Increase Our Faith- A Sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA on Sunday, October 2, 2022, based on Luke 17. 1-10
It
began as just another interview with an athlete who has written a memoir. Topics covered included the time and effort
necessary to reach the top of one’s game and the discipline required to sustain
such a high level of performance.
Mention was made of broken relationships with loved ones. Before the conversation ended there was talk
of one’s influence on others.
Thankfully, the gifted individual didn’t play the “I didn’t choose to be
a role model” card. Instead the
competitor said she hoped the sharing of her struggles would help others meet
their challenges.
Like
it or not, whether we seek to be or not, we all end up as examples for others to embrace and follow or reject and
avoid. Maybe you’ve heard the country
song where the four year old in the back seat lets loose with a four letter
word when his happy meal is dumped in his lap by a sudden stop. Later, the
little buckeroo is heard “sayin his prayers “like he was talkin’ to a
friend.” The child had learned both
behaviors by observing his father and striving to be “just like” him. The song is a cautionary tale. It lines up
with the “how to live as a disciple lessons Jesus shared with his closest
companions on the way to Jerusalem.
“Occasions
for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come!” is how
he begins. Then he says it would be better to take a long walk off a short pier
wearing cement shoes than cause another to stumble. No pressure there! First
thing to notice is that Jesus doesn’t pretend that things can or will go
smoothly all of the time. It reminds me
of the saying printed across one of my many hats: “Lead me not into temptation,
I can find it myself.” Only this time
the warning is: don’t lead anyone else astray!
Jesus
puts it out there: everyone’s going to mess up. He’ll get around to talking
about how we recover from that in a minute.
For now, though, we look to the second half of the sentence where he
lifts up the communal nature of the family of faith: “but woe to anyone who
causes another to mess up. Using the
absurd picture of a person being thrown into the ocean with a millstone around
their neck, Jesus issues a caution against causing “one of these little ones to
stumble.” He’s not just talking about
the little buckaroo or ballerina in the back seat.
He’s
talking about attitudes and behaviors that lead others to give up on God, to
fall away from the community, to act and speak in ways contrary to the way
Jesus teaches: Telling stories that
perpetuate prejudice when Jesus advocates loving our neighbor. Withholding help from those in need because
we don’t think they deserve it. Denying forgiveness while Jesus looks down from
the cross and prays “Father, forgive them…”
Around
the time Jan Edmiston was elected co-moderator of the General Assembly or our
denomination, she wrote of an incident which she was a new pastor in a small
town. She went to the hospital to take
communion to a fifty-year-old white man from her congregation, named Joe. Joe’s
hospital roommate was a black man, named Mike, who told the pastor that he too
was a Christian.
The
three of them chatted together. The
pastor served communion to both men and they prayed together. Said Jan: It’s what you do. Mike was certainly interested in being
included. It was lovely.”
A
week later, she visited Joe at his home where the following conversation took
place:
“Joe: Thank you for coming to the hospital, but you
wouldn’t believe what happened after you left. I really saved you!
Jan:
What do you mean?”
Joe:
(Laughing) Do you remember Mike?
Jan:
Of course.
Joe: Well, I really saved you! (Still laughing.) After you left, Mike said that he thought
you were nice and he might like to visit our church sometime, but I told him that we
don’t allow black people in our church.
The
pastor was stunned; she was speechless.
Joe: Boy, I really saved you! Can imagine if a black man had walked into our church
some Sunday?”
Looking
back, Edmiston admitted: “Even now, I
can barely type these words, but they are true: A member of a congregation I
served barred a person from worship be-cause of skin color. My response to Joe
was a mixture of anger and shock.”[i]
Joe’s
placement of a stumbling block in the path of a seeker was blatant. Jesus warns us to be on guard against the
more subtle impediments we place in the path. Be on your guard! Says he; will a
word to the wise be sufficient?
Jesus addressed another challenge to his disciples. It too is based in reality. It has to do with sin and forgiveness within the community of faith. There will be sin. There will be need for forgiveness. To pretend otherwise is folly. As he speaks, Jesus pictures a network of relationships so strong that it can stand up to confrontation and correction among its members. “If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance you must forgive.”
The confrontation is not offered in order to condemn, but to correct. Jesus words grow out of the wisdom shared in the Book of Proverbs:
It
is helpful to remember at this point that the words of Jesus here are directed
to his disciples. Rather than general principles applicable for anyone, these
are insider words meant to provide guidance for living within the community of
faith. Life within the community is not always easy. People, being themselves,
keep messing up. There goes Peter once again making an impetuous promise he
can’t possibly keep. Here comes Martha, clearing the coffee cups off the Bible
Study table before the lesson is over. Meanwhile, Judas is demanding a receipt
from the disciples for the loaves and fish that boy handed over to feed the
crowd.
Even
among the saints, people do and say things that get under each other’s skin, rub
people the wrong way. Beyond the minor annoyances, the repetitive slights, the
thoughtless words tossed off, selfishness or self-absorption lead to hurts
inflicted, grudges nursed, and misunderstandings allowed to fester.
