Increase our Faith

Increase our Faith
Luke 17:5-10

Increase our faith. An intriguing statement, and one that many of us can relate to. How often to we feel that our faith is not strong enough.

It’s important to take the stories in the gospel in their context. So before we get to the statement by the disciples–”Increase our faith”–I want to look at what would cause the disciples to say such a thing.

Keep in mind that Jesus had just told the Pharisees the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It was a scandalous story. And the disciples heard it too. Jesus told the Pharisees that they had enough information about what God wanted for them–sending a dead ancestor would not change their minds.

And after that story, Jesus turned to his disciples and said this: “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent,” you must forgive.”

Jesus painted a stark picture with Lazarus and the Rich Man. And Millstones around the neck and the call to repeatedly forgive those that offend us is hard to hear.

So I could imagine that the disciples have the fear of God in them about what they’ve heard. Forgiveness can test faith. Riches can test our faith.

So they disciples exclaimed to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” Help us Lord! This is hard! Following you is difficult work. Give us what we need!

The trip to Hebron with Christian Peacemaker Teams was hard on my faith. I would come back from visiting people’s homes or walking kids to school and feel the pain of the people I met and wanted to cry. But I was so numb–I didn’t know yet what to do with all that I had seen and with all the stories I’d heard. I felt like I had no faith left.

So, I’d go back to the Christian Peacemaker Teams apartment and read. I read a book by Gregory Boyle, called “Tattoos on the Heart”. It’s a book about hope and compassion as witnessed by Father Gregory, a priest that lives in the gang infested neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Father Gregory has seen a lot of hard things in his life. He’s buried over two hundred youth in his tenure-most of them who were killed because of gun violence. But he also had faith, and a way to see the hope.

He writes: “Homies get stuck in the morass of desperation, both the impasse writ large and the ordinary mud of inertia.” and then he tells stories about youth he’s worked with that struggle, and make some strides to make their lives better. He concludes, “I’ve come to trust the value of simply showing up–and singing the song without the words. And yet, each time I find myself siting with the pain that folks carry, I’m overwhelmed with my own inability to do more than stand in awe, dumbstruck by the sheer size of the burden–more than I’ve ever been asked to carry.”

Father Gregory understood this burden of pain that I was carrying, and his faith and hopefulness even in a difficult setting gave me hope that I might be able to make it through this trip.

In Hebron, if it wasn’t Father Gregory it was my roommates and I laughing at something absurd, and reminding each other of the joy and humor of life, even in seemingly hopeless places.

Increase our faith.

It’s understandable that the disciples would demand this of Jesus. So Jesus told the story of the mustard seed. He said, “If you had the faith of a mustard seed” (which–by the way–mustard seeds are very small and round, and if you try to hold them in your hand, they roll around, and spill out everywhere. So, these mustard seeds are elusive.) “If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “uproot yourselves and plant yourselves in the sea, and it would obey you.”

I think Jesus was being sarcastic here because the disciples do have the faith of a mustard seed. They’ve been following Jesus all this time. They know they are on to something. They just need to access that faith, hold on to it.

Increase our faith.

So then, what is faith? Well, let me tell you what it’s not–it’s not a question of “Do you believe it?” or “Can you organize this into an intellectual construct?” It’s not an intellectual question. It’s relational trust. It is following in the way of Jesus, even if you don’t know exactly where you are going. It’s having questions–and having some of the answers, but being willing to live into the mystery and to lean into the questions.

In the words of Paul to Timothy–our faith is something that we already possess, that is handed down to us from our spiritual ancestors but must be rekindled. Paul doesn’t describe faith as something we must earn, it is a gift freely given. Paul said, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Faith is something we already possess–it is a gift of God. ut like a flame on a candle, sometimes it can go out. Sometimes we must borrow the flame from our friends in faith to re-kindle our faith when it is weary.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, in her recent interview with Krista Tippett, said this about the rekindling of faith:

Faith is not given to individuals in sufficient quantity, necessarily, I think it’s giving in sufficient quantity to communities. In the same way, we hear “God will not give you more than you can bear,” I think God will not give the community more than it can bear. We’ve individualized this idea of faith so much, in a way that makes it inaccessible to people.

This is western individualism run amuck in religion. This is not your faith, it’s the faith of the church and we’ve lost track of that in my personal Jesus, personal piety, prayer life thing. This is about community. It always has been “the body of Christ.”

There is grace in that. Because on the days that my faith is tired, I know that you will have the faith to carry me through. And on the days when your faith is weak, I can be there with my little mustard seed of faith to carry you through.

Faith is not something that happens alone. I happens with all of us, and because of all of us. It is many of those slippery rolly mustard seeds of faith make that make our communal faith strong. We don’t all need to have a grasp on our little bits of faith to know that it’s being held and honored and that we can access it.

Lord, increase our faith. Lord, help us. Kindle that little mustard seed of faith that is already within us, and with the help of God and this faith community, it will be rekindled as we journey together. AMEN.