Reflections on Luke 17:5-10
Mustard Seed
by: Janalyn Mena
The mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds. Jesus chooses this tiny seed to set up a contrast with the large sukamino tree – engaging a hyperbole to demonstrate the great power of even the smallest bit of faith. It is the same kind of exaggerated language that will use later to describe a camel going through the eye of a needle.
In Jesus suggesting that the disciples have required faith or not? Some scholars believed that Jesus is affirming the disciples’ faith, while others believe that His words constitute a rebuke to disciples for their lack of faith.
But the required faith is faith in God, not faith in self or money or weapons or raw power or people. The power behind the faith that Jesus mentions here is God’s power, and it is faith in God that allows us to appropriate power.
The point is that faith, even in small quantities, has great power. The person of faith tap into God’s power which makes all things possible – even moving trees (difficult) and causing them to grow in saltwater (impossible). It is not our faith that works these wonders but the God who stands behind our faith. Our faith then is like the thousand – peso bill printed on paper worth only a penny. Such a bill has value only as it is backed by the full faith and credit of the government. So also our faith has value only because God blesses faith and empowers the faithful.
How do we get this powerful faith?
– The disciples had it right, faith is the gift of God, so we can pray that God will increase our faith. Time spent in prayer is fundamental to faith development – but there are also other things that we can do to cooperate with God, who wants to increase our faith.
– Association with people of faith builds faith, so our participation in the worship and life of the church is important.
– The scriptures inform and correct our faith, without the guidance of the scriptures, we tend to have faith in something smaller than God – money, a charismatic person, the government – something that will ultimately disappoint us. The scriptures keep drawing us to God so that we can develop the kind of powerful faith of which Jesus speaks here.
– We grow in faith as we act in faith. Every gift of God is strengthened by the exercise of it, and this is true of faith. One word of caution: Just as the ordinary foot soldier sees too little to know how well or badly the battle is going, the ordinary Christian also has limited vision. The early Christians who were dying on the crosses alongside the roads or in the Coliseum were acting in faith, and some may have felt that God had betrayed their faith. We can now see that their blood was not shed in vain, but instead became the manure that promoted the church’s strong growth.
Faith means believing even when the outcome seems in doubt.
A FIRM FOUNDATION
You can keep faith only as you can keep a plant, by rooting it into your life and making it grow there.
– Phillips Brooks –
Faith is the Christian’s Foundation,
Hope is His Anchor,
Death is His Harbor,
Christ is His Pilot,
and
Heaven is His Country.
– Jeremy Taylor –
