Mustard Seed Faith Landscape Company

20Pentecost, Cp22, October 6, 2013

Lamentations 1:1-6  Psalm 37:1-10

2 Tim. 1:6-14     Luke 17:5-10     

   If a man from Mustard Seed Faith Landscape Company came to my house and ask me if I wanted my mulberry tree removed and planted in the sea, I’d probably say, “No, I’d like to keep the mulberry tree, but what can your faith do with all of these weeds in my yard and garden?  Can you command them to be uprooted and planted somewhere else?”  Frankly I’d be more concerned about the little weeds than the mulberry trees.  And maybe it was the little things that Jesus was trying to get out in the sayings that we have read in the appointed Gospel of the day.

  The disciples came to Jesus and said, “Increase our faith.”  But Jesus responded by going right to their motives, by contrasting the desire for increasing faith with what he called mustard seed faith.  The disciples were portrayed in the Gospels as those who wanted to be great, important and famous.  So they wanted great faith.  They wanted showmanship faith; they wanted faith events that played on the stage to the crowds.

  So Jesus said,  “Take care of the little things.”  Big things can happen over time because of the continuous accumulation of all of the little deeds and faith acts that express a basic faithful character in life.     For various reasons, we are often encouraged to dream big in life.  Expect to be great.  Expect great recognition.  We can be taught to expect so much adulation and public success in life that we can make ourselves perpetually disappointed with outcomes.  Give me big faith Jesus, give me great faith Jesus.  And Jesus said, “Well, there can be big outcomes but they come with mustard seed acts accumulated over time.”

   We can be like people who spend their money trying to win the big lottery in life and forget about a forty hour work week of just doing the job and bringing home the wages and what that can accomplish if done consistently over the span of one’s life.

  The words of Jesus reveal to us how important little events and acts are but they also chastise us for how in a culture of recognition and fame that we have made the ordinary into heroic deeds.

  It’s like me patting myself on the back and saying, “Congratulation Phil, great job!  You fixed yourself breakfast this morning and ate it? Or  Great job Phil, you took the trash bins to the curb to allow your own waste to be carried away.”  Or what about on the larger level of society, “ Good job people, you’ve decided to try to provide affordable health care for more people.   Good job people you’ve decided to make the environment safer and cleaner.   Good job, you’ve decided to have safe gun laws.”  What sort of environment of values do we live in if it becomes congratulatory and heroic to do things that are actually good and obvious for the health of our well-being?

  This is how we can understand the seeming ironic words of Jesus.  What does a worker under contract do?  He or she does his or her job.  And to do what we’re supposed to do does not need congratulations and we don’t need to elevate taking out the trash to some heroic deed.

  We can live lives of affirmation and positive support without having egos that need congratulations for doing things that define what is good and basic to a good life.

  The disciples wanted faith as though it was a quantity that they could add to their life.  And Jesus was trying to say to them that to be human is to be faithful.  To be humane is basic to good life, now why do we have to make what is basic and good as something great and heroic?

  What this shows us is that it has become so normal to be unfaithful in life that we have to make good and faithful deeds into the heroic.  And if we do that we end up making the religious deeds of faith into acts to perform for recognition for people who are trapped in patterns of insecurity about their own worth.

  We have been taught to live in cultures of affirmation for our children.  We have been living for several decades in a “Mister Rogers’ culture of affirmation.”  It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood and we are all special.

  At some time we need to embrace the basic goodness of small faithful deeds not because we are waiting for a “Mister Rogers” culture to give us rewards of praise for doing things that are just plain good for us and for our community.

  The words of Jesus seem so harsh but they really are a parable with the insight about arriving at the mature stage when one understands that acting with faith is its own reward.  That we get to be faithful, is its own reward and accumulated faithful deeds in fact make great and big things possible over time.

  Today as we survey the stewardship of our lives, let us embrace this basic notion; thank God that we get to be faithful with the time, talent and treasure of our lives.  We don’t need to be faithful in order to get something; that we are faithful is its own reward because being faithful blesses our lives and the lives of other.

  As we consider stewardship in our parish life, we should look at is as having the privilege to do what we can.  I get to preach….it a reward in itself for me…though it may not be for you.  We get to sing in the choir; some are tonally impair and can’t.  And some are tonally impair and still try.   We get to read the Scriptures…we get to teach Sunday School…we get to work on the altar guild…we get to serve on the vestry.  And if any of us are looking for some great faith or some subsequent reward or recognition or public fame or praise, we do not yet understand the insight of Jesus regarding faith.

  My friends, this is the secret:  We get to have faith and we get to do faithful acts.  This is what it means to be human in the best possible way.  And that we attain being human in the best possible way is its own reward.

  Let us pray:  Blessed God, we thank you that we get to be here today to offer our time, talent and treasure to you.  That we can do this we accept as the profound reward of living faithful lives.  Amen.