Mustard Seed Faith

Dear Friend, 

Last week we heard the disciples’ plea for more faith, and Jesus’s response: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” This week Jesus uproots a dread disease from the body of a Samaritan leper. When the man returns to thank him - he alone of ten companions - Jesus tells him “Stand up and go, your faith has saved you.”  

Luke’s puzzle portrait of Jesus and his teaching isn’t complete until we come to the final chapter (24) of his Gospel, but in these stories from chapter 17 we can put together some important pieces. Practicing “mustard seed faith” in the face of life’s troubling questions, setbacks, and tragedies is not about having all the answers or the strongest muscle power. Rather, our old friend, Alice Camille, herself a wise disciple of buoyant spirit, puts it best: “In the eyes of Jesus, faith isn’t about group identity or religious systems. It’s about knowing divine grace when you receive it.”  

In the final chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we’ll see grief-stricken disciples meet a stranger on the road. They tell him about their teacher’s tragic and brutal death. He listens and reminds them of their sacred stories, reframes their thinking, relights a holy fire in their hearts. It’s Jesus himself they’re talking to. Purveyor of grace, he opens their eyes.

Mustard seed faith is about attentiveness and gratitude. As Alice suggests, let’s commit to planting a new attitude or some new action. Let’s do it for ourselves or someone close to us, in order to help let go of a burden of fear, bitterness, shame, or unforgiveness. Together, let’s allow our faith to stand us up and make us go.

Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm