Luke 17:5-10
October 3, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
If you are a young adult today, you might have an 8:00 AM class, a six-hour shift at a job, come home to care for your grandparent or little sibling and then getting through a ton of email messages before cracking open the books. By now, it’s 11:00 PM!
Or if you are like me, get up at 6:15 AM, eat a power breakfast of bran cereal, a banana with skim milk while reading the front page and checking the baseball scores, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at 7:15, finding a parking space in Chinatown, and answering emails with my thermos of Peets coffee by 7:30. And then the rest of the day begins.
Sometimes even a Starbuck’s Double-Shot is not enough. We need a Red Bull! Traditionally, a strong cup of coffee was used to get the real adrenaline buzz going but today it comes in a small can because a latte is passé. Enter the energy drink.
Today there are these 8-ounce cans of energy drinks with names like “New York Minute,” “Whoop A,” Piranha,” and “AMP.” Now it just happens that I received a couple of weeks ago a complimentary case of “XS” energy drinks. With colorful names and the word-of-mouth buzz, energy drinks have become the fastest growing segment of the soft-drink market, with sales going from a mere $12 million in 1997 to $1 billion this year. Studies show that 22% of college students are slurping down these sugar-packed and caffeine fortified cans of juiced up juice. Now there are some 200 brands of energy drinks following the wake of Red Bull, the over hyped daddy of them all.
Some people drink these $3 a pop 8-ounce cans as a fashionable drink. All the cool people are drinking them. So what is behind this attraction? If the caffeine is a big draw, in reality the average energy drink has about the same caffeine content as a weak cup of coffee at Capital.
According to the can of Red Bull, the drink improves performance, improves concentration and reaction speed, improves emotional status, and stimulates metabolism. Now when I tried my first can of XS before playing tennis, I lost the first set by 4-6 but by the time I got to the second set, I won 6-0! But does it really work?
Studies have shown that there may be some short-term benefit in these energy drinks, the effects may be more psychological than physical. “Maybe it works because they say it works.” Perhaps I won my tennis game because I felt that I had more energy from the 8-ounce can. For us baby-boomers, energy drinks are today’s equivalent of Popeye scarfing down a can of spinach!
Whatever the situation, whether it’s facing a final or battling Brutus or winning on the tennis court, today’s buzz for all of us who are tired and fragile is: “Gimme the juice!”
Increase Our Faith!
When the disciples cry out to Jesus in Luke 17:5, “Increase our faith!” it sounds very much like what we want as an instant energy boost: “Gimme the juice!”
At the beginning of this chapter, we see that Jesus tells them that they have a deep responsibility to not cause these little ones (people who are new to the faith) to stumble in sin. Not only that, when someone wrongs them, they are to forgive the person who sins against them “seven times a day.” That’s hard work!
Imagine the persistence and high energy it takes to guard against oneself and others from wrong and to forgive the repeating offender seven times a day. It’s daunting! It’s no wonder, then, that the disciples, hearing Jesus’ commands, were suffering from a severe case of spiritual fatigue! They are burnt out and are asking for energy drinks, energy bars, or anything else they can get their hands on just to do Jesus’ commands. “Increase our faith if you want us to keep up with this pace,” the apostles were asking.
Some of us can identify with the disciples, can’t we? Spiritually speaking, the demand of discipleship can leave even the strongest among us feeling tired and defeated. We used to call this in pastors, “clergy burnt-out,” but now all dedicated church leaders have a new name, “compassion fatigue.” It’s that exhaustion that comes from always being in this output mode, always caring for and nurturing others without recharging the spiritual batteries. Melanie Low always reminds me to not lose the “Don Ng look;” that constant smile and optimism that everything will eventually work out for the better! But can we keep it up?
We all feel this exhaustion when there’s another meeting, another Bible study to attend, another sermon to prepare, another person to look after, another busy and over-committed weekend. It’s during these times of spiritual fatigue that we join the disciples in wanting an energy shot of faith to get through the day.
For some people, they discover renewal by reading an inspiring book; maybe go on a spiritual retreat to come back with a spiritual high. We vow to do better with freshly fueled new ideas only to plunge right back into the grind; determined that we’ll be okay and that, everybody’s needs would get met. The problem is that the spiritual high wears off and we are more burnt out than we were before. We say to Jesus, “Please, increase our faith!”
Gimme the juice!
Mustard Seed Faith
Jesus’ response to the disciples is not to give them more cranked-up and juiced-up faith. Jesus said for them to simply embrace the faith that you have—even if it’s only a little bit that you have.
Prior to this incident, the disciples have seen with their own eyes how others had more faith than they did. They saw the faith of the friends of a paralyzed man who couldn’t find a way to see Jesus because of the great crowds, went up on the roof and lowered the man on his bed so that Jesus can heal him (5:20). They saw how a Roman centurion felt he was unworthy to even trouble Jesus’ time found Jesus healing his servant slave. Jesus said, “Not even in Israel have I found such faith” (7:9). Or the time when the woman who has been suffering from bleeding for twelve years with no found cure came up behind Jesus just to touch the fringe of his clothes and was healed. Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace” (8:48). The disciples wanted to have this kind of deep faith for themselves.
