From Sunday, October 2, 2016

Readings:  Luke 17:5-10 and 2 Timothy 2:1-14
Theme: In Praise of Mustard Seeds and Little Streams

I have a question for you: what do Krazy Glue, faith and being pregnant have in common?

I’ll give you a clue: Brylcreem could be in that list as well.

And before I answer the question, I want to tell you about the stream on the screen.

A few days ago on a morning walk I came across this stream just a few blocks from our house.  And my first thought was how small it is.  How little water it carries.  How insignificant it seems.  How ordinary and un-remarkable. 

I was disappointed because something in me – or something lacking in me, wanted it to be more. 

But then as I stood on the foot-bridge that spanned it, and took time to look and listen and pay attention, my heart opened to its quiet beauty, to the restfulness of the place, to the refreshing flow of water that the stream simply is, and to its goodness within all creation.  I realized it’s one of who knows how many little streams that run through Dundas.  One of how many million streams in Canada and around the world that in their quiet and ordinary flow, do their part in keeping Earth alive and well, do the good will of the Master of all the house.

Which brings me to the answer to the opening question: that all you need for your life and for the world around you to be changed for good, is a little. 

One little drop of Krazy Glue is enough to glue anything to anything – even to your finger, and actually if you use too much it doesn’t work at all.  With Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya, and if you try using more than that, you’re just a greasy mess.  And if you’re pregnant – even “a little bit pregnant,” you know you’re pregnant all the way – you either are or you aren’t.

And so it is with faith.  We don’t need near as much as we sometimes think.  If we have even a little bit, we have all we need to change our life and the world around us forever.

It’s hard to remember this, though.

In the Gospel reading the apostles are aware of how Jesus makes the kingdom of God come alive by the way he lives out his faith in it – forgiving people around him, inviting them to be healed, encouraging them to acts of mercy and peace – all because he believes this is the way of God and the way that makes the world good.

And they don’t know if they can do that – if they can live differently from the way of the world – if they can be as forgiving, as encouraging of others’ healing, or as committed to justice and peace as he is.  They think they don’t have as much faith in the kingdom of God as he does.  So, “increase our faith,” they cry out, as though they still need something more than what they have, and need to be more than what they are, to live out the kingdom of God on Earth.

To which Jesus says, “Hogwash!  You've got all the faith you need when you have even the slightest inkling of what the kingdom of God is about.  All you need is to live it out in your own little way, wherever you are put by God, and you will find yourself part of a vaster network and a stronger web of life than you can ever imagine ... and that will nourish and strengthen you, once you let your little stream of faith actually flow.”

We do falter and fade, though.  Even someone like Timothy in the first-century church.  He was born in a home committed to the radical good news of the kingdom of God on Earth, and learned his faith from his mother Lois and grandmother Eunice.  As he grew up, people saw faith and faithfulness in him, and the elders of his church nurtured his spiritual growth.  He became a leader and helped keep the church strong and walking together in a good direction…

Until he begins to falter and fail.  And the community begins to become just another troubled human institution rather than a vibrant witness to the kingdom of God on Earth. 

It happens.  It happens to our leaders.  And to us as church.  Especially after we’ve been at it for a while. 

Particularly today in our globalized, information-drunk world.  On one hand we have the capacity to be in touch with all kinds of good, holy and encouraging stuff going on all over the world – which makes World Communion Sunday all the more meaningful.  But we also feel overwhelmed sometimes by the rest of what we seem to know – the number of crises Earth faces, how big and uncaring the powers-that-be seem to be, how powerless the voices and actors for justice and mercy and peace can appear, how ineffective we are tempted to think our kingdom-of-God actions are. 

And we honestly wonder, why bother?  Why not just pull in our horns and concentrate on our own well-being?  Why not just enjoy what we can – what God has given us, and let someone else heal the world?

And as we say that, the little stream stops its flowing.  The holy waters that flow through our town grow less.  Life on God’s good Earth suffers, when we let ourselves believe we are not enough and do not have enough faith. 

But like Krazy Glue, it takes only a drop to hold things together.  Like Brylcreem a little dab’ll do ya, and change your life.  Like being pregnant, you either are or you aren’t, and if you’re even a little bit pregnant, there’s a completely new life within you that at some point will want to come out in all its wonderful, screaming, life-changing glory.

The message hasn’t changed in 2000 years, and it’s the same the world over.

To celebrate this, on World Communion Sunday the last word for us comes from Rev. Anneke Oppewal, minister of North Balwyn Uniting Church in Balwyn North, about 10 kms west of Melbourne, Australia.  This morning (14 hours ago now) Anneke ended her sermon with these words for her people and for all who believe as they do: 

All you need to do is your job – that is all…. Just trust, do your job and stop moaning about the size of your faith.  What matters is that you serve your master without expecting anything back.  Trusting that your master has your, and the rest of the world’s, best interests at heart.

… We work for God and find all the nurture we need on the tree of life; we are rooted, with Jesus, in a world-encompassing love and compassion that feeds justice and peace way beyond what we, even if we had faith as deep as the sea, could ever make happen on our own.

… The salvation of the world does not depend on the size of our faith.  What we can do is nothing but trust, and do our job – whatever it is on any day, in Christ’s service.  Trust that the tree of life has been firmly planted … trust that living water is flowing into and through the world … trust that we in our own little stream beds are part of its healing flow … whenever we show ourselves willing to give ourselves wherever we are to Jesus’ way.