Where is your faith taking you?

It is the story about the storm on the Sea of Galilee in Mark that prompts this question.  Where is your faith taking you?

Might not be the first question that comes to your mind.  You might be thinking that this is a story of greater (or lesser) faith, or about Jesus as powerful, or a story about a miracle at sea.  A case can be made for all of those approaches, but I want to ask the question Where is your faith taking you? because of this little phrase at the beginning of the whole adventure  "Let's go over to the other side".

Jesus has just told the disciples a wonderful parable about how the mustard seed is like the Kingdom of God.  It is an unremarkable seed in size but it yields a plentiful harvest of .....mustard, which is considered a bit of a weed in most parts of the world.  This tiny, tiny seed will become a shrub so large birds can nest in its branches.  That is what the Kingdom of God is like.

Now let me propose that you weren't really paying attention when the mustard seed parable was read because you thought it was a parable about the size of your faith.  Not in Mark.  In Mark it is about the Kingdom of God growing large, strong and providing shelter for creation.

Then........

Then Jesus proposes taking the boat on a trip to the other side of the sea of Galilee.  The other side.  To those other people.  To that foreign and scary land.  On the other side of the Sea is the land of the Gerasenes, and waiting for Jesus' arrival is a man so possessed by demons that he has lost his mind along with any sense of decorum.  He is raving, living in the caves with dead people.

Sure, Jesus.  Let's take a trip to the land of the mad people.

Now the disciples didn't argue with Jesus, and one must presume that they had no idea how bad it was going to get once they got to the other side.  But we who know the whole story, who have the gift of distance from which to interpret this story, might not be so willing to pick up some oars and set off for 'the other side'.

So no matter how the disciples responded to Jesus' request, we might well take some time to realistically consider what our response would have been. Knowing what we know now, would you have started rowing?  Written a check?  Sent up thoughts and prayers?  Gone to Council to complain about wasted resources?  Hmmmmm.

So, on this Day 1 of Where is your faith taking you?  I want you to consider just how far you would go in response to God's command to 'go to the other side'.  Be honest with yourself.  What is holding you back?  What are really frightened of?  The people?  The locale?  That you will embarrass yourself?  That you will encounter people who you can't communicate with?

I have my own list.  It's time to make yours.

Mustard seed faith

Some days being faithful, a 'good' Christian resembles running a marathon:  most of us know that 26.3 miles of running is beyond our ability.  Even as we honor our Lord Jesus and want to be transformed by him, we are acutely aware of how often we fall short.  We, like the disciples in Luke 17, cry out, "Lord, increase our faith."

David Lose, a professor at Luther Seminary, helps us gain a more balanced perspective:

"Faith, as Jesus describes it, is just doing your job, just doing your duty, not because of any sense of reward but simply because it needs doing. Faith, in other words, is doing what needs to be done right in front of you and this, Jesus says, the disciples can already do. Folks who feel daunted by discipleship need to hear that sometimes faith can be pretty ordinary. That’s what Jesus means, I think, by saying that if they had the faith even of a mustard seed, they could uproot and move a mulberry tree -- that it really doesn’t take all that much faith to be, well, faithful." **

You have heard Jesus teach; you have been anointed by the Spirit in your baptism, so you treat others with grace and mercy.  You keep reconciliation and forgiveness as first (rather than last) options.  You pray for those in need and share your bounty with those who have not.  You honor your spouse and care and guide your children.  You look on the folks you meet (sometimes more, sometimes less) as neighbors and children of God.

You don't these things perfectly.  You know you fall short....and yet you fall forward, following Jesus, striving for that day of transformation when you are made whole in Jesus.  

You have faith the size of a mustard seed.  Continue to nurture and feed it on God's Word, on prayer and service to others, on worship and the Holy Supper.  Go into the world and whatever you do, do in God's name for the sake of your neighbor.  That's your call.  You can do it.

** read this and more of David Lose's wisdom at www.workingpreacher.org.