Enough Already Luke 17: 5-10 Sid Batts

Transcription

1 Enough Already Luke 17: 5-10 Sid Batts First Presbyterian Church Greensboro, North Carolina September 11, 2016 The disciples came up to Jesus and said, Supersize our faith! Well, not really but had Jesus gathered disciples for his ministry in the Twenty-first Century, that s what they could have said. Supersize my faith! Actually what they did say to Jesus was Increase our faith! And as I hear it, I m thinking isn t that what we all want? More faith.deeper faith..increased faith. I mean this is a tough world, a confusing world and we suspect that having more faith is a key to managing it all, making sense of it all, and balancing it all. Right? I don t know anyone who gathers on Sunday, or who calls themselves a follower of Jesus who wants less faith. Do you? We want more! A couple of years ago you may remember an AT&T commercial where a guy sits on the floor surrounded by small, adorable children and he asks, Who thinks more is better than less? What follows is a random, winding answer by a girl sitting in the circle. She says: More is better than less because if there's more less stuff, then you might want to have some more. But then, your parents won't let you because there's only a little. If you really like something, you'll want more of it. We want more. We want more! I In our story of Jesus with his disciples, if we go back a few chapters, we will see a turning point in the story. It s when Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus has made it clear the road ahead is difficult. And the disciples seem overwhelmed at times. And in the verses just prior to today s exchange, Jesus says there will be times when the disciples will need to forgive someone again and again if they repent. What a challenge! That s when they say to Jesus, Increase our faith. I get it. If they could just have more more energy, more time, more fuel, more resolve, more resilience, more faith, maybe they could meet Jesus expectations. If they just had more faith!

2 2 And what is Jesus answer for their request for more faith? That they only need faith the size of a mustard seed. Ironically, I may have seen my first mustard seed this week. It was in a mustard sauce that included the seeds. They are the size of poppy seeds or sesame seeds..tiny, small. And Jesus says with faith that small, the disciples can do amazing things. So you see what Jesus is saying? The disciples don t need more faith. They have enough already. It s that they are not using the faith they already have. Enough already! But all of this reminds us of our human condition, and our scarcity thinking that we don t have enough. We don t have enough money. We don t have the brains. We don t have enough good looks or the right personality. We don t have enough friends and social connections. And when it comes to faith and we lament that we need more, Jesus says, Enough already! Use what you have. Your mustard seed faith is sufficient. A few years back we had Lynn Twist with us. She is the author of The Soul of Money. This is what she says: For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is I didn t get enough sleep. The next one is I don't have enough time. Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack... This mind-set of scarcity lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life. So faith is like everything else; you and I often lament that we don t have enough..or that we need more. So maybe we should think of faith as a muscle that needs exercising it gets stronger with use. Last spring I asked our elders to step forward and lead a small group Bible study this fall. About a dozen stepped forward. Many of them had never led such a group.and it was out of their comfort zone. But they are putting their faith muscle to work, because they have

3 3 enough! I am sure they and the folks who join them for the group study, will find themselves challenged, blessed and their faith muscle getting stronger. II But then after Jesus says, enough already, he seems to go in a different direction. Did you hear him? He follows the comment about mustard seed faith with a second story, a parable: In as much he says: Imagine you are 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 a reward for just doing what you re supposed to do? Of course not. Now for the Greatest Generation, who were molded by character, the Great Depression, and who lived by duty, this makes sense. But for the rest of us, doing something because it is our duty or because we ought to, is not generally our motivation for acting. So add these Jesus thoughts together: First, you have enough faith. And second, stop expecting someone to make a big deal over it when you do what you re supposed to be doing. Third, faith is doing those ordinary things. It is not necessarily heroic. It is often the little things the due diligence of faith that Jesus expects. III Have you thought about how important the little things are? I sometimes think of the many people in our church who do the little things that make it all work. We have a majestic cathedral with awesome worship services, operate a large and extensive ministry and fund them with time, talent and money, including significant outreach in our city. But we could not do any of it without the actions of countless people who perform their service without recognition. Think of the ushers who are here every Sunday morning, the greeter guides, the Sunday School teachers, the flower arrangers, the choir members, the folks who cook and provide food for our families on the day of a funeral, the many people who sit on committees, ministry teams and task forces who do their work without acknowledgment or publicity these members who work unselfishly from month to month. The community service members who knit and crochet clothes, hats and blankets for indigent babies born here in Greensboro, for the Holy Folders that come on Friday mornings to get us ready for Sunday mornings. These members fill the gaps, to see that God s kingdom is expressed in and through this congregation. They are the ones who hold everything together and make our ministry work. They are the unsung heroes.

