Luke 17:5-10

"A little of faith"

A nun who works for a local home health care agency was out making her rounds when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it there was a station just down the street. She walked to the station to borrow a can with enough gas to start the car and drive to the station for a fill up.

The attendant regretfully told her that the only can he owned had just been loaned out, but if she would care to wait he was sure it would be back shortly. Since the nun was on the way to see a patient she decided not to wait and walked back to her car.

After looking through her car for something to carry to the station to fill with gas, she spotted a potty she was taking to the patient. Always resourceful, she carried it to the station and filled it with gasoline. As she was pouring the gas into the tank of her car two men walked by. One was heard to exclaim, "Now that is what I call faith!"

Back to the sermon:

I am going to tell you a story, this story about a business traveller who was on his way from his home town to a large city in the Middle East by road. One night he met two other travellers travelling on the same road as he was. Their name was Fear and Plague. Plague told the traveller that once they arrived at the city, they were expected to kill 100,000 people in that city. The traveller asked Plague if Plague was to do all the killing by himself. Plague said, “Oh, no. I shall only be killing a few hundred people; it is my friend ‘Fear’ who will do the killing of all the others.

Fear, whether it is real or imagined, can discourage us, overwhelm us, beaten us and even strangle us. Dreadful things happen everywhere. There are people around the world paralyzed by fear. Fear is such a terrible thing!

Fear is widespread in this society of ours; in fact it is widespread throughout the world. We have personal fear – fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of not being loved, a fear of having no work, a fear of not being up to the measurements of our peers, a fear of not being able to help our families, a fear of being looked down by others. We also have social fear, fear that war and disasters will go on forever, a fear that society will collapse, a fear that the pollution in the air will kill us, and so on and so on. Even inside the church too there are fear, personal fears, social fears and spiritual fears. Do you have any fears?

There are many people who feel:

- That they are not able to do anything of real importance
- That they cannot and do not make a difference to society
- That they cannot and do not make a difference to anyone
- That they are unable to do even a part of what it is that God asks them to do
- That they will let God down or that God will let them down.

There are so many Christians in this world who are in a mess. They have forgotten what their faith is all about. They have forgotten that as long as it is the will of God, God will give to you the strength and the means to have it accomplished. Do these feelings describe your life – fear, despair, a sense of failure, a sense of not being competent, and a sense of hopelessness? Do you feel unexcited by your worship of the Lord? Do you feel unsure of just what the good news of the Gospel is? Do you feel burdened by life and by the tasks set to you by God? And yet wanting to believe, wanting to do the right thing, wanting to have the life that God has promised us even in the here and now?

Wanting, and yet……

How can I feed the hungry?
How can I clothe the naked?
How can I help the sick?
How can I bring peace to those around me?
How can I help my family?
How can I help others?
How can I spread the gospel of Jesus Christ?
How can I forgive the people who have hurt me so badly?
How can I even experience the joy that is supposed to be part of life with God, let alone help bring it to others?

The disciples had exactly the same feelings. From our Gospel reading of today, we hear of them crying out to Jesus. A cry similar to one that you may have made to God at one time or another.

They were feeling that what they were facing in life, not to mention what they were facing or will be facing as the ones following Jesus was too much for them to bear, too much for their small faith to handle and so they cry out to the Lord, “Jesus please increase our faith”. “Lord, help us believe enough so that we can do what it is that you have commanded us to do – help us trust enough so that we can live as you say we should be living. Lord, take away our fear.”

Jesus please increases our faith.

And what did Jesus do – how did he answer their prayers? Did he laid his hands upon them and pray and give them more faith as they asked? Did he just snap his fingers and grant them a double dose of his Spirit and his Faith?

No, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ – he did not – instead he told them that “if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted it in the sea and it would obey you.”

If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and plated it in the sea and it would obey you!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do you not find that answer of Jesus to be a strange answer? But really it is the best answer that could be given, for you see, the real issue for everyone of us is not “how much faith do we have?” but rather the question of “do we have any faith at all?”

I would like to share a story with you: Many years ago a shoe company in England sent one of its sales people to Africa to start a business. After a few months this salesperson sent a message back to his head office telling them that he is coming home as nobody in Africa wear shoes and therefore it is a waste of time and money being there. This shoe company did not give up, so they sent another salesperson to Africa to replace the returning one. After a few months this second salesperson sent an urgent message to head office asking them to send more order forms as nobody in Africa is wearing shoes and there are plenty of opportunities making sales. The second salesperson saw the opportunity in his situation – not the difficulties that he is facing, and more to the point, he had in himself and in his products, and because of that he succeeded where the first salesperson failed.

