Enough Faith

Lamentations 3:19-26

‪The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! ‪My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. ‪But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

‪The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

‪"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God--whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did--when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 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.

For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

‪For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.

‪Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

  

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 plowing 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!'"

Jesus says to us today that every one of us, no matter what size our faith is, has enough faith.

The reason that it’s enough is because, as we hear in the reading from Lamentations,  “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is God’s faithfulness”.

But how can it be that a mustard seed amount of faith can possibly be enough?

Because it is added to all the other mustard seeds.

I don’t know about you, but my Coney dog doesn’t need a lot of mustard – just a dab of mustard is plenty. But, that dab of mustard is essential.

Each of us is a mustard seed in the jar, a link in the chain, a puzzle piece in the big picture.

So the first part of that passage is pretty easy to understand: The disciples ask Jesus to “increase their faith”, and he says, you have enough faith to do whatever needs to be done.

But what is he talking about in the second half, when he says that a slave would never simply do the outside work, and then come in and ask the master to serve him dinner?

Well, Jesus is reminding us of a few important things. First of all is that God is our Lord, our Sovereign Master, and we were created to be servants of God. We are slaves of Christ. We don’t like to use the word slave, because of the way we have treated slaves all through history, but the Bible makes it quite clear that God is Lord and Master, and our lives are intended to serve God. And God’s work is never done.

This means that when we step out in faith, regardless of the size of our faith, it is not enough to offer help once, to hang our hat on one kind deed, to say, “remember that one time I saw that person asking for money and I gave it?” remember that one time I helped that person whose grocery bag tore apart in the parking lot? Remember that time I paid it forward in the Starbucks drive through lane?

We are not called to respond one time. We are called to respond every time. We serve God every day, in every way, in every aspect of our lives. Thanks be to God for the mercy and forgiveness that is ours when we fall short.

However, even as we are called to respond in every way to God’s call, we are not ever being called to solve the whole problem. We are called to provide our one piece of the puzzle, our one link of the chain. And then, to have faith, no matter how small, that God who is steadfast and faithful will bring the other puzzle pieces and chain links together.

Jesus is telling us two things – one, that our little bit of faith is enough; and two, that our personal contribution is essential to the collective whole – every day, in every situation. In other words, the work is never done. Not ever. But we are not alone in doing it. We join and are joined by a great cloud of witnesses who are doing and praying and supplying puzzle pieces and dabs of mustard and links to a chain that comes together by God’s grace and mercy, new every morning. So we don’t get to work in the field and then come in the house, thinking we are finished and get to sit down and eat and be done. It’s not done. It’s not ever done. But it’s not all ours. We all do what we can, whenever we can. Every time we can. And our voices join in a great chorus. Together with the power of the Holy Spirit we are the Body of Christ. It’s a choir bigger than we can possibly imagine, spreading across the world and across time, backward and forward and present. It’s a mixture of spices and flavors that is incredibly glorious when it all comes together – a dab here, a dash there, an incredible feast resulting.

Methodists say it this way, quoting John Wesley:

“Do all the good you can.

By all the means you can.

In all the ways you can.

In all the places you can.

At all the times you can.

To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.”

My dad used to say, “you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Each of us can do something, and the faith that is within us, that spark of God that has been planted in us, is enough to propel us to do our something wherever and whenever it is needed. Every time. The challenge is to listen to that call, to respond to that nudge, that whisper, that we could help here, and here, and here, and not get sucked into the “other” voice of fear, of anxiety, that voice that says, “my little contribution won’t make a difference” or “why me? what about all those other people?” or “I must hang onto it so it’s available for someone else”. Because God will provide the rest of the story. We can use our faith to trust in that too, and keep on trusting. It may – indeed, it will, be beyond our understanding. God is beyond our understanding. It will be outside the results we see, almost all the time. That’s also where the trust comes in.

When Nike says, “just do it”, perhaps they are being scriptural. Because it involves suspending all those “what ifs” and “I can’ts” and “it doesn’t matter anyways” and calls us to just go and do and keep doing and trust that what needs to come together can and will come together, as long as we keep on keeping on. We can’t stop, we musn’t quit, we have enough faith and gifts and time and ability, and God is faithful and merciful beyond all our greatest contribution and wildest imagination, and so “every morning we will see God’s new work in the world, as we participate in it”.

Detroit video.

Here at NLPC, as a congregation and a community we spent about seven months out of the past year actively working on defining our new story, our new narrative. We expressed who we are, and where God is calling us, what work God is calling us to, in the words of the mission statement you see in your bulletin:

“Assured of the new life we have received in Christ, we will live out our faith together through worship, prayer, education, fellowship, and mission.  Being called to love all people, we will use our gifts to serve God in an imperfect world.  Equipped with our faith and filled with the Spirit, we will:    

• reach out in acceptance to a diverse community;
• embrace the marginalized and show love to all;
• feed the hungry and care for the sick;
• search for peace and work for justice.”

We said what Jesus is saying today, in the words that reflect our mission, here in this place and time.

We will live out our faith together. It’s enough, when it is brought together.

We will use our gifts. Collectively they will provide what God needs to fill in a crack, to shine light through it, to create beauty in the midst of it.”

The world is imperfect. We won’t make it perfect ourselves. God is working for good in every situation; we are only called to help out in whatever way we can, every time we can.

And so, equipped with our faith, we will:

• reach out in acceptance to a diverse community;
• embrace the marginalized and show love to all;
• feed the hungry and care for the sick;
• search for peace and work for justice.”

We have experienced how this works, in the official organized things we do that are on the calendar, like Salvation Army meals, and food baskets, and Red Cross Blood Drives, and making our building available for AA and other support groups; and also in the unofficial everyday things we do, like digging into our pockets and our supplies of food and diapers and whatever we happen to have when someone walks in the door in need; by joining our voices and our five dollar bills to others all over the world to help make an impact on a systemic need that needs to change; by speaking up or stepping up in the school cafeteria or the parking lot when we see someone who is being bullied or who just needs a smile or a friend or someone to eat lunch with; by pulling our varied gifts together to help solve a problem for someone whose situation needs a variety of solutions. All these are the results of the two messages we hear today in the gospel – a mustard seed is enough faith, and keep doing what you can, for the work of God is never done, and we have never done enough.

A mustard seed is enough.

We are never done.

The joyful work of our life is to be neighbors for each other, using our gifts in an imperfect world.

We wrote the mission – and now, today, and every day, it is time to be carrying it out.

We come to the table today, and we receive Christ, in a small piece of bread dipped in juice. And we can trust that it is enough to sustain our faith, to nourish our spirit. Like the mustard seed.

And as God’s children, we are sent out into the world to do God’s will and to continue to do it, every day, all over the world. And always, always, in ways beyond our understanding, God will see it to completion, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.