Lord, Increase Our Faith! - Luke 17:5-10

Over the years I have taken a variety of spiritual gift inventories. Perhaps you’re familiar. You answer about a million questions and calculate a bunch of scores and discover whether you’re particularly gifted in teaching, preaching, singing, encouraging, healing, or even speaking in tongues. Often, one of the spiritual gifts is faith, which has always confused me. Isn’t faith something we should all have access to? Surely God doesn’t intentionally withhold the gift of faith from some folks and give a double portion to others.

On the other hand, my skepticism may be insecurity in disguise. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes worry about having sufficient faith. I love today’s scene from Luke’s Gospel when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith. I relate to it so strongly. The world we live in can feel so out of control and frightening, and I want to be someone who can face it. I want to be steady and hopeful and confident in my relationship with Christ.

I know that my prayers about injustice and oppression in the world are important, but I also know that God is not a micromanager who will hear my plea, snap the proverbial finger, and solve all my problems. So, in addition to my prayers for peace, I also pray for stronger faith, for inner strength to meet each day.

The disciples longed for this kind of faith too. They say as much in the opening line of today’s Gospel passage. Unfortunately, I fear that the cry of the disciples - and frankly my own prayers - are not as genuine as they may seem. There’s more to the story, because today’s Gospel lesson is one of those pesky texts that really requires the context of the passage right before it.

The first four verses of chapter 17 in Luke’s Gospel are a hodgepodge of quips about sin and forgiveness, and the last thing Jesus says before today’s passage begins is that we should be in the habit of forgiving people who hurt us and then apologize. More specifically, he says that even if a person commits the same sin against us seven times in one day, and repents every time, we should forgive them, every time. I know you’re all thinking, he’s got to be kidding us, right?

Friends, he is not kidding. He’s not exaggerating. He’s not even using a parable. He is giving us a concrete example of how to live, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it because I worry it might be too hard for me. I hear that same worry creeping in when the disciples respond, “Lord, increase our faith!” Underneath those words, what they’re really asking is, “Lord, make us miraculously better at forgiveness,” or even “Lord, make things easier for us.”

Of course, Jesus is onto them. He snaps right back: “increase your faith? You only need a small amount to change the world!” And then he speaks directly to the deep fear behind their request. He tells the disciples that forgiveness will not get any easier, and the world around them will not get any better, until they are willing to completely overturn their way of life and try something totally new.

He uses another concrete example, this time from their everyday lives. He asks who among them would dare to flip the script and let their enslaved laborers eat first after a long day working in the fields? He knows that everyone listening to him will find this idea preposterous. But then he brings down the hammer and reveals their hypocrisy. God has already given them faith and they ask for more of it, but they would never dream of being so generous with their own gifts. They have rejected the opportunity to build up their faith.

This is not the answer I was hoping for. If you’ll recall, I’ve been praying for strength and steadfastness to endure my trials and tribulations. I want that kind of faith, not the kind that means I have to actually do something about this mess. But Jesus is teaching us something important about the nature of faith. We thought we were asking for comfort, capacity, ease, and other delightful sounding nouns. As it turns out, faith in Jesus Christ is more of an action verb.

Now, the disciples aren’t the only ones crying out to God in our lectionary today. Both our reading from Lamentations and Psalm 137 are mourning the destruction of the city. They cry out, our world is unrecognizable! We long for the way we used to live! Will our home ever be safe again? My mind immediately goes to pictures I’ve seen of Gaza City with its crumbling skyscrapers and decimated streets. I also think about the LDS church in Michigan that endured a shooting and an arson attack last Sunday.

I also think about ways that my own city has changed and become unrecognizable from how it once stood, like the construction of interstate 630, the various tornadoes that have ripped through our community over the years, and even the inevitability of selling my dad’s house and all its beloved memories after calling it home for 30 years. Losing sight of places we love can leave a rift in our souls that longs for healing. Those are the moments when I most crave the kind of faith I imagine will ease my pain.

But our scriptures today are calling us to draw a connection between the downward spiral we perceive in the world around us and our own unwillingness to embrace a truer faith. We are desperate for the world to change, but too often, when Jesus gives us explicit instructions for how to bring about the kingdom of God, we resist. We ask for an easier path. We pray for faith to hold us above the tide while the rest of the world suffers.

Our prayers for strength and steadfastness are still good and holy. But God has no intention of magically making our lives easier. Instead, God asks that we build up a faith practice that is actionable, that bears fruit in our world. I’m sure there are people in our community who find this aspect of our baptismal call simple and straightforward, but I am not among them. The call to action is daunting to me, and my temptation is to slip in amongst the disciples in today’s story and hope that Jesus doesn’t catch me there, asking for something easier.

And so thankfully, there is good news today. Taking a risk and being steady and hopeful are not mutually exclusive. When we are willing to flip the script and to try a radically different way of being in the world, the result will not be our destruction, but new life. That’s what the resurrection teaches us. I am nervous to break out of my comfort zone, but that’s exactly where I will find the steadiness, the hope, and the confidence in my faith that I long for.

And I don’t have to take all the risks at one time. I'm thinking of starting small. Perhaps I’ll practice forgiving someone twice in one day and work my way up to seven. I know the stakes will get higher and I will have to get braver. That’s why we call it a leap of faith, as opposed to a small scooch. But I am compelled by the promise of a new life of hope, and I am encouraged by the incredible examples of faith all around me. After all, Jesus said we only need a small amount to take that first step and change the world. Amen.