Proper 22, Year C

The Rev. G. Hendree Harrison, Jr.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Trees planted in the sea?

            “You could say to this mulberry tree be uprooted and planted in the sea…”

            Jesus is just ridiculous.  At least he says ridiculous things to describe our strange God.

            We are in the Seventeenth chapter of Luke’s gospel this morning.  It’s seventeen out of twenty-four, so we’re more than halfway through the story according to Luke.

            The apostles have been following Jesus over the hills, through the valleys, and across the sea for some time now.  They’ve heard all his twisted parables over and over again; they’ve seen healing after healing; he’s taught them how to pray; they’ve seen him duke it out with every rabbi and Pharisee of the temple, and they’ve heard all his jokes and stories.  So, I figure that by this morning’s exchange, they must have been just cross-eyed with exhaustion.

            You know, it was quite a chase following after Jesus.  He created such a tremendous stir everywhere he went, so traveling with him must have been an amazing thrill and the scariest ride ever.  People either loved Jesus or they hated him.  At times the crowds swelled and the air was electric with miracle power and Kingdom talk and at other times, the cold stares and grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes chilled the warmth from the air, and the apostles scrambled for cover.

            By this morning, after yet another tough teaching by Jesus (this one on drowning and forgiving habitual offenders), the apostles are just worn out and they drag and scrape up to Jesus saying, “Listen Jesus, we’re trying our best.  We believe (more or less) but you’re going to have to give us a booster shot or something.

            “Please,” they say in unison, “increase our faith!”

            Scholars tell us that in Jesus’ day folks understood and even expected hyperbolic speech and metaphors.  So, maybe the apostles didn’t think Jesus was being a smart aleck when he answered them by saying, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could call a tall tree out of the ground and send it sailing into the sea to be planted in the waves and water.” 

            It is silly and a ridiculous thing to say.  But Jesus’ point is that Faith is concentrate. 

Concentrate like the dish soap my dad used to tell me “not to use too much of because a little goes a long way, and if you put too much in the dishes the suds will overflow the sink and the soap bubbles will pile up and spill over onto your mother’s counter and make a mess even though they are meant to clean.”

            Jesus is saying by his ridiculous hyperbole “you don’t need lots and lots faith.  You need just the tiniest seed of faith.”  After all, it’s not really about the faith you possess, rather, it’s about the God in whom you have faith.

            See, even pebble sized faith in our strange and mountain sized God can cause the utterly impossible to become possible.  With God, dark can become light, mountains can become valleys, cold winter grows into warm spring and death gives way to resurrection. Trees plant themselves in the sea.

            A man named Miroslav Volf has written about his and his wife’s struggles with infertility.  With a bitter pen he has written that infertility is “poison and a curse.”

            Volf, a faithful Christian, has also written about the unbelievable grace of adoption and the impossible gifts that his two adopted sons are in his life. 

            So, for Volf, at least what was poison and a curse has somehow become a joyful miracle.   What was barren has become full and fertile. 

            Impossible – possible.  Like trees planted in the sea.

            I wonder- is this some fruit grown of mustard seed size faith?  Could Jesus have said

“If you had faith the size of mustard seed you could say to couples who cannot conceive children, ‘Fear not dear ones,   this present poison will become the pure spring waters of life?’”

            Many of you know, like I do,    what it is to lose a loved one, even lose someone suddenly.  Death and sudden death in particular, makes time stop and it makes life feel like a train wreck, and you wonder how you will ever get going again.  And at points you think that you probably won’t, you’ll probably just sit, and it will always be dark, and you will always have a millstone around your neck, but then against all odds, the sun keeps coming up in the morning, and slowly the wheels start turning again.  The grief, so heavy as it is, does not go away but you find that at least you can carry it around.  You can move.  The millstone is lighter, and you don’t drown after all.

            And I wonder- is the miracle of heartbroken Christian folk living and even moving through grief some phenomenal fruit of mustard seed faith?

            Could Jesus have said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to a son who has lost a father, ‘take care good friend, life goes on and on and on and you will smile again.’”

            Impossible becomes possible.  Like trees planted in the sea.

            Now, let me be clear- I am not talking about miracles here.  I know of no miracle cure to grief.  I would be a rich man if I knew a miracle cure for infertility. 

            I am talking about God using the slow bubbling buildup of concentrate faith to move ridiculously large things around in our lives.  Moving disabling grief into bearable pain; moving present poison into future joy; moving trees into the sea.

            I suppose the chief thing for us to know is that our faith and our God are not just benign things to occupy our time on Sunday morning.  There is power, real power, in our faith.  And our God is a powerful, ridiculously powerful, God.

            People ask me, how are you since your dad has died?  How do you make it?

            I will confess to you that I do not know how I make it…and I have thought to myself as an answer to these questions – I really don’t know because I just have this tiny seed of faith, but somehow, by some deep mystery, God is slowly healing me.

            I don’t know if it is true or not, but I like to think Jesus was being smart and silly with the apostles when he gave them the bit about the mustard seed.  Not to be mean, but just for a laugh; to lighten their load a bit, as if to say, “just wait guys, hang around long enough and keep hold of that mustard seed- you won’t believe what God can do.”

            Maybe instead of praying, “Dear God please increase our faith” we should pray, “Dear God show us how to find and grab hold of even some tiny seed of faith and then, O’ Holy God, help us to cling to our seeds of faith as if our lives depended upon it so that we might be carried away in the mysterious power that only you possess.”