I would like to suggest to you that faith is a bit like being pregnant. You see, you cannot make a valid distinction between having a little faith and a lot of faith, anymore than claiming someone is a little pregnant but not really a lot pregnant. I think you will be completely confused or started laughing if one day I tell you that my wife, Jenny is a little bit pregnant. You would think that Edwin must have either gone crazy or he is too happy and said the wrong thing for there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. It is a matter of either she is pregnant or she is not. Same with faith, it is either you have faith or you do not. You cannot just have a little bit of faith. It is something that does not make sense to the one who is listening. If we do believe in the promises of Jesus, the promises of God our Father in Heaven, even a little bit, then my brothers and sisters, we are already on the right path. I do sincerely believe that all of you who are here today are on the right track. All of you, who, if you are like the disciples were asking for an increase of our faith, are already, going on the right way.

Having said all that, and having understood the distinction between having faith and not having any faith, the question for us to answer is not how much faith we have, but what do we really have faith in.

There are many Christians in this world who look at themselves instead of God. Often we look at ourselves and say – I cannot do that. I am not strong enough, loving enough, giving enough, wise enough; I do not have the income or the money, the power or the faith to be successful in what I am doing. And those doubts, my brothers and sisters are completely true – we by our own powers are not able to accomplish what God wants us to achieve. We do not have what it is needed what it comes to dealing with what is truly important matters. We will not even last a day in this world without God looking after us. But my brothers and sisters in Christ, God has the power; God is able to do anything that he wishes to do. All we need to do is pray to him and believe in him. Ask God for help and his power will be able to flow through us, and he will work through us to complete what he wants us to complete.

Some of us, at one time or another has met people who have been through very difficult and trying times, and our thoughts were that they must be people of great faith to come out of their trial and tribulations as well as they have. If we ever say to them with respect and admiration that we do not think that we could have faced what they have faced. Your faith must be very strong indeed. Do you know what their answer would be? Their answer would almost always be with words like these: “My faith is no greater than anyone else’s. I just did not know what I had until I have need for it. God helped me through it. If it was not for him I would never have been able to make it.”

Have you not heard of this kind of thing yourselves? Is it not one of those times when we may have said to ourselves: “I wish I had a faith like theirs”?

I wish I had a faith like theirs!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you know that those people of faith that we admire are correct in what they tell us. We very often do not realise just what we have in ourselves. We let our faith in God lie sleeping inside of us, and we go out looking for it. While all the time, God is there, and our faith in God is there, but our faith is doing nothing because we allow it to go to sleep.

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ covers all areas of human life:
- It tells us of forgiveness and peace
- It tells us of eternal life
- It addresses the problems of poverty and of war
- It gives solutions to despair and answers to human distress.

But most of all, my brothers and sisters in Christ, it tells us:
- That alone by ourselves we can do nothing
- That we are, as many of us think, inadequate, incapable, sinners lost in a dark world.
- It tells us that are not alone, and that God cares for everyone of us
- That God works in the lives of all those who believes in him
- That God’s good purposes cannot be stopped by anyone or anything
- That his word does not return to him empty
- That he desires to transform not just the human heart but he wants to transform the world in which we are all living in
- And that all we need to do is to reach down to that little seed within us and begin to do what we have been called by God to do and God will do the rest

God will do the rest, which is his promise, however, we must do our part, just like Moses having to stretch out his rod, , just like Moses striking the rock with his staff in order to get water for the people, or the people who need healing must come to Jesus first. God will work in us and through us and bring his word to pass. He will pluck up the mountains and fill in the valleys. He will bring about the kingdom of God here on earth as we pray for. We are after all his partners in his work in this world.

What I am trying to say this morning is not ‘have more faith’ – but rather work with the faith that you already have inside you. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when we started acting in faith the very first thing we will notice is that a little is a lot.

There is a Chinese proverb that tells us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. I should know as I am Chinese by race, and I am suggesting to you to take the step; follow he commands of God – hear his advice found throughout the scriptures and believe – believe in what God has promised us will come about. He is not one who speaks empty words.

Remember that no matter how small the step you may be taking, each step will bring you closer to your destination when it is taken. But you have to take the step, you have to start claiming God’s word as your own if you are to receive what God has promised and do what God has called you to do.

When you practice your faith, when you pray, when you believe and when you do, then in the language of the story that I began this talk with, you will overcome – God will overcome – plague and his far more dangerous companion – fear, and the blessings of life will be completely yours, yours and your family and the world. Praise be to God, day by day – Amen.