunity with their nature. It is untamed power! And the disciples want more!

Because the disciples (just like us) have a hard time getting it, Jesus moves on and tells them a parable about faith.

At the end of the day, after working and toiling and laboring all day long, what are the roles of a master and a servant?  Does the master see the hard labored servant, see the sweat from a days work, sees aching shoulders, and tired limbs and says, here sit down, let me go get you some water, wait here while I make you a fine dinner? Does the master serve the servant? 

No, the master sits down, rests and asks the servant to go get the food. The master waits and relaxes while the servant continues to toil to prepare a meal and serves the master. Then when the meal is over, the master pushes, the chair out from the table, leaves the dishes and the cleaning to the servant, falls into bed tired from the day’s labor, comfortable  and full with food and sleeps while the servant clears up the dishes and cleans up from the meal.

Does the servant work hoping to be praised?   Does the servant work looking for a reward?  No, the servant just does the work of a servant, not for a prize, not for a good word, or a reward. The servant does the work expected of servant. Why, because that is what servants do.

As we are looking at this passage we need to determine, who is the master?  Who is the servant? Who are we in this situation, are we masters or servants? What would it mean if we were the master? What would it mean for us to be the servant? Most importantly, this is a parable Jesus told to teach the disciples about faith; what is Jesus telling us about faith? What does this mean for us?

Jesus says faith is a servant obeying the master. Doing the work expected of the servant, not for reward, a prize, or for praise, but because that is what a servant does.

Faith is about knowing who we are. We are not the master. We are not the ones who do the ordering. We are the ones who are doing what we are ordered to do.

          Faith is not something we can possess, it is who we are. Faith is not a commodity; it is a way of life. And if faith is being a servant, is it something the disciples really want more of?

Knowing that we are servants, going back to the mulberry tree, are we the ones who get to order things around? Who is the one who tells others what to do what where to go. I am not sure that is us.

It is important for us to know who we are! 

We are the servants, doing what we are told, we are not the Master. That means that we are not the one doing the ordering, telling anything to do anything. It we are not the ones who are telling others what to do and where to do then having faith, being faithful means that We are not the commander of mulberry trees, we are the ones doing what is expected of us, we the ones who do what is told. We are the commanded not the commanders, we are the mulberry tree.

Faith is going where we are told. It is uprooting ourselves when we are told to be uprooted, going where we are told to go. Faith is obedience. Faith is being a follower of Christ not a commander of the world around us.

When we live out lives of faith, we can be mulberry trees, who uproot themselves and live in the ocean. Through faith we have the power and the ability to be trees uprooted. Trees transplanted. We can be trees living in the ocean. Now the ocean is not the most tenable place for a tree. Last time I checked mulberry trees simply don’t grow in the ocean. But faith not only gives us the ability to be uprooted to be transplanted but to survive we would otherwise believe impossible.

That is pretty amazing!  Faith is doing scary things, doing things that seem impossible. Faith means being a mulberry tree in the ocean, against all odds, against all logic, living in the ocean, surviving, growing, and thriving in a nigh impossible situation. It is exciting; it is scary. It is amazing; it is miraculous!

But what does the servant do?  Is that exciting?

Is that amazing?  It might be cool to be a mulberry tree living in the ocean, but is it as cool to be a servant preparing a meal, doing what you are told, cleaning up at the end of the day?

 By comparison, the idea of being a mulberry tree who is able to live, and thrive in the ocean is much more appealing than being a servant. Nobody wants to be servant, doing the mundane day to day tasks in the master’s house. But that is also what faith is. Faith is being the mulberry tree, AND faith is being a servant, doing the work of the household; preparing dinner, serving food. Doing what needs to be done, because it needs to be done. It is not glamorous or courageous it is just being who you are called to be, doing what you are called to do.

Faith is doing what the master is telling us to do; doing the work God sets before you; doing the will of God, doing the work of God. Having more faith is not about telling the mulberry tree what to do, it is about us BEING the mulberry tree, going where God tell us to go, living where God tells us to live. If we have faith like a mustard seed, we will be a mulberry tree which when told to by God, will pick itself up, uproot itself from the soil, where it lives and thrives, and then go to live in the sea, trusting God knows what God is doing. Doing it because the master says that is what we should do. Not doing it to gain a prize, or for the desire of a reward, a word of praise, or even for the hope of Heaven, but doing it because faith is obedience and because we love Jesus, because we want to be the who God is calling us to be. It may be scary it may seem destructive, but doing it anyway, because that is what we do, because we trust, we obey.

We do this trusting we will not die; we will not be swept away by the sea. We do it, knowing we will be planted there and God in asking us to do the impossible will make the impossible happen. We will live in the sea, trusting we will breathe the salt water, as we once breathed the fresh air, we will bask in the waves as we once basked in the light of the sun, and we will survive, thrive.  We will live and we will live abundantly!

Faith like this is not as appealing, living this kind of faith is not how we usually envision faith. We want the kind of faith, which allows us to be the ones telling mulberry trees what to do. We want to be the master who tells the servants what to do. We want to be the ones who tame the wild force, who wield the unimaginable power. Who command the wind and the waves. We like to be in control and there is a particular kind of appeal to having that kind power.

In many ways Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ Give us more faith, add to our faith, whether it be a demand or a plea, is, “Be careful what you ask for! It might not be what you want.”  You want more faith, it may be destructive and powerful. You want more faith, it may be wild and untamed. You want more faith, it is about being a servant and not a master, it is the power to do what you are told, it is the power to be told to do impossible things and doing them, it is not the power to tell things to do impossible things and have them do them. It is also the power to do mundane things, simply doing the day to day work and ministry of God. Loving God and loving neighbor, simply being who God is calling you to be, each day, in the mundane, everyday places of life.

We want more faith to mean that we get to tell things to do impossible things and for them to then do it. We want to be the master, who tells servants what to do, and where to go. We want the privilege, to thank, or not thank, to praise or not praise those who do their duty for us. But that is not who we are, that is not what it means to have more faith.

We are mulberry trees, we are servants. When we have “more faith,” we will go where God tells us to go, even if it is hard, arduous or even seems impossible. When we have “more faith,” we will be servants doing the mundane, tedious, unrewarding daily tasks of living lives as God’s people, being the people God calls us to be, in our work places, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, walking our dogs, and at the grocery store. Not doing it for the prize, the reward, for hope of Heaven or even the fear of Hell, but because that is what it means to be a person of faith, a child of God, that is what it means to be the person God created for us to be.

So in the end the question really is Do we really want to have more faith?