Size isn't everything
 

A sermon by David McEvoy, Reader
6 October 2019,  16 after Trinity

Luke 17.5-10 

There’s more to being a giant than size!

Do any of you remember the series “The Goodies” back in the 1970s? One year they did a Christmas special based on “Jack and the Beanstalk”. In this episode they climbed up the beanstalk and found themselves in what we knew was the Giant’s castle in the clouds. As they were wondering what was going to happen next, they heard loud slow footsteps and a booming voice shouting “Fee Fi Fo Fum” etc, and in strides... Alfie Bass.  Alfie Bass was an actor who was not particularly tall. Bill Oddie said to him ‘Aw, c’mon you were never a giant – you’re too little’. Alfie Bass replied ‘ There’s more to a giant than size, you know!’

‘There’s more to a giant than size!’ Size isn’t everything.

When it comes to faith, size isn’t everything

And when it comes to faith, size isn’t everything. And this is the mistake the disciples make in our reading today. Jesus had just told them how challenging their role as disciples would be. They would be condemned if they caused anyone to stumble and they would have to continually forgive those who didn’t agree with them or offended them. The disciples didn’t feel ready to deal with all of this. And so they turned to Jesus and said if only he could increase their faith then they would be OK.

When Jesus replied he used his characteristic exaggeration.  If they only had faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, then they could do amazing things like uproot a Mulberry Tree. With its massive network of roots that was difficult enough – but then to get it to grow under the sea! Impossible! The faith they need is not a faith that depends on size or volume. Faith the size of a tiny seed would be enough.
When it comes to faith, size isn’t everything.

Faith as relationship

To understand this it helps to look quickly at what Jesus may mean he is talking to his disciples about faith.  When Jesus is talking about faith, he is not talking about what we do in our heads, he is not talking about what we think or what we say. As someone wrote, he is talking about what we do with our hands, our feet, our wallets, our power and our time.  We show faith by following him with our whole lives. The Greek word used for faith in this passage is ‘pistis’ which has connotations of good faith, trust and reliability. And these are qualities that belong to relationship. In a relationship we trust someone, we behave so that they can trust us and rely on us.

So, faith is a matter of relationship. Faith in God is actually our relationship with God. And we cannot talk about relationship in terms of volume, or to ask for more faith. It would be meaningless to talk about increasing the size of a relationship. We cannot talk about the quantity of a relationship. We can only talk about the quality of a relationship.

The faith we have is enough

So when it comes to faith, size isn’t everything. The mustard seed was regarded as the smallest of seeds and Jesus said that faith even as small as one of these seeds would be enough to achieve the impossible. This seed contains within itself its ultimate goal. Small as it is, it already contains everything that is needed for it to grow into the largest of bushes (Matthew 13.31-32) (nurtured of course by sunlight and water). This tiny seed has enough it in to do what it needs to do. Jesus tells his disciples and tells us that, though it may not feel like it, the faith that we have is already enough to do what we need to do. It is enough to make the first small steps, to do what we need to do to follow Jesus and serve others.

The detail contains the big picture
In one of her showings or visions,  Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic saw an object the size of a hazelnut. She saw this tiny object as small and fragile but made by God, loved by God, and sustained by God. She saw it is as standing for the whole of creation. Like this tiny object, admittedly quite a bit bigger than a mustard seed, our faith may feel small but it is made by God, loved by God and sustained by God.
William Blake, a very different character to Julian of Norwich, gave us a similar vision when he wrote ‘To see a world in a grain of sand, and Heaven in a wild flower; hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour’. To William Blake size certainly wasn’t everything. The smallest objects can give us a sense of the infinite. You can see this in the exhibition of Blake’s work at Tate Britain. There is a deep concentration of meaning in much of his work and the sense of the infinite is often shown in detail such as a star or a flower or in the texture of a rock or the human body. His works have the intensity of illuminated manuscripts in which minute detail hints at something much bigger. The detail is often itself the big picture.
The tiny mustard seed contains all that it needs to do what it needs to do.  Nurtured by water and sunlight, it will grow into a tree. The tiny detail becomes the big picture. We may think our faith is too small, too limited and this may worry us. But Jesus reassures us that even faith the size of a tiny seed is enough.
Our faith will grow like a seed
Whatever faith we have, it is a precious, precious thing. It is a gift from God and with God’s help it can get on with the job – like the seed it has enough, more than enough, within it to do what it needs to do. Our faith is nurtured not by water and sunlight but by God’s love and by our following Jesus’ example and serving others.  And, nurtured by God’s love and nurtured by our service to others, our faith will, like the seed, grow – quietly and slowly and even without us noticing – but it will grow.