Luke 17:5-10
"The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith! The 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.
‘Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? Would 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”? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So 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!”’"
We all have faith. Without faith we cannot live.
"The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith! The 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.
‘Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? Would 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”? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So 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!”’"
Faith is central to absolutely everything that we do.
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We all have faith. Without faith we cannot live.
An audio of the talk can be found here
If you walk into church and sit on the chair, then you are exercising faith that the chair will hold you. You do not – unless you had an unpleasant experience with a chair yesterday – pick it up, shake it and reassure yourself that it will take your weight.
If you go into the village to meet someone, then you are exercising faith. They have said that they will be at Tilly’s at 2pm and you trust that they will be there. And if they are not, then you need some sort of explanation – otherwise next time you will not be able to trust them. We know Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried wolf. When he cried ‘wolf’ a third time, and there was a wolf, nobody believed him.
If you eat something, you are putting great trust in the person who prepared the food. You are trusting that they will not have put poison in it.
And think about driving a car. That requires exceptional faith. I don’t know how cars move, but I trust that when I turn the ignition key the engine will start. And if it doesn’t, then I have a car crisis and, at least for a moment, I have a faith crisis. My trust was misplaced. And when I drive – I trust that the other person coming towards me is not going to swerve onto my side of the road, that other people will obey the traffic laws.
And if driving a car requires an astonishing amount of faith, think what getting on board an aeroplane requires.
One of the craziest assemblies that I did was when I was a curate in Ipswich. I was talking about faith at Coppleston high school. I stood on the stage and asked 8 of the year 5s to come forward and to stand below the stage with their arms held out, creating a net. And then I jumped into their arms. I trusted that they would be able to hold me and that they would choose to hold me. And they did. But I think those sorts of assemblies are probably behind me now!
So when the disciples here say, ‘Increase our faith’, I don’t think that they are asking Jesus to make them more trusting. I don’t think that they are asking for a general faith – but for a faith that enables them to trust God. They are asking for a saving faith.
Jesus, in Luke, has already commented on some peoples’ astonishing faith.
An elderly woman, troubled with haemorrhaging for many years, comes up behind him secretly and touches his robe, because she believes that he has the power to heal. And when he calls her to make herself known, to lose her anonymity, she trusts him enough to do so. She could easily have slipped away. And Jesus tells her that her faith has healed, has saved her.
Or there was the time when a delegation asked him to heal the slave of a Roman officer. Jesus started walking to his house. But the officer recognised that Jesus had authority, an authority delegated to him by God his Father, and he sent word to Jesus. ‘I am not worthy to have you come to my home. Just say the word and my servant will be healed.’ And Jesus was astonished by his faith.
So the followers of Jesus are asking him for a faith in the God who they cannot see, but who they can know.
They are asking for the faith in the God who can do astonishing wonders, the faith that would transform and change them, and the faith which would enable them to do ‘greater things’.
They are asking for the faith that will take them through troubles and persecutions and tragedies.
They are asking for the faith which means that they can live the sort of lives that Jesus called them to live.
And, in this context, because Jesus has just taught them that they are to rebuke sin and forgive – not just once, but seven times a day the person who repents and turns back to them, they are asking him for the faith in God which enables them to do that.
They are asking that Jesus would give them the sort of faith that he has in God.
And Jesus answers them by effectively saying that it is not the amount of faith that we have that matters.
If we have but a tiny faith, an atom of a faith, in the God who can do the impossible, then we can say to a mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea, and it will.
Notice – and this is important.
The faith that Jesus is speaking about is not positive thinking. It is not imagining an impossible situation and wishing it to be. That is putting faith in ourselves or in some technique or in some meditative practice.
You will probably have heard of ‘The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ A few years later, an author called Adrian Plass wrote a book, ‘The sacred diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 ¾
In one section he writes how he has been reading Jesus who tells his disciples that if they have faith, they can move a mountain. He feels that a mountain is a bit too much to begin with, so he decides to start with a paperclip. Paperclips are the SAT level. Mountains are for the professors.
But of course, placing a paperclip on a table and willing it to move is not about faith, trust in God. It is about faith in your powers of telekinesis, which is probably rather an iffy thing to put your faith in.
The point is that it is not how much faith that we have, but in whom or in what do we put our trust. And if we put our trust in the God who can bring something out of nothing – the first miracle is not the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus; the first miracle is the fact that we are here, that there is something when there should in fact be nothing - then if it is God’s will that a mulberry tree should be uprooted and planted in the sea, then it will happen.
God is the God of the possible and the impossible.
He can bring life out of death
He can transform and change people like you and me. He can give us new hearts
And he can make people like you and me forgive, not once, not twice, but seven times in one day.
Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch woman who, together with her sister, provided a safe house for Jews during the Nazi occupation. They were betrayed, arrested and sent to concentration camp. They experienced appalling treatment from the guards, as a result of which her sister died. After the war, Corrie travelled preaching about Jesus. On one occasion she was preaching about forgiveness and at the end a man came up to her. He held out his hand. He said, ‘Thank you for speaking about forgiveness. I was one of the guards in that camp. I am sorry. Can you forgive me?’ She said, ‘I went cold. I could not forgive him. And all I could do was pray. And I thought, I have spoken of the God who forgives me, and I have to do what I can’. She forced her hand to take his hand, and as she touched him, she said it was like a bolt of electricity shooting through her. And she discovered that she could say she would forgive him, and she found a Christian brother’.
The point that Jesus seems to be making when he says that faith the size of a mustard seed can plant mulberry trees in the sea is that it is not the amount of faith that you have, but the one in whom you put your faith.
And actually, the disciples have already put their trust in Jesus. They have gone to him and said, ‘Increase our faith’. They are trusting him enough to ask him to help their faith grow. It reminds us of the time when a man is asking his disciples to heal his son. Jesus says, ‘All things are possible for those who put their trust in me’, and the man replies, ‘Lord I do believe (I do put my trust in you). Help my lack of trust’.
A week on Monday we begin a course on the creed. We say ‘We believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit’. It is a declaration of trust. We are saying, ‘We trust God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit’.. And we will explore exactly what it is that Christians have said for over 1700 years. This is not about head knowledge. This is about heart knowledge that changes our lives. And perhaps as we do the course we can pray, ‘Lord, we believe. But help our unbelief’.
And one final thing. I haven’t mentioned the second story Jesus tells about the slaves who, having worked in the fields, come in and serve dinner to their master. It sounds very alien to our ears, especially because at the end the slaves say, ‘we are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done’.
The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith. Jesus tells them it is not the amount of faith they have, but who or what they put their faith in. And then he tells them a story about obedience - about listening to the commands of the master, about doing what the master wants, about recognising that before our master we have no rights, that we do not deserve to receive anything.
It is when we have that attitude towards God, that trust, faith that God is everything and we are nothing - the attitude of the Roman officer, the attitude of the older woman - that we will begin to see the remarkable works of God. And it is when we have that attitude towards God that we will be overwhelmed by grace, by his love and mercy, and we will see mulberry trees growing in the Creake.
If you walk into church and sit on the chair, then you are exercising faith that the chair will hold you. You do not – unless you had an unpleasant experience with a chair yesterday – pick it up, shake it and reassure yourself that it will take your weight.
If you go into the village to meet someone, then you are exercising faith. They have said that they will be at Tilly’s at 2pm and you trust that they will be there. And if they are not, then you need some sort of explanation – otherwise next time you will not be able to trust them. We know Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried wolf. When he cried ‘wolf’ a third time, and there was a wolf, nobody believed him.
If you eat something, you are putting great trust in the person who prepared the food. You are trusting that they will not have put poison in it.
And think about driving a car. That requires exceptional faith. I don’t know how cars move, but I trust that when I turn the ignition key the engine will start. And if it doesn’t, then I have a car crisis and, at least for a moment, I have a faith crisis. My trust was misplaced. And when I drive – I trust that the other person coming towards me is not going to swerve onto my side of the road, that other people will obey the traffic laws.
And if driving a car requires an astonishing amount of faith, think what getting on board an aeroplane requires.
One of the craziest assemblies that I did was when I was a curate in Ipswich. I was talking about faith at Coppleston high school. I stood on the stage and asked 8 of the year 5s to come forward and to stand below the stage with their arms held out, creating a net. And then I jumped into their arms. I trusted that they would be able to hold me and that they would choose to hold me. And they did. But I think those sorts of assemblies are probably behind me now!
So when the disciples here say, ‘Increase our faith’, I don’t think that they are asking Jesus to make them more trusting. I don’t think that they are asking for a general faith – but for a faith that enables them to trust God. They are asking for a saving faith.
Jesus, in Luke, has already commented on some peoples’ astonishing faith.
An elderly woman, troubled with haemorrhaging for many years, comes up behind him secretly and touches his robe, because she believes that he has the power to heal. And when he calls her to make herself known, to lose her anonymity, she trusts him enough to do so. She could easily have slipped away. And Jesus tells her that her faith has healed, has saved her.
