Mustard Seed Deposit

10-6-19

Grace and peace to you from God our creator, and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

When my friend’s daughter was four, she expressed her desire for world travel. She went on and on about places she would like to see. To gently dissuade her excitement, her dad, my friend, told her that trips cost a lot of money.

“But why can’t we just go get the money?” She asked.

“Because money doesn’t work like that,” Her dad said.

She thought about this for a moment. And then, smiling at her own genius, she responded: “I know where we can get the money to go! We can go to the money store!”

….. If only it were that easy!

But if there WERE such a thing as “the money store,” I would hope that right next door would be a something called “the faith store.”

For all the times that we give the disciples a hard time for being clueless – and this happens A LOT, if you read through any of the Gospels - But I think I’m actually with them on this one. For them, following Jesus was a daily reality, where they constantly heard Jesus saying very difficult things, like: “Take up your cross and follow me. Count the cost. I bring not peace to the earth, but division. No one can serve both God and wealth.”

Yikes, Jesus. This kind of life that Jesus has called his disciples to (which by the way includes us too!) is hard. It’s uncomfortable. And it’s doesn’t always feel “good.”

So, the disciples for once acknowledged their own feelings of inadequacy. They were self-aware enough to question if they truly had what it takes to live such a life. They counted the cost and felt that their faith-account might be running a little short of the necessary funds. And they are smart enough to go right to the source in order to request a faith-deposit. After all, it might not be a bad idea to put a little faith in reserve – you never know when you’re going to go through a tough time and might need that little extra faith surplus.

Now, of course we all know that faith is not a tangible thing that can be measured. Have you ever seen a faith scale? Do you measure it on pounds or in grams? Can you count how much you have? Does it have volume? Can you put the excess in storage? Can you make a faith withdrawal or deposit? Of course not.

And yet, the first thought that crosses my mind when I encounter a difficult challenge or something is not going my way, is this: I must not have enough faith. If I had enough faith, OF COURSE this would be much easier. If I had enough faith, I wouldn’t feel so anxious. If I had enough faith, I would be able to see what the heck God is up to at this time in my life.

Because more is better, right? I remember a cell phone company commercial where that that random lone adult in the kindergarten classroom asks the kids, “who thinks more is better than less?” They all of course raise their hands. When asked why, one girl responded, “when you really like it, we want more!” Because if 4G is good, then 5G is better! Likewise, what could be better than more faith? So, if faith the size of a teeny tiny mustard seed can make a tree jump into the ocean, what amazing things could the faith of a walnut… or a baseball…or a pumpkin do?

Except that… Faith a gift we have been given, by the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. We cannot by our own understanding or strength believe more or have more faith. We don’t go down to the “Faith Store” when we run low. More faith is not better faith, because we can’t INCREASE it its amount, as the disciples seem to think that Jesus is able to do. But faith IS a verb, at least it’s being used as a verb by the disciples in the original language Luke was written in. When our faith IS active, we can see when it is at work.

In life’s small actions, faith is made visible. And that tiny seed of faith is enough, because your tiny seed of faith and my tiny seed of faith and all of our tiny seeds of faith combined can really add up to something amazing – a whole field full of …. mustard plants.

It’s ironic that in the United States the wild mustard plant is considered a noxious weed. It’s edible, but not very tasty. When I was a kid, as a family we spent so many hot hours out in the alfalfa fields, dragging 5-gallon buckets behind us filled with the weeds we pulled out.  If we didn’t pull them out in time, the mustard would go to seed - as we yanked the mustard plants from the dirt, flurries of tiny yellow seeds fell like snow to the ground, hundreds of them from each single plant. And each of those tiny seeds promised that NEXT summer, a fully formed mustard plant would be ready for us.

Somewhere along the line, a stubborn little mustard seed of faith got lodged in you, ready sprout.  Perhaps, like Timothy, our own Loises and Eunices planted the faith in us. And even before that, before even time itself, this gift of faith had already been given, and it was just waiting to be revealed through the death and resurrection of the one in whom we have planted our faith, Jesus Christ. No trip to the “faith store” necessary. Like a tiny seed, faith is just waiting to be activated.

When we activate our faith, when we put it to work, things happen…. Unexpected things. Jesus refused to grant the request of the disciples to increase their faith… because they ALREADY had enough faith to do amazing things. Like uproot mulberry trees.

What are mulberry trees we face that we can cause to be planted in the sea? What amazing things could we do with our mustard seed faith?

Perhaps even something we dreamed about together during our “Family Chats” this summer might actually come to fruition, thanks to our mustard seed faith …. Things like being “Inclusive of all,” “Partnering with other churches and organizations,” making “more use of our building,” infusing energy into worship,” ”Become a community hub for service projects,” “Sunday school classrooms filled to the brim,” becoming the ‘Go-To’ Lutheran church in this area,” “more advocacy,” “becoming more welcoming to the LGBTQIA community,” “making our presence known to a wider community”….

These are all exciting ideas, and fantastic seeds that we can plant.  To do all this, and more, we don’t need MORE faith … because we already have Jesus. Everything we need to do these things, we already have, right here. And the time is now to make these things happen to start putting our faith to work to start planting.

But it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take work, commitment, action, and a little bit of trust. Working faith might just get a little dirty. We might make some mistakes along the way – scratch that, we WILL make some mistakes. And then we get up and dust ourselves off and keep going. We keep working. We put on our aprons and serve. We see what needs to be done, and we do it.

We’ve done it before, and we WILL do it again, because God has planted the seeds necessary, right here in this congregation. As long as we have a building, roofs will need to be replaced, rooms updated, equipment repaired. And though this is a thankless, never-ending task, we do it because we as a church have chosen to be a congregation rooted in this community.

On October 6^th, 1974, a few brave souls took a leap of faith, and signed the charter paper that hangs in the parlor. Forty-five years ago, Family of God as a community of faith was born, and God has been nothing but faithful ever since. This means we need to be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us, and continues to give us, including our building. If we are going follow Jesus in this way, we need to do it well and faithfully, with our hands, feet, resources, expertise, energy, time, and location.

To do the thankless tasks with great joy, we already have everything we need, including all the faith necessary. It’s not our faith that needs to be increased… it’s the transformation from noun into verb that needs to be completed. We don’t need a trip to the Faith Store or make a deposit in the Faith bank. No loans or deposit slip necessary. We have blank check of faith, and Jesus hands us the pen. … Where should we start? The choice is ours to make. Thanks be to God. Amen.