LWML Sunday 2019
Luke 17:6
Adapted from a sermon by Rev. Dr. Dean Nadasdy, President Emeritus LCMS Minnesota South District
October 6, 2019
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
We hear a lot of talk these days about how difficult it is to be a Christian. The world has changed. The nation has changed. Increasingly, people are walking away from the church or choosing never to affiliate because we are seen as irrelevant, judgmental, or hypocritical. The more secularized we become as a nation, we’re told, the less impact we Christians seem to have. So it is in the post Christian world. It is no longer safe to assume that everyone knows about Jesus, much less has some sort of faith in Him.
All this talk about the challenges of living in “a post-Christian world” can lead to timid, fearful, even doubtful disciples of Jesus Christ. Truthfully, our world is not that different from the world of Jesus’ first disciples. Their world has been described as a pre-Christian world in which people did not know Jesus or His teachings or His mission.
Consider Jesus and His disciples in Luke 17. Jesus was constantly teaching about everyday values and practices. Here He tells His disciples that they would need to forgive others, even if they had been wronged, seven times in a single day. He wasn’t talking about some institutional health here but a way of life. He was referring to the simple but challenging act of confronting another with their sin and voicing forgiveness. This is the stuff of everyday relationships. But it’s so out there, the world notices. Brother of a man killed, forgiving the policewoman who did shot him, after her trial was just in the news.
It is hard to confront, though, isn’t it? And it is hard to forgive. The roots of bitterness run deep and last long, like tree roots — like mulberry tree roots, stubborn and strong. No wonder the disciples responded to Jesus’ challenge to forgive with the words, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). They could have said, “Good Lord! You expect us to forgive like that and that often? Now that’s challenging! We need greater faith for that! Give us greater faith, Lord!”
It was one of those teaching moments. So when His disciples said, “Increase our faith!” Jesus did not say, “Sure! May you have greater faith!” What He did say was, “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.”
Jesus doesn’t explain His response. Luke, who records Jesus’ words, doesn’t interpret them either. You have to admit, it’s quite an image, though. With just a little faith, Jesus is saying — faith as small as a mustard seed, the faith you have right now — you can uproot a thirty-foot mulberry tree and plant it at the bottom of the sea. I can imagine a Christian saying to a mulberry tree, “Pull up your roots and head for the ocean, tree! You will be the first mulberry tree successfully transplanted to the ocean floor!” Then we see, of all things, this mulberry tree flying off to its new surroundings, 4000 feet below sea level!
So what is Jesus saying here? For one thing He is saying that it is not helpful to quantify our faith. Jesus’ disciples were doing that with their request, “Increase our faith!” In other words, “Jesus, give us more faith, heroic faith, enough faith to do the hard thing in hard times.” Jesus’ response says that it is not helpful to make faith a quantifiable possession. We say that, don’t we? “If only I had enough faith!” “If I could just believe enough!” Or, negatively, we say, “I guess I just don’t have enough faith!” Notice how the weight of those statements is on us. Can we believe enough? Can we trust enough? Do we have enough faith to make things happen?
So if faith is not to be quantified, how do we understand Jesus’ words, “faith like a grain of mustard seed”? It’s not the size of faith that truly matters, but who faith is in – Jesus Christ. So when we pray, “increase our faith” we are praying, “Jesus, grant me to hold onto You more and more.” It is simple trust in Him, a trust that abides in Him, depends on Him, and 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. That is possible only as Christ lives in us.
So “faith like a grain of mustard seed” says that you can forgive not so much because you have enough faith to do it but rather because but because of Jesus. “Faith like a grain of mustard seed” says you already have what you need to live your Christian life and witness: You have Christ, or better, Christ has you! The One who came and died for you, the One who broke through death and came to life for you, the One who called you in Baptism and made you His own — He makes seemingly impossible things possible.
So, in Christ, you can confront the person who has wronged you, and offer forgiveness. You do the hard thing and share your faith with your neighbor. You make time to pack food for the hungry when you thought you were too busy. You drop a quarter in an LWML mite box, believing it will make a difference. You hold the hand of a neighbor in the hospital, maybe not your favorite neighbor. You phone a friend who has become distant.
Today is LWML Sunday. The Lutheran Women’s Missionary League has always lived by mustard seed faith. Little gifts, mites, combined across our synod, make big things happen in mission across the world. Christ has been moving mulberry trees through the LWML since 1942. What a model they are for Christian discipleship! If our congregations are the soul of the LCMS; if our pastors, workers, and missionaries are the beautiful feet of the LCMS; if our seminaries and universities are the mind of the LCMS; if Lutheran Hour Ministries is the voice of the LCMS; then the LWML is the heart of the LCMS. The women of our church have taught us what it means to move mulberry trees with just a little faith – to hold onto Jesus.
May that be our attitude the next time we say that it is difficult to follow Christ. What appears to be hard, and even impossible, may be just the thing we need to do as we live with Christ day-in-day-out. And because Christ abides with you, the difficult thing can be done with joy. It may not be easy, but it is possible in Christ. May it be said of us, “Those were the days when Christians moved mulberry trees, all because of Jesus!” Amen.