Increase our Faith
Jesus and the Parable of the Mustard Seed, click image to link to source.
In this gospel text, we come alongside Jesus during a time when he is encountering more resistance and conflict. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he encourages his followers to forgive their enemies. “If the same person sins against you seven times a day,” he advises, “then “turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” That’s a lot to ask! No wonder the disciples exclaim to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
If you were to look at the Revised Common Lectionary schedule of scripture readings for today, then you’d see they all have something to say about the people of God living in a context of conflict, from moderate to severe. And since we are reading them on World Communion Sunday, it’s natural for me to wonder about the conflicts that the Church universal faces today.
To learn about the conflicts the Church faces, you might turn to “Open Doors,” a non-governmental organization that publishes an annual watch list about religious persecution worldwide. According to this group, the number of Christians facing high levels of persecution or discrimination rose to 365 million globally in 2024. The number of nations listed as having "extreme" or "very high" religious persecution stands at 55, more than doubling in a ten-year period.[1] A disturbing story in this week’s news cycle comes from near my childhood home in suburban Flint, Michigan. Surely, you heard about the man who shot several people in worship, and burned down the Mormon church building. Many other examples could be cited.
Some of these people and places are on my mind this World Communion Sunday, as we remember and celebrate our connections with God’s children in the larger Church, the Church with a capital “C.” In this complicated and sometimes crazy world, how do we respond?
Our scripture readings give us some clues. Passionate expressions of sorrow are the essence of Hebrew Testament readings. The prophet Habbakuk, and the 137th Psalm (which we did not hear) express a grief that our brothers and sisters in other places certainly feel today. It’s the anguish that comes when enemies overrun your city, when your home is insecure, and when your place of worship desecrated. In circumstances like that, deep sadness is a normal response.
In the 137th Psalm especially, it’s easy to hear longing for a better past: “By the rivers of Babylon,” it says, (in a place of exile) “there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.” The response of the Hebrews reminds me that we sometimes respond to the world’s complexity and craziness is with nostalgia for the “good old days.” But when were those good old days, exactly?
I’ve mentioned to you how I’m slowly sorting boxes of family memorabilia, including pieces of The Flint Journal newspaper I saved for a school project fifty-two years ago. Even then, it struck me how troubled the world seemed. In January 1973, we were trying to get out of a war in Vietnam that, by that time, had cost more than 46,000 American lives. Families were trying to identify POWs, and secure their release. Americans were trying to figure out what a new Supreme Court ruling meant for the lives of unborn children and the health of pregnant women. They were worried about declining morality, represented in the prevalence of marijuana. The cost of living was rising, thousands of people were being evacuated after a volcanic eruption in Iceland. All this and more from the front page of a couple of newspapers from my middle-school years makes me think there never have been any perfect times.
I’m sympathetic to fond wishes to return to a better yesterday. Eight nights ago, my son was driving home from a long day at work. In front of him was a disabled vehicle with no lights.He walked away with only bruises, but his car was a total loss. Now, we’re shopping for a new vehicle. Four days ago, my daughter received her divorce decree. I read a copy, reflecting on relationships forever changed. Three days ago, I bit into a dessert with a hard nut, and sheered off part of an upper molar. Tomorrow morning, when the dentist’s drill is humming in my mouth, will I wish that I could turn back the clock? You betcha. When experiencing trouble, sad lament and wistful nostalgia are natural responses. But they don’t get us to a better place. You can’t go back to yesterday; you can only go forward into tomorrow.
Perhaps Jesus’ disciples were sadly lamenting their troubles in the aftermath of conflict. They had been with Jesus on a long journey full of teaching, preaching, serving, and healing. They had encountered resistance, and Jesus had more than hinted that a day was coming that would be messy, that some kind of death was coming. In the midst of the stress, facing anticipatory grief, Jesus challenged them to keep preaching and forgiving, and it felt like so much, too much. “Increase our faith!” they pray.
Jesus’ reply used an image from nature, the mustard seed. In an age before microscopes, a mustard seed was one of the smallest things imaginable, usually one or two millimeters in diameter. When Jesus talked about the seed, I think he meant that quality is more important than quantity. You don’t need a LOT of faith; you just need to use the little you have. If you act with the tiniest little bit of faith, then it can make all the difference in the world.
This can be difficult for us to understand because so often we’re tempted to think of faith as a particularly warm and noble feeling, or a personal strength of mind and spirit that leads to miracles. But when you remember that biblical faith is more akin to “trust,” that “to believe” is to trust each day in God’s leading and direction, and take the next step no matter how small, then Jesus’ reply makes sense.
Jesus said us that a little faith can do a lot of good, and that message is the essence of good news today. When, in 1933, Presbyterians founded World Communion Sunday, and when Christians celebrate it each year, you and I exercise our trust that God’s love overcomes hatred, that our unity in Christ is more powerful than all conflict in in Springfield, in Washington D.C., and beyond. When, in 1980, Presbyterians called for a new emphasis on peacemaking, and when you and I financially support that emphasis each year, we exercise our faith that God’s abundance can overcome human scarcity, that the contributions of one congregation can make a difference in easing suffering locally and around the world.
I often feel faced by too much information and too little time to absorb it, by too many projects and not enough energy to accomplish all of them. But I also know I need to listen to our brothers and sisters who ask us to notice the persecution of the Church near and far, and support those who face violence and persecution. Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, who died earlier this year, once said about suffering, “When we notice as Jesus notices, we find ourselves transformed, away from self-sufficiency to solidarity, away from private privilege to communal engagement, away from hard, dismissive indifference to compassion.”[2]
With our peace and global witness emphasis today, we’re paying attention and providing support, in a small but significant way. It may not seem like much. But Jesus said that you don’t need a lot of faith; you just need to use the little that you have. When added up, all our little acts of faith make a difference. And in a complicated and sometimes crazy world, that is good news!
NOTES
[1] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0017/
[2] Walter Brueggemann, “Joined in Suffering … Reliant on God’s Power,” Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, ed. Anna Carter Florence, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004, p. 121.
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