4 4 I may have told you this story, but if I have it bears repeating. It s about a guy who works in a community college in the Northeast. His name is Kenneth and every day, he would walk from his car to the school administrator s office where he worked through a twenty-footwide stretch of lawn. For a long time, the lawn annoyed him because it was littered with cans, papers, and other stuff thrown there by students. He thought of writing letters to the editor of the school paper, and even of organizing a clean-up day; but decided against it. Rather he had an idea he would take ownership of the plot. He didn't tell anyone about this but he made himself personally responsible for the quality of this one twenty-foot piece of lawn. Each day, going to and from his car, Kenneth picked up the trash. At first he carried it to a wastebasket in his building or took it home with him. Then a curious thing occurred, large barrels appeared at each end of the lawn. Someone on the maintenance crew had become his silent conspirator. Finally he reached the point where he was picking up faster than other people were littering. He looked with pride at his twenty-foot lawn. It was beautiful and green and free of trash. The rest of the campus was as littered as ever. But that was someone else's problem. He was taking care of his. The story goes that Kenneth has been tending his lawn for years now and it affects his attitude. He cannot control the whole world in which he lives, but he has carved off a manageable section of it and is doing his part to take care of it. There seems order in his life because of the small bit of God's earth he is looking after. Don t you wonder if that approach might not be good for all of us? I mean, the world is big and complex and there are problems as far as the eye can see. None of us can fix everything. But each of us can find a small thing we can do and work at. And think how spiritually and emotionally healthy we are when we are doing something useful, positive and constructive for the world. Even one small thing can make a difference in our life and often in the lives around us. That is faith the size of a mustard seed going to work. Or maybe you heard recently about Florida State football player, Travis Rudolph, who with some other Seminole players visited a local middle school in Tallahassee. When Rudolph went into the cafeteria, he saw one middle schooler eating by himself. So he walked over to the fourteen year old and asked if he could sit with him. Sure said, Bo Paske and the two struck up a conversation. What the junior wide receiver didn t know is that Bo has autism and is often shunned and isolated by his fellow classmates. You remember middle school don t you. where if you are not part of the cool kids then your life can be on the lonely side?

5 5 Bo s mother said: He doesn t seem to notice when people stare at him when he flaps his hands. He doesn t seem to notice that he doesn t get invited to birthday parties anymore. And he doesn t seem to mind if he eats lunch alone. It s one of my daily questions for him. Was there a time today you felt sad? Who did you eat lunch with today? Most days it s nobody. Well, a photo of FSU star Rudolph and Bo was posted on social media and as you might expect, Bo s popularity among his peers changed in a millisecond! Bo became famous and the next day other middle schoolers surrounded him, even girls. And there were no empty seats when he ate lunch. It was such a little thing, right? One simple, act of kindness by a college football player that made all the difference in the world for Bo, a middle school student dealing with autism. IV So this is what we hear today: Enough already! Our mustard seed sized faith is enough. And using it, even in little ways, is what is expected from us! i i Sources Florida State football player eats lunch with autistic student sitting alone, The Associated Press, 8/31/2016 Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life The Importance of the Little Things A sermon by John 30 Good Minutes Enough Already A sermon by Joanne Whitt (I didn t steal the title! I had named it before I read Whitt s sermon on Luke 17)