Increase My Faith: A Sermon by Deacon Terry

One of my favorite scripture readings is this morning’s Epistle from 2nd Timothy – where Paul is writing to Timothy –
Reminding Timothy of the sincere faith his Grandmother and his mother had, and how they passed down that faith to him.
He goes on to say that “I am not ashamed. For I know who I put my trust in, etc., etc. (hold onto that thought)
Do you, like me ever wish you had more faith?
If Your like me trying to control basically everything going on in your life, and not listening for God and letting God do some of the driving?
 I wonder if its faith that we maybe lacking or is it our understanding of God’s place in each of our lives and throughout the entire world.
A little more trust that God really is in control of this world in spite of what we see and hear going on?
Wars, mass shootings, hatred amongst us, ill treatment of the less fortunate, etc., etc.
Do we ask for a little more belief & trust that it is all going to be okay?
We are here in this place – St. David’s, today because we have at least a little faith.
If we had no faith, we wouldn’t be here.
If you have ever wished you had just a little more faith, you are certainly not alone. 
In this morning’s gospel, it’s the apostles who are asking Jesus for more faith.
 
Even they sometimes struggled with believing and trusting in God and in their leader, Jesus.
 
The apostles are the ones who have left everything to follow Jesus.
They have been listening to his teachings. Which have been challenging, to say the least.
 
So, we just read Luke 17: 5-10. Where Jesus told his followers to have the faith of a mustard seed.
 
If we look back 4 verses we would read: Jesus saying
 
“Temptation to sin is sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
 
It is no wonder that the apostles respond to these teachings with the desperate plea: “Increase our faith!” – listen to what they just heard!
 
And their request should bring comfort to us who often wish for a little more faith, a little more trust that it’s all going to be okay, that God is in control, and that God cares about each of us.
 
But this raises a question, at least to me: How much faith is enough?
The apostles feel as though they need more faith to face the challenges that Jesus is placing before them. So they ask Jesus to increase their faith.
If they are going to do everything that Jesus asks of them, they will certainly need more faith. At least that’s what they think.
Jesus tells them that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed, they have more than enough.
I believe that what Jesus is saying, to them and to us, is that if we have any faith at all, it is enough.
Or, to put it another way, if we have enough faith to ask for more, then we already have enough.
Faith the size of a mustard seed is plenty, Jesus says.
It’s not a question of how much faith we have – it’s a question of who we put our faith and trust in. 
Faith, to put it another way, is not about believing in something or someone without ever having any doubts.
 
The theologian Paul Tillich says;
 
“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.”
 
Faith includes noticing the mess, the mess in our lives and the mess in this world, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
 
This is what Jesus asks of us: To notice the mess around us, and wait for the light.
To trust him, even when things seem very dark. To hold onto our mustard seed faith, and trust, that it is enough.
Not because of the amount of our faith, but because of who we are placing our faith in. 
Jesus follows the statement about the mustard seed with an example of a slave doing what is commanded.
I wondered, what’s the point of the slave story?
What does it have to do with the mustard seed story about faith?
I believe that it is simply to remind us that we’re not in charge.
We don’t have to have it all figured out. We don’t need certainty. We don’t need to see the whole picture.
God is in charge.
There is more going on in each of our lives and in the world than any of us can understand. So we are asked to trust him.
Over the years, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what God is saying, doing and teaching us.
I’ve kind of changed a bit over the past many years.
There was clearly a time in my life when I needed answers, validation to my questions and I would wait until I had answers – at least what I thought were answers until I took action or did or said something.
An example would be – reading scripture.
I would read scripture, sometimes not fully understanding what I was reading.
So, I would reference until the cows came home, I would seek answers from people I thought had all the answers.
But I forgot to listen for God to speak to my heart.
Fast forward: I now listen for God, pray for understanding and wisdom and move on.
I don’t try to solve the puzzle, the mystery; I don’t need to have the definitive answer,
If I don’t get it = “oh well”.
I pray for trust in God’s plan.
Saint Augustine said,
“We do not understand in order to believe. We believe in order to understand.”
 
Jesus says to us, trust me. Trust me and follow me. And eventually it will all become clear. Think about that for a moment.
That is, to me, the basic message behind this morning’s gospel reading. If we have enough faith to ask for more, then we have enough faith already.
Because it’s not a matter of how much faith you have – it’s a matter of who we put our faith in.
So I want to suggest three things that may help us grow our faith.
First, and perhaps most obvious, we can do what the apostles did: we can ask for more faith. They said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”
Think about that as a prayer. When we are struggling to believe, we can simply talk to God about it.
Another thing that might be obvious, is that if you feel as though your faith is in short supply, one of the best things you can do is come to church or worship on line if you can’t attend in person.
 
Don’t wait until you believe, or until everything is answered to come to church, because if you do, you may never get to church and by coming to church you are surrounded by like people who feed off each other and nourish each other.
 
One of my heroes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, puts it like this:
 
If you are struggling to believe, “Come to the church! You can do that on the strength of your human freedom. You can leave your house on Sunday and go to hear the preaching. If you do not do it, then you willfully exclude yourself from the place where faith is possible.”
 
And a third way is to share our struggles and our doubts with a Christian friend.
Don’t keep it to yourself. Share your struggles with someone you trust.
Here’s an example, John Wesley.
The founder of the Methodist Church, the guy who wrote so many of our Christian hymns.
Well, John Wesley went through a period in his life when his faith was very low. He talked to some friends that he trusted about it.
 
One of them said to him:
“Preach faith until you have it. And then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”
 
He was invited to attend a meeting at a church one night, where they were studying Paul’s Letter to Romans.
 
Here’s how John Wesley describes that meeting
 
“I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
 
And, of course, after that John Wesley went on to become one of the greatest preachers and evangelists the church has ever known.
His faith came alive, because, he talked to a trusted friend, he prayed and he went to church.
His mustard seed faith proved to be enough to dramatically change him and the church forever.
I believe that’s the point that Jesus is trying to make today.
Our faith, however small it may seem, is plenty big enough. Because it isn’t about how big our faith is.
It never was. It was always about who we put that faith in. No matter how little our faith, when we put it in Jesus there is no end to what he can accomplish through us.
So as we look around our world today and see:
War in Ukraine and Russia
War in Palestine and Israel
War on refugees
The killings of people expressing themselves
Hateful words spoken by so many
It’s about WHO we put our faith in.
Remember that we are first citizens of God’s kingdom, and that we are here only for a time
We need to put our faith in the one we will spend eternity with.
AMEN