Measuring

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 2, 2016

22 Proper C

          Our oldest son, Slocomb, celebrated his 30^th birthday this past Thursday.  This occasion required the making of our traditional family birthday cake and mailing it to Cincinnati.  The cake itself is our own creation, but the icing is the recipe my mother got from her mother.  Recipes handed on by word of mouth can be a bit tricky, especially since my mother did not put much stock in traditional units of measure when cooking.  Most of her recipes begin with a glob of butter, end with a package of chocolate chips, and might include a splash of vanilla.  If a recipe called for a teaspoon of something, baking soda, for instance, she used a teaspoon out of the silverware drawer.  Likewise, a soup spoon made a fine tablespoon.  Not until my sister and I took home economics in Junior High School did we know that real measuring spoons and cups actually exist.  Somehow Mom’s recipes always worked out, but following them now that she is gone is a bit of a challenge.  Through trial and error, I have taken the icing recipe which includes a glob of butter, two heaping spoons of cocoa, a small bowl of powdered sugar, some milk and a little vanilla and converted the recipe into something a little more precise.  And most of the time, my version turns out pretty close to Mom’s.

          This morning, the disciples think of faith as something that can be quantified and measured.  “Increase our faith,” they say to Jesus.  Maybe they have ¼ cup of faith now and think they would be better off, better disciples even, if they had ½ cup or even a whole cup.  When we read the stories leading up to their request this morning, we understand why they want more faith.  In the five verses prior to our gospel lesson, Jesus has said “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble,” and “If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 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.”  Having heard these two difficult teachings from Jesus, the disciples immediately say “Increase our faith.”

          Jesus is somewhat less than pastoral in his response to his disciple’s request.  To the disciples, who seem earnest in their request for more faith, Jesus says “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.”  Exactly how much faith is faith the size of a mustard seed?  And why would anyone want a mulberry tree to uproot itself and be planted in the sea in the first place?  And if the disciples only need faith the size of a mustard seed, however much that is, their current faith must be invisible to the naked eye.  Jesus answer seems rather unhelpful.

          To make things worse, rather than tell the disciples and us how to have faith even the size of a mustard seed, Jesus says “Who among you would say to your slave…”  Jesus has called people who catch fish and collect taxes for a living, not people likely to have slaves who plow fields or tend sheep.  The answer to “who among you” is probably “none of us.”  That tells us that perhaps the disciples are asking the wrong question. Then Jesus proceeds with an odd and offensive teaching about the relationship between master and slave, which ends with the slaves saying at the end of a day spent serving the master “We are worthless slaves.  We have done only what we ought to have done.”  The whole passage makes little sense.

I wonder if absurdity might be at least part of Jesus’ point.  Perhaps the idea that there are units of measure for faith, and that faith can be increased from one size to another is also absurd.  If we put aside for a moment our offense at Jesus’ reference to slavery, what might we learn about faith from the rest of what Jesus has to say this morning?

Jesus’ point about the slaves is that they were not doing anything special or glamorous with their lives. They were simply doing the work they were given to do.  I wonder if the response to “Increase our faith” is “do the work you have been given to do.”  The reference to slaves, while abhorrent to our ears, is a reminder that, like a slave, we belong to someone else.  We belong to God.  Perhaps faith, rather than something that can be doled out a quarter cup at a time, is something that grows with use.  Just a few chapters earlier, Jesus said “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”  With the comparison to the mustard seed this morning, perhaps Jesus is telling the disciples that faith is something that must be nurtured and grown, and that the way to grow faith is by living our faith, practicing our faith over and over again by living our lives as people who belong to God.

          Mother Teresa is quoted as having said “Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.”  The people I know who I think of as people of great faith didn’t move metaphorical mountains or uproot metaphorical mulberry trees overnight.  My friend who founded a domestic violence shelter in a small town in West Virginia where all the civic organizations told her there was no domestic violence did this by taking one faithful baby step at a time until there was a fully funded and fully occupied shelter.  My friend who lived with pancreatic cancer for 13 months, lived one prayer at a time, one step at a time.  My friend that works for human rights in a town that is not interested in protecting human rights takes two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and two steps back, but he keeps at the work, one small step at a time.  In all cases, their faith grew as they practiced their faith one small step at a time and did not give up.

          The disciples say to Jesus “Increase our faith.”  But there are no units of measure for faith, enough of which will give us the ability to say to a metaphorical mulberry tree “Be uprooted and planted in the sea.”  I think what Jesus says to the disciples and to us is “Grow your faith by practicing your faith one baby step at a time, you will change the world.” 

                                                                   Amen.