A Breath Of Fresh Air

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!” ’

“Increase our faith, Lord!” That seems like such an appropriate thing for the disciples to ask of Jesus but the reply Jesus gave them almost sounds like a bit of a put down. Wouldn’t a request like this be one that would bless Christ’s heart and make him feel like his message about Kingdom priorities was actually getting through to them? 

Maybe.

The thing about Jesus is that he is a heart reader; he always knows the deeper motivations behind the prayers we pray and the requests we make. He would have known exactly why the disciples were asking him to increase their faith and my guess is that their inner motivations were not what he was looking for. Perhaps it was necessary for him to immediately set them straight and make them understand that spiritual riches can, like material riches, can be coveted for the wrong reasons and end up being abused. 

The disciples may have been asking for an increase of faith because it was so amazing when Jesus said, “Be healed,” to an ill person or commanded a storm to be still and those orders were instantly obeyed. What power! They sure wouldn’t mind having that kind of faith. Think of what they could do with it! Think of the status they would attain if they had the power to command physical bodies, trees, waves and mountains. Think of the respect they would receive. If any of those thoughts were even on the periphery of their minds, Jesus needed to immediately let them know that the desires for power and status are not kingdom desires.  As Habakkuk said in this week's first reading, “Look at the proud person! Their spirit is not right within them, but the righteous person lives by their faith.”

 The disciples also may have been asking for an increase of faith because they were still having trouble believing that Jesus was who he said he was. In spite of all his teachings and miracles, they still had confusions, questions and doubts. It could well have been a combination of both motivations: the temptation to seek power and status as well as the hardness of their hearts that made it difficult for them to believe, even in the face of all the evidence, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Wrong motivations plus a lack of basic trust creates very rocky soil for the planting of true faith. In this week’s psalm, God says, “Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.”

Jesus’ reply was not intended to knock them off their high horses by telling them their faith was so puny it wasn’t even as big as a mustard seed and that they were just worthless slaves as far as he was concerned. He was actually opening up to them a beautiful kingdom mystery: true faith permeates the heart of the humble one who knows the power of being a servant of the Lord. Only in God's kingdom can the word 'power' be yoked with the word 'servant' and make complete sense.

Mind you, it does nothing for you to go around saying, “I am worthless, a big nothing and a lowly worm,” and think that this is what is pleasing to God - unless you realize that God created worms and thinks they are an awesome work of immense beauty and worth. Only then may you call yourself a worm. What is actually pleasing to God is the heart that does not demand compensation for service rendered. God owes you nothing – but he gives you everything. Why is it so difficult for all of us to rest in that? We always want to say to him, “I did this and this for you. I gave up my time, I left behind possessions, I accepted the difficult situation, I was generous with my money, I built up this and tore down that, I spoke your truth when it was unpopular to do so…” and the expectation is that we should be rewarded at least by increased faith, if not all sorts of little bonuses and blessings. It’s difficult to comprehend a God who does not operate on the worldly reward system of 'I’ll do this for you if you do that for me.' This kind of attitude keeps a person on the surface of a true spiritual life and it creates a vulnerability to being continually knocked off balance when things don’t go right or when one finds oneself in a spiritual desert. It's easy to feel punished and abandoned and wonder why it's deserved.

Jesus wants you to live on a deeper level than that. He urges you to move onto a level of faith that doesn’t look for rewards or compensation. He's not asking you to engage in self-abnegation or to completely reject your worth and value; he's inviting you to live in a place of total security based on the knowledge that before you ever tried to do something for God you were  utterly loved by him and your value to him was complete. It is impossible to make him love or value you more than he already does. Living Faith comes from dwelling in a resting place where power, status and recognition cease to be important because you have found your status and recognition in God and he holds all the power. 

Walking in faith means seeking and discovering his face in every moment and in every person you encounter. Walking in Faith is knowing that God has done it all and is in all. He has done the work and completed the story. Walking in faith is knowing that all that’s left for you to do is to love and serve him, not for a reward but because the gratitude of your faith gives you wings and makes you desire more than anything to fly close to him. It won’t matter to you how you serve, who you serve or where you serve because you will know that he can move mountains and reveal himself whether you are cleaning toilets or speaking to thousands.

Christ wants us all to understand that faith is not a thing we can possess and it's not a just a power that makes things happen; it’s an environment. It’s where we’re called to live, move and have our being. The disciples asking for their faith to be increased was like them asking to be given more air to breathe. They didn’t need more air. They just needed to stop holding their breath. 

We all need to be less aware of how we think things should be going, accept that we are the beloved of God and abandon ourselves to being a servant of the Lord by being a servant of the ones he loves - which means every single person we encounter each day, whether they are Christian or not. We must serve them as if they are Christ himself.
 
If we can do that, we will be living in the heady atmosphere of the Kingdom and we will have more faith than we will know what to do with.

Just breathe.