Luke 17:5-10

Once Jesus “[sets] his face to go to Jerusalem” at the end of Chapter 9, he keeps reminding the disciples the road ahead is tough – perhaps deadly – and he’s going to stay on it. He’s just finished telling them that they, too, need to stay the course. That’s when they plead, “Increase our faith.”

If they could just have more fuel, more juice, more faith, maybe they could meet Jesus’ expectations. Now and then you run into someone who says if you only had enough faith, you could do anything: get the job, get the girl, keep your loved one from dying of cancer. The problem is that then when you don’t get the job, or don’t get the girl, or your loved one dies, it’s your fault; you failed the test of faith. This is not only cruel, it’s magical thinking and it isn’t what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is thinking about faith in a very different way.

First, says Jesus, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could order a mulberry tree to transplant itself into the sea. Why this odd image of a mulberry tree in the sea? The point is it’s absurdly impossible. The meaning of the passage turns on the original Greek, which says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…and you do…. .” So Jesus is saying, “You can do this absurdly impossible thing. You have enough faith.” With the little faith they have they can do things they never, ever would have imagined. In other words, the disciples don’t need more faith; they need to make use of the faith that they already have.

Then Jesus offers a parable: Imagine you’re a master with servants. Do you thank your servants for doing what they’re supposed to do? Of course not, says Jesus. You expect them just to keep on doing it. And then he switches perspectives: Imagine you’re the servant. Do you expect reward for just doing what you’re supposed to do? Of course not.

Now, this sounds a little harsh to twenty-first century Americans who hand out trophies to kids for just showing up. When my daughter and her husband taught school in Bangladesh, they noticed that the Bangladesh economy seemed to be built on paying people to do simple things for you that most of us would do ourselves. This was true not only for the privileged few but pretty much everyone. The bicycle rickshaw drivers paid someone to wash their vehicles. No one was expected to carry his own bag out of a store. My daughter also noticed that her students rarely said thank you. In that culture, when people were just doing their jobs, paying them for it was enough. Maybe first century Judean culture was similar.

So add these two thoughts together: First, if you have only a speck of faith – and you do – you’ll be able to do unimaginable things. And second, stop expecting someone to make a fuss when you do what you’re supposed to be doing. Personally, I’m one hundred percent in favor of thanking people, but our culture is not Jesus’ culture. This is Jesus’ message to his disciples: Stop worrying about whether you have enough faith and get to the business at hand.

Part of what Jesus points to is that “faith” isn’t about believing the right beliefs. Faithfulness is simply doing what we see needs to be done to bring us closer, even a tiny bit closer, to living in the world God wants for everyone. Faith doesn’t have to be heroic. I don’t think faith even has to be particularly religious; it certainly allows room for all kinds of doubts. Maybe faith is just being attentive to the needs around us and committing ourselves to doing what we can with what we have, trusting that God will make use of it.

That sounds pretty ordinary. Like a mustard seed.

A few years ago when we were faced with a government shutdown, Anne Lamott compared it to the alcoholic uncle at family holidays who has been threatening to do something rash every time he gets drunk, and he “finally goes and does it. He finally does some bizarre, bullying, irrational act that he has been threatening to do for awhile.” How does the family even begin to deal with the havoc the alcoholic has caused? Get him to bed, she says. “He’s on his own now. We can love him, later. … In the meantime,” she wrote, “the praying people pray. Someone sweeps. The children and the elderly are fed, and comforted. The kids go off to school. Everyone pitches in to help clean up. … And since we are not going to figure this out today, and since ‘Figure it out’ is not a good slogan, let’s do what we’ve always done. We’ll stick together, and get the thirsty people a glass of water. I’ll remember the sticker I saw once, of Koko, the sign language gorilla, above the words, ‘The law of the American jungle: remain calm, and share your bananas.’ I am going to fill a box of warm clothes and take it to Goodwill: this is going to be a terribly cold winter for the poor, what with sequestration and God-only-knows what the shutdown adds to that. I am going to pick up litter. I’ll send some money to one of America’s hunger projects. I’ll pray and pray and pray, all day, that we’ll all pitch in to help our most vulnerable, and that we’ll help each other keep the faith, and our senses of humor. Remember: laughter is carbonated holiness. I swear to you, it is.”

That is what faith looks like.