Stephen Paget was a well-known specialist in breast cancer treatment in the latter years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. He was also a man of profound faith. He expressed his faith in several pamphlets that he wrote for Christian Scientists. In one of them, he used an intriguing image for faith. Imagine, he said, that you have reached a point in your life when you are playing a game of cards against Faith.1 You and she sit facing each other across the table. You must go first. You would love to know what cards she holds. But you hold a strong hand: you have the hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and ice storms, all the chaotic destruction of nature; you hold the murderers, the rapists, the abusers of children, the human traffickers, the destroyers of the environment, the multitude of sinful human beings; you have drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, homelessness, disease, unemployment, all the misery of human existence.
The game begins. You play card after card, thinking to weaken or breach her defenses. Faith remains calm and undisturbed. You play the tsunami in Indonesia, the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Sandy. She doesn’t blink. You play the lives lost on September 11th, the deaths of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the BP oil spill, the sinking of the Costa Concordia. She is unflappable. Your hand thins out. She has a hand too, and it’s stronger than yours. In fact, she has cards you will never beat. And she is a more seasoned and skillful player than you. Be careful to keep your temper, Paget warns. And remember that you’re not playing for money, you’re playing for love.
An unusual way of thinking about faith? Perhaps. But Paget’s image rings true, in that it reminds us that faith, and for us, faith in God’s promises, outplays any human disaster. What’s more important, faith can strengthen us wherever we are and whatever happens to us. All we need do is accept the companionship, guidance, and encouragement of faith.
Is that what the disciples needed? They were frazzled. They had been trotting after Jesus on his long, slow way to Jerusalem. He had told them stories about what to do with their wealth. What wealth? Hadn’t they given up everything to follow him? He had told them they needed to be accountable for what they were doing. He had thundered at them, “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” He had warned them that they needed to rebuke and forgive each other as often as necessary. They were overwhelmed.
So the disciples said plaintively to Jesus, “You want us to do all this? Then increase our faith!” And the Lord barked at them, “You don’t have even the tiniest bit of faith. If you did you could move mountains. You’re just a bunch of worthless servants who can barely do what’s expected of them.”
Is that how you hear this story? Jesus putting the disciples – and by extension us – on a guilt trip? Let’s hear the story with different ears.2 Maybe, just maybe, Jesus didn’t bark. Maybe he smiled and said kindly, “Wait a minute. You don’t need more faith. Even this much faith” – and he held his thumb and forefinger almost together – “is enough to do everything I’ve asked you to do. You don’t need any more. Now it’s time to live your faith.”
And what about that story Jesus tells next? Can we hear him exaggerating just a little, as he so often does to make a point? Could it be that Jesus is describing a relationship between master and servant that is marked by mutual accountability and expectation? The master expects the servants to do their jobs, and the servants expect they will be protected, fed, and allowed to rest. If we can hear the story that way, then faith, of whatever quantity, becomes a constant companion in our life. Indeed, faith becomes a way of life, in which we serve God and each other, not out of a sense of duty, but because we know and love God, and because we trust God. Faith is not about believing in God. Faith is about believing God’s promises. Faith is trust in God, being in relationship with God, and seeing God in all the circumstances and people of our lives. Faith is knowing, in the words of Habakkuk, that there is still a vision for the appointed time, and that it will surely come.
So, Jesus tells his frazzled disciples, this life of faith is not about whether you have enough faith or not. Because of what God has done for you, you already have enough. The question is what do we do with our faith? Do we trust God to give us all that we need, and then use God’s gifts for the building up of God’s kingdom? Do we know that have a just and loving God? Do we seek a relationship with that God? Can we let go of our need to be independent and self-reliant? Can we trust that faith can’t be measured but has to be lived out in our daily lives?
Those who can live this way make an exciting discovery. They discover that God’s blessings exceed “all that we can ask or imagine.” They discover that the God who expects much from us also promises much. They discover that the God who has given us all that we need, the rightful master of all of us, also came among us “not to be served but to serve” us (Matt 20:28, Mark 10:45), not to condemn us but to give us “life abundant.”
There was a small congregation in Tennessee that built a new church on a piece of land that had been willed to them by a member who had died. Ten days before the first service, the local building inspector came to tell the pastor that they didn’t have enough parking spaces for the building. If they didn’t double the size of the parking lot, they could not open. Where would they find the land for more parking? The only way was to move the mountain in the backyard of the church. So the pastor announced on Sunday that in the evening he would meet with everyone who had “mountain-moving faith.” They would pray for God to somehow move the mountain and provide enough money to pave a new parking lot before the dedication service the next week. That evening, twenty-four hardy souls showed up, of a congregation of three hundred. They prayed for three hours. Then, at 10 PM, the pastor said “Amen,” and assured them that they would open the following Sunday. “God has never let us down,” he told them, “and God will be faithful this time, too.”
The next morning, the pastor was working in his study. There was a knock on the door. The pastor said, “Come in,” and a rough-looking construction foreman came and stood in front of him. “Excuse me, Pastor,” he said. “I’m from Acme Construction. We’re building that new mall down the road, and we need some more fill dirt. Would you be willing to sell us some of that mountain behind the church? We’ll pay you for all the earth we take, and we’ll pave the exposed area for you for free, if you’ll agree right away. We can’t do anything more on our job until we get the fill dirt in and allow it to settle properly.”
The little church was dedicated the next Sunday. You can bet that more people had “mountain-moving faith” on opening Sunday than had had it the previous week!
God has given us all the faith we need. A mustard seed is about the smallest thing you can see with the naked eye. What is Jesus telling us? Even a little bit of faith can do great things! The disciples didn’t need more faith. We don’t need more faith. Any faith at all can do great works. All we need to do is stay in relationship with the giver of our faith, with the one who has already planted the fire of faith within us. We don’t need to be heroes. All that we need to do is to trust in God’s promises and, as conscientiously as we can, do the work that God has given us to do. “Transplanting mulberry trees may be a fascinating hobby for the gifted few. Living faithfully is a serious business that is accomplished daily by many in the love of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.”3
1. Suggested by Patricia Sanchez in “Preaching Resources,” Celebration, October 3, 2010, 1.
2. As suggested by Kimberly Bracken Long, “Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 142ff.
3. Donald S. Armentrout, quoted in Synthesis, October 6, 2013, 4
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