For them and for us, Jesus uses the metaphor of a mustard seed—the tiniest of seeds—to symbolize the kind of faith his followers should embrace. Over time, a mustard seed grows, matures, and blossoms. But it takes steady nurture, the right conditions and a patient vision for the long-term. In the same way, true faith is the result of the long-haul discipline of discipleship. It starts off small and grows gradually, steadily, intentionally.
The truth is that there is no quick, energy-charged improved performance faith. You can’t just drink an 8-ounce can and increase faith.
There’s only mustard seed faith. And that’s enough—more than enough according to Jesus.
Jesus said that even a little faith could cause a mulberry tree, a shrub known for its deep and entangled roots, to be uprooted and planted in the sea. Sounds impossible but Jesus said that the little faith that you have, is enough to make it happen. It may take a minute or a lifetime, but with faith even the most stubborn and entangled problems that we have can be solved.
Impossible Tasks
I know that most of our fellowship groups are involved in some kind of service project every year. It seems that it’s an impossible job to solve some of the world’s most disturbing problems. The Adult Fellowship puts together little toiletry bags for the sailors who docked their ships in Oakland but there seems to always be more needy sailors for the Seafarers Ministry. Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could solve this problem.
The Xplorers worked at the SF Food Bank a few weeks ago but there always seems to be more hungry people. Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could solve this problem. The Sojourners cleaned single resident occupancy housing units in Chinatown knowing that after a few days, they are going to need cleaning again. Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could solve this problem.
(Larry Gordon will inform us this morning at Sunday school class that there are parents of public school students and hotel workers whose rights and benefits are being denied, but we know that there will be more human rights situations in the future. Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could eventually solve these problems.)
At our church membership meeting this afternoon, you will be asked to approve a Proposed Budget for 2005 with 8.5% increase in pledges because we are growing and God’s has more things for us to do. Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would reach your pledge goal.
Then there are some impossible tasks facing our personal lives. How can we forgive others repeatedly? How can we have the patience and perseverance to watch out for others? What can we do to get to the root of some of our ongoing relationship problems? How can we continue to have the energy to serve the needs of our community in our Sunday school, Friday Night School, City College classes, six-weeks of Day Camp, four weekly worship services and on and on?
But here is the good news. The more daunting the task, the weaker and more little we may feel, the more God can work in us and through us if we would only have faith. Faith is not about our ability to do the job, but God’s ability to do the job through us, and we know that with God “all things are possible.” All we have to do is not try to juice-up ourselves but make ourselves available to God.
There’s a delightful TV series, Joan of Acadia in which God appears frequently to a high school girl to call her forth to a mission. Joan almost always resists because the task seems either too difficult or makes no sense. She is told to destroy her boyfriend Adam’s art project that is the pride of the school art show, or to build a boat. She tries to refuse or dodge, but God persistently keeps after her, appearing in a wide variety of guises—a teacher or student, a little girl, a sanitation worker on a garbage truck or a street sweeper, an old woman or a homeless person. When she finally does carry out her mission, wonderful things happen that would not have if she refused or failed. At such times she understands that there had been an overall plan that she could not see. She feels good then, and tells God so. God seldom praises her, but is always back the next time to give her another task. Sometimes she complains that she has done enough and is tired, that God should not expect so much of her, but like Jesus told the disciples, the little faith as small as a mustard seed could uproot a mulberry tree or move a mountain!
Because faith is more about God’s ability than ours, it also means that God is the one who gets the credit. When Jesus told the story about a slave who just came in from plowing or tending sheep in the field would also put on an apron and prepare and serve the master’s dinner, shouldn’t get special treatment because it’s the slave’s responsibilities. Although we may have some problems with this example, Jesus is telling us that when we think that we should get the credit for all of this running around doing ministry that we do, the credit really belongs to God. It’s our job as his disciples to have faith, however little it is, to continue to work for his kingdom.
God is not looking for caffeine-filled energized spiritual superstars, but only servants who do the simple things and to do only what is expected of us to do without seeking reward or recognition.
If we want to improve on our performance as a disciple or really want to improve on our energy to care for others, it won’t come from a quick-fix by slurping down a juiced-up spiritual gimmick or chasing the newest fad.
All it takes is a little, just a little bit of faith—the size of a mustard seed and God will do the rest—to move mountains, uproot and replant a mulberry tree, bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recover the sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, we thank you for the little faith that we have so that as we trust our lives and ministries in your hands, you will be able to perform miracles to heal, to reconcile, to grow, to bring justice, and to save. Continue to seek after us as your disciples to proclaim good news and to glorify your name in praise. Amen.