Embedded
in my memory is a little ditty Andy McElwee, one of my pastors growing up used
to work into a sermon quite often:
If
you’ve been following the on-line Season of Peace meditations that go along
with the Peace and Global Witness offering, you might recall a piece by Anne
Russ. She tells of “having a workout tank top that reads “Weights and Wine:
Because punching people is frowned upon.”
She
continues: “Now, I have never punched anyone. Ever. But that doesn’t mean I
haven’t wanted to. I am really bad at being angry. While some people are
energized by anger, it absolutely exhausts me. And when I am tired, I get
cranky. And when I’m cranky is when I am most likely to resort to violence. For
me, violence is more likely to manifest itself in shouted or hurtful words, but
we all know (contrary to what we learned as children) that words DO hurt and
cause wounds that can take years to heal.
Sometimes words inflict the kind of pain that never heals.
In
response, Anne writes “So, when I’m ready to punch someone (literally or
metaphorically), I know it is time for me to take a step back. Sneak a
20-minute nap. Have a snack. Drink some water. Maybe even pray about it.” And then she concludes: “We often don’t
think of self-care and soul care as tools of nonviolence, but peaceful
responses to stressful, upsetting and tension filled situations require energy
and imagination on our part.”[iii]
Thus
the need to forgive and to be forgiven!
Jesus doubles down on forgiveness by anticipating a question as to how often we must be ready to forgive. In doing so puts the responsibility for granting forgiveness on the forgiver. There is to be no judgment as to the sincerity of another’s repentance. “And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”
If we are
honest, we can’t help but put ourselves alongside the disciples, who, upon
hearing Jesus speak of serial forgiveness, cried out: “Increase our faith!” And with them, we wait for some tips on how
to grow our faith bigger so we can face the tough times and, to our way of
thinking, the “unforgivable” we hear experience.
Only,
Jesus doesn’t give the disciples a three-point plan to increase their
faith. Instead, he tells them they’ve
got enough already. As he so often did, Jesus takes what the disciples already
know and uses it to deepen their understanding.
Forget
for the moment the other parable that contrasts the size of the mustard seed
with plant it produces. For now, remember that it is among the smallest seeds
on earth. This time put the tiny seed
alongside a mulberry tree, thought to be a sycamore, which one source describes
as “a large tree (up to 60 feet high) with deep roots.)[iv] Add into the mix the notion of pulling
up such a deep-rooted tree and planting it in the ocean, which seems both impossible
and absurd.
The late Fred
Craddock’s insight is helpful here, when he gives us a tutorial on the Greek
language, which he says, “has basically
two types of “if” clauses: those which
express a condition contrary to the fact, (as in “if I were you…{which I am not}). (A second type of ‘if’ clause
ex-presses a condition according to fact (as in “If Jesus is our Lord.”{and he
is}). It is this second type that Jesus uses in his answer to the disciples, so
you could translate it this way ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed
[AND YOU DO!” Dot, Dot, Dot. Jesus’ response, then, is not a reprimand for the
absence of faith, but an affirmation of the faith they have and an invitation
to live out the full possibilities of that faith.”[v]
Another
commentator puts it this way: “The point is not that they need more faith;
rather, they need to under-stand that faith enables God to work in a person’s
life in ways that defy ordinary human experience. The saying is not about being
able to do miraculous works or spectacular tricks. On the contrary, Jesus
assures the disciples that with even a little faith they can live by his
teachings on discipleship.”[vi]
For
the past few weeks, as Bill Carter has opened for us the parables of Jesus
found in Luke, we’ve seen how Jesus tells a story in way that starts in one
place and ends in quite another. A man
asks “who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers by telling a story of an unexpected helper
but asks his questioner: who acted as neighbor to the man who needed help?” So,
in the last part of today’s reading, Jesus starts by talking about the
expectations a master would have of a slave.
Distance yourself from any thoughts and feelings about the institution
of slavery, and let the story play out.
He ends up speaking about someone doing what is expected. He’s taken us
from considering what the master does to pondering what a person should feel if
they’ve fulfilled their responsibilities. Lest disciples pat themselves on the
back for putting their little bits of faith to work, we are reminded that is
what we are called to do.
Putting faith to
work; that is what Jesus was telling his disciples. That is what he is say-ing to us…with this final
story to tell them and us to carry on our discipleship in response to God’s
grace, not in the expectation of receiving further reward for doing what we are
called and empowered to do.
These
challenges are steep; the cost of being disciples is high; the depth of
relationship able to offer and receive correction or offer and receive
forgiveness is bottomless. When we
contemplate it all, it leads us to the same prayer voiced by the disciples: “Increase our faith!”
Thankfully,
the answer to that prayer is the same now as it was then. “Even a little bit
goes a long way. Trust God. Put it to
work.” We come to the table this morning
to be strengthened to believe that. We come to be empowered to live it. Amen.
[ii] The Rev. Dr. Andrew A. McElwee, of blessed memory.
[iii] Anne Russ, Sunday, September 11, A Season of Peace, Presbyterian Church, (USA) www.presbyterianmission.org/seasonofpeace/tag/daily-reflections
[iv] R. Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Luke – John, (Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 322
[v] Fred B. Craddock, Luke – Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990), p. 200
[vi] ibid. Culpepper
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