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 his slave who has just returned from plowing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table?” Would you not rather say, “Prepare supper for me. Put on your apron and serve me something to eat and drink. Later, you may eat and drink.” Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded him? 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.”
First of all, I like to point out that the bits of Gospel we’re given from the lectionary this morning don’t really go together. They’re sort of disparate non-sequitors – not necessarily meant to connect, one with the other – so I’m not going to do the theological gymnastics it takes to connect those dots.
Instead, because I spent some time in Vatican City this past week, I have “faith” on the brain in some strange, general, big-picture kind of ways, so I want to focus more on the mustard seed bit than the slave and servant stuff this time around. And it’s short and sweet, really.
“Increase our faith,” the apostles begged Jesus, who replies – almost flippantly, it seems – “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.”
As Christa and I, along with some college friends, wandered around the Vatican – through its museums, the Sistine Chapel, into St. Peter’s Basilica and the Square outside, and around the city’s perimeter, in Rome, too – I couldn’t help but wonder what the thousands of people who were wandering around with us were up to. Some were surely just there for the sight-seeing of it all, to admire the beautiful artwork, to learn about the history, to experience the tradition of it all, and whatnot.
But there were so many others who clearly took their Vatican visit very seriously – as a pilgrimage of faith – longing, I imagine, like the disciples in this morning’s Gospel, that their faith would increase … grow … deepen … by way of their proximity to and practice of whatever they were up to on their Church’s home turf.
It won’t surprise those of you who know me that I have some pretty mixed feelings about the grandiosity and opulence of it all. All of those statues… all of those shrines… all of those monuments… and all of the money it takes to make all of that happen. It does put our proposed, pending building program into a different, more meaningful sort of perspective for me – in a good way. (Though I am wondering, now, where we might find room for some statues of me and Pastor Cogan.)
But seriously, as I witnessed nuns, bishops, priests, and people of all stripes rush to St. Peter’s Square upon hearing that Pope Leo was making an unexpected appearance … as I watched men and women kneeling and weeping and lighting candles in prayer … as I and others walked through the “Holy Doors” that are only open every 25 years or on very special occasions, in hopes of some special sort of forgiveness of sins … as I and others spent more money in the Vatican gift shop for the same trinkets you could buy from a street vendor … I couldn’t help but wonder if the goal and hope of it all wasn’t something any more or less than a longing for increased faith.
But, is there anything particularly special about that place … those candles, those doors, those statues, all the stuff of that “sacred ground,” that stands to grow, add to, strengthen, and deepen faith, like so many hope that it will?
After asking for our permission to speak freely, openly, honestly with our little group of four – and not knowing that I was a Lutheran Pastor – our wise, wonderful tour guide, Francesca, confessed, in not-so-many-words, that her faith has actually been diminished by all that she’s seen and learned and shared as a student and teacher of that place and its history over the years. The friends we traveled with call themselves “recovering Catholics” for all the ways they’ve been burned by the Church over the years.
And what I fear … what I’ve heard and know from people in my own life … what saddened me in so many ways over the years … is that faith – this unseeable, unpredictable, ambiguous, immeasurably beautiful relationship with God … is something too many try to quantify, label, or prove in ways that are often impossible. And when that can’t or doesn’t happen – or when faith gets convoluted, confused, and co-opted by practices and people, by popes and priests and pastors, too – when we confuse the ways we practice “religion” with the “faith” it’s meant to inspire, we miss the point, the hope, and the fruits of faith in the first place.
I mean, when someone tells us to believe this, or else. To live that way, or else. To practice our faith like this or like that, or else. When faith becomes something we’re encouraged to accomplish or achieve, rather than something we’re invited to receive and to live, it becomes a measuring stick for our worth by our own standards, rather than a celebration of our value in God’s eyes.
I ran track in high school – the high hurdles, actually. One of the things about running hurdles was that we spent a lot of time on technique. As hurdlers, we would get to begin our workouts and practices with the rest of the team. We’d run a couple of laps and get warmed up but then, when the rest of the team went off to run longer distances or to do strength and endurance training, the high hurdlers got to go down to our end of the track for our own separate workout and practice.
For a long time, we were coached by a guy who spent a lot of time having us run drills and practice our technique. He was very particular about technique. How your toes were pointed, how your legs were bent, how your arms were positioned, and how much room there was between your butt and the hurdle as you ran over it meant a lot, according to him. We would spend hours starting out of the blocks and just running over the first two hurdles until our technique was as good as it could be.
I didn’t mind it, I guess. I did what I was told. I learned some things. And a lot of the time, it meant I wasn’t running long distances or doing the harder work of strength training. Deep down though, I also knew there was a reason I wasn’t getting any faster.
Half way through the season one year, our two coaches swapped responsibilities and, when the high hurdlers broke from the rest of the team to practice our technique, our new coach came along to watch. It didn’t take him long to call us all together and to ask us what in the world we were wasting our time on. He started coaching us that technique was all well and good, but that what wins any race is speed. From then on, we didn’t pay us much attention to how our toes were pointed or where our butts were in relation to the hurdles. Instead, we just ran. Complete races over all ten hurdles. Against the clock. Against each other. Building strength and endurance and speed.
And what we noticed before too long was that when we focused as much or more on just running, we got faster and the proper technique either just happened or wasn’t so important in the end, anyway.
And I wonder if that’s something like what Jesus is getting at in this morning’s Gospel.
Much like the disciples, we like to pretend that faith can be measured or quantified or practiced in ways that are right and wrong. Much like the disciples, we want to be sure we’re “doing faith” the right way. And much like the disciples – and my old track coach – we pretend that the right technique is all we need to get it right, to win, and make it to the medal stand.
It’s why religion divides us over politics, I believe. It’s why religion fights over differing opinions. It’s why religion argues about doctrine and dogma and bickers over worship styles and traditions – all in an attempt to master the perfect technique, forgetting all along the goal of the race – the blessings of faith – in the first place.
It’s why Jesus showed up, like a new coach, with a different way of looking at things. “You don’t need more or better faith,” he says. “If you’ve got even just a little bit – as much as the smallest of seeds – you could do amazing things.” In other words, if you know how to run, do that and it’ll be enough.
So, if you’re wondering about how your faith measures up… If you’re looking to perfect your technique or checking to see how well your butt cleared the last high hurdle you faced… If you’re thinking you need to be perfect in order to share in the blessings God has to offer, feel free to stop that. Jesus tells us this morning that we don’t have to be the best or the fastest or the most faithful, even, in any particular way.
I feel just as confident in the forgiveness we shared here this morning, as I did walking through those ancient “Holy Doors” last week. I feel just as sure God hears the prayers we pray in this place, as anything that’s whispered in the Pope’s cathedral. I’m certain this ground is as holy and this space is as sacred as anywhere I walked over the course of the last couple of weeks, because even my flimsy faith promises that the grace of God we receive and share here, is just that … it’s God’s grace … and it can’t be quantified, earned, or kept from anyone for any reason.
This grace is yours, mine, and ours – for the sake of the world – by way of whatever faith we can muster, in Jesus’ name, thanks be to God.
Amen
