October 5th ~ Have The Faith To Say "Hello"

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Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

Psalm 37:1-9

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10 

Sermon by Pastor Joel

The thing about coming back to the city from the country is you notice right away how little people talk to one another. When you live in a small town, you rarely pass anyone by without saying hello. Even if you don’t know them, someone you know knows them. Drivers around Lunenburg, where I am from, have perfected the wave where your hand never leaves the steering wheel but the driver coming from the other direction still knows you waved. I know it's often said like a joke, but I can tell you it’s true: you simply cannot rush through the grocery line because someone in front of you is going to have news for the cashier. 

The sad thing is that when I go down from Ontario and the rush of city life, this is all kind of annoying. You just want to get where you are going. You just want to grab the milk and exit. It takes a few weeks, and then you start to remember how nice it is that the guy at the gas station asks how your day is going and waits to hear the answer. Or the clerk at the grocery story calls you dear, as if she’s an aunt you didn’t know you had. Don’t get me wrong: my corner in Nova Scotia is nice but not perfect. It can be insular and intolerant and resistant to change. But anyone from a small town can take a win in this way: we have all perfected what researchers call the micro-conversation.

There’s been a lot written about these lately. In case you haven’t heard, micro-conversations are good for our mental health and build social capital in our community. You might not think chatting with your mechanic about his kid matters, but it does. The time you chatted with the older stranger on the bus about the colour of the leaves in fall might have seemed like a five-minute blip, but you were both smiling when you got off the bus. Let’s not overstate things: these small-dose interactions are not, on their own, going to remedy the big problems of our time. But how will we ever remedy them if we never put down our phones and see our neighbor beside us, and, hopefully, say hi often enough that we come to realize they’re decent people. Small acts of faith. That’s not a bad place to start.

Apparently, according to our gospel, Jesus agrees. As we hear, the apostles are apparently stewing about not being faithful enough. And instead of taking care of this themselves – or asking how they are measuring what is “faithful enough” in the first place -  they go to Jesus and demand, “Increase our faith!” This all seems pretty brash on the face of it. What exactly do they think Jesus has been trying to do? But, of course, Jesus uses their foolishness to teach a lesson. 

“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

The mustard seed is a tiny seed, so I imagine the apostles were even more confused. But it’s clear that Jesus was making a point, one a lot like that micro-conversation research. Faith is not measured by the length of the prayer, or by the volume of the singing, or even by the worth of the faithful. Faith is by definition strong enough to withstand the storm and the wind; it has the power to change cultures and repair institutions and heal humanity. You  need only a little of it, properly nourished, to have influence in the world. 

But before the disciples go away feeling puffed up at the thought of bossing around a mulberry bush, Jesus puts them in their place. Because ultimately, if the disciples are worrying about the size of their faith, Jesus knows, they are not thinking about the value of their service, or their mission to others. Their very question is based on comparison: “Isn’t our faith worth more than that of the other guy?” Maybe they even meant it as a trick question: “Increase our faith!” they’d say to Jesus. And Jesus was supposed to say back: “Your faith is already as great as it can be.” (Although this was, of course, what he did say, if they were paying attention.)

Instead, Jesus offered a metaphor about the servant who comes in after plowing or tending the sheep. Do you say, “Come and sit at my table?” (One imagines much nodding, yes, from the disciples, realizing that they are the servant in this tale.) No, Jesus says, you do not. Instead, you would say, “Go and fix dinner for me.” And then do you thank the slave? No, you do not. For they have done only what is expected of them.

You have to feel a little bad for the disciples. But they are helpful as a lesson for us.  Jesus reminds us, yet again, that we are not in competition with one another.  And we are reminded yet again, that we do good because it is the right thing to do and not to curry favour. We have, by desiring to be people of faith, already received the job description; we know what is expected of us. We are to be that mustard seed of faith in the world. 

Jesus could not have given us better advice for this time, when I know many of you are feeling overwhelmed by bad news, by a sense of instability, by these massive challenges we face. 

But we don’t need a big plan to begin. We don’t need to face down the mulberry tree. If we want to build a society willing to move in a better direction, it is clear that we can begin today. On your way home, say hello to the cashier who serves you and really see her. On the bus, put down your phone and speak to the other human being beside you. Never pass by someone on the street without saying hello. We cannot work together if we don’t first see ourselves as part of the same community, the same species, residents of the same planet. 

Be that tiny mustard seed of faith, strong enough to order the mulberry tree to stand down, yet compassionate enough to reach out to a lonely person, and brave and curious enough to be the first one to say hello in a world that has gotten out of practice. This way, at the end of the day, we won’t look for praise. We will rest easy, knowing we have done, to the best of our ability, what we ought to have done.

Amen