October 6, 2019 Text: Luke 17:6
Dear Friends in Christ,
We hear a lot of talk these days how difficult it is to be a Christian, but is it? Many in our world would laugh at our idea of difficult. Was it hard to come to worship? To pray? To do devotions? It may be a little harder to share the faith, but that is always a challenge. I still see respect for the office of Pastor in our community. Why do people say it is harder today to be a follower of Christ?
Much of it comes from biblical principles that are being challenged in all walks of life. Values and practices that we hold sacred because “thus saith the Lord” are not held on to as tightly as they once were.
This was happening with Jesus and His disciples in Luke 17. Jesus was always teaching about everyday values and practices. Here He is telling the disciples they need to forgive others even up to seven times a day. If they were wronged they need to confront another with the sin and voice forgiveness. This is the stuff of everyday relationships.
But oh it can be hard to forgive at times, can’t it? Bitter feelings run deep like the roots of the mulberry tree – stubborn, strong. We can understand the disciples reaction to this challenge of Jesus – “Increase our faith.” Jesus the great teacher doesn’t say, “Uh, ok . . . you have greater faith.” He does say, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (v. 6) On this LWML Sunday let’s see what can be done about . . .
“MOVING MULBERRY TREES”
Now Jesus doesn’t really explain what He says, but you have to admit it is quite the image. With just a little faith – faith you have right now – Jesus is saying you can uproot a twenty-five foot mulberry tree and plant it at the bottom of the sea. Have you ever tried that? Well, let’s go take a stab at it, anyone ready to follow? Maybe we need a little more teaching from the Savior.
One thing Jesus is saying is that it is not helpful to quantify our faith. This was what the disciples were asking. Give us heroic faith. We want a faith that will stand up to hard things and hard times. But quantifying that does not help us. Yet we still do it, don’t we? “If I only believed enough.” “If my faith were stronger I wouldn’t be curled up in my pity.” The weight of these statements is upon us. Do we believe enough? Do we trust enough?
So if we don’t quantify faith, then how do we understand the words of Jesus? How can faith send mulberry trees flying into the sea? “Faith like a grain of mustard seed” is simply trust in Him. A faith that trusts and abides in Him. A faith that lives every day in Him. It is only in Christ that we move mulberry trees, even the deep ones like bitterness or a lack of forgiveness. It is possible only as Christ lives in us.
Latin has two words for faith. The first is fides, a faith that says certain things are true like “I believe…that God created the world…that Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead…that the Holy Spirit keeps me in the true faith.” Our creeds are examples of fides. The other Latin word for faith is fiducia. This is relational faith. It is trust in the Lord, being rooted in the power of God. This was Luther’s preferred word for faith. Fiducia is at work in Paul’s words of Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.
So this faith says that I can forgive not so much because I have enough faith to do it but rather because I live and make decisions inside a strong relationship with Jesus Christ. I have Christ or better, Christ has me! The One who came and died for me. The One who broke through death and came to life for me. The One who called me in Baptism and made me His own. I can move mulberry trees because of this One – Jesus my Savior.
In Christ, then, we can confront the person who has wronged us and offer forgiveness. When can share our faith when it is not easy or convenient. We can drop our coins and dollars in our mite boxes because we know they make a difference. We can hold the hand of someone in the hospital we might not be that warm with. We can reach out to that friend who has drifted from our life.
Our community is not the enemy, it is our mission field. You hear mulberry trees moving – hard things, impossible things, happening because Christ lives within me, because Christ lives within us!
Since 1942 the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League has lived mustard seed faith. Little gifts, small coins and dollar bills put in mite boxes, combined across our synod, make things happen. Big things. Mulberry trees are being moved
Don’t believe the hype that we have such a difficult road in front of us. What appears to be hard may just be what we each need as we live with Christ day-in-day-out. Because Christ abides in us, the difficult thing can be done with joy. May it be said of us, “Those were the days when Christians moved mulberry trees!”
Amen.