Or there was the time when a delegation asked him to heal the slave of a Roman officer. Jesus started walking to his house. But the officer recognised that Jesus had authority, an authority delegated to him by God his Father, and he sent word to Jesus. ‘I am not worthy to have you come to my home. Just say the word and my servant will be healed.’ And Jesus was astonished by his faith.
So the followers of Jesus are asking him for a faith in the God who they cannot see, but who they can know.
They are asking for the faith in the God who can do astonishing wonders, the faith that would transform and change them, and the faith which would enable them to do ‘greater things’.
They are asking for the faith that will take them through troubles and persecutions and tragedies.
They are asking for the faith which means that they can live the sort of lives that Jesus called them to live.
And, in this context, because Jesus has just taught them that they are to rebuke sin and forgive – not just once, but seven times a day the person who repents and turns back to them, they are asking him for the faith in God which enables them to do that.
They are asking that Jesus would give them the sort of faith that he has in God.
And Jesus answers them by effectively saying that it is not the amount of faith that we have that matters.
If we have but a tiny faith, an atom of a faith, in the God who can do the impossible, then we can say to a mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea, and it will.
Notice – and this is important.
The faith that Jesus is speaking about is not positive thinking. It is not imagining an impossible situation and wishing it to be. That is putting faith in ourselves or in some technique or in some meditative practice.
You will probably have heard of ‘The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ A few years later, an author called Adrian Plass wrote a book, ‘The sacred diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 ¾
In one section he writes how he has been reading Jesus who tells his disciples that if they have faith, they can move a mountain. He feels that a mountain is a bit too much to begin with, so he decides to start with a paperclip. Paperclips are the SAT level. Mountains are for the professors.
But of course, placing a paperclip on a table and willing it to move is not about faith, trust in God. It is about faith in your powers of telekinesis, which is probably rather an iffy thing to put your faith in.
The point is that it is not how much faith that we have, but in whom or in what do we put our trust. And if we put our trust in the God who can bring something out of nothing – the first miracle is not the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus; the first miracle is the fact that we are here, that there is something when there should in fact be nothing - then if it is God’s will that a mulberry tree should be uprooted and planted in the sea, then it will happen.
God is the God of the possible and the impossible.
He can bring life out of death
He can transform and change people like you and me. He can give us new hearts
And he can make people like you and me forgive, not once, not twice, but seven times in one day.
Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch woman who, together with her sister, provided a safe house for Jews during the Nazi occupation. They were betrayed, arrested and sent to concentration camp. They experienced appalling treatment from the guards, as a result of which her sister died. After the war, Corrie travelled preaching about Jesus. On one occasion she was preaching about forgiveness and at the end a man came up to her. He held out his hand. He said, ‘Thank you for speaking about forgiveness. I was one of the guards in that camp. I am sorry. Can you forgive me?’ She said, ‘I went cold. I could not forgive him. And all I could do was pray. And I thought, I have spoken of the God who forgives me, and I have to do what I can’. She forced her hand to take his hand, and as she touched him, she said it was like a bolt of electricity shooting through her. And she discovered that she could say she would forgive him, and she found a Christian brother’.
The point that Jesus seems to be making when he says that faith the size of a mustard seed can plant mulberry trees in the sea is that it is not the amount of faith that you have, but the one in whom you put your faith.
And actually, the disciples have already put their trust in Jesus. They have gone to him and said, ‘Increase our faith’. They are trusting him enough to ask him to help their faith grow. It reminds us of the time when a man is asking his disciples to heal his son. Jesus says, ‘All things are possible for those who put their trust in me’, and the man replies, ‘Lord I do believe (I do put my trust in you). Help my lack of trust’.
A week on Monday we begin a course on the creed. We say ‘We believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit’. It is a declaration of trust. We are saying, ‘We trust God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit’.. And we will explore exactly what it is that Christians have said for over 1700 years. This is not about head knowledge. This is about heart knowledge that changes our lives. And perhaps as we do the course we can pray, ‘Lord, we believe. But help our unbelief’.
And one final thing. I haven’t mentioned the second story Jesus tells about the slaves who, having worked in the fields, come in and serve dinner to their master. It sounds very alien to our ears, especially because at the end the slaves say, ‘we are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done’.
The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith. Jesus tells them it is not the amount of faith they have, but who or what they put their faith in. And then he tells them a story about obedience - about listening to the commands of the master, about doing what the master wants, about recognising that before our master we have no rights, that we do not deserve to receive anything.
It is when we have that attitude towards God, that trust, faith that God is everything and we are nothing - the attitude of the Roman officer, the attitude of the older woman - that we will begin to see the remarkable works of God. And it is when we have that attitude towards God that we will be overwhelmed by grace, by his love and mercy, and we will see mulberry trees growing in the Creake.
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