Transcript
Come, let us worship God. [music; recording skips] Let the good news come now, our Father, not only in word but in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. Listen to the Word of God as it is read from the Gospel according to Matthew, the 17th chapter, beginning at the 14th verse. This pericope immediately follows the story of the Mount of Transfiguration. And when they, Jesus, Peter, James, and John, came to the
crowd, a man came up to Jesus, and kneeling before him said, Lord, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic, and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him. And Jesus answered, O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here
to me. And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out? Jesus said to them, because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible
to you. This is the word of the Lord. It may not be far from the top of the Mount of Transfiguration to the valley below. Geographically, it is light years in terms of human experience. From the mountaintop to the valley of ministry, there is a great difference. Jesus comes down the mountain with his three intimate disciples to find a father with his boy suffering from something that we would call epilepsy. A father in great despair, a
father in great need, a son in greater need. The father has heard the stories of Jesus' power, the power of the disciples. He brings the son to the disciples. The disciples can do nothing. Now seeing Jesus approach, the father runs to Jesus and says, heal my son. Your disciples could not do so. You can do so. And he does. And he does. Afterward, the disciples get Jesus aside and they say to him, why could we not
cast it out? And Jesus replies, because of your little faith. Now, most of us, I think, consider faith to be something constant. There's faith. And we're not prone to quantify it. But Jesus seems to do that. There is little faith. And the disciples have little faith. Implying, doesn't it, that there is somewhere big faith. And there are people who enjoy big faith. I'm thinking of Martin Luther as a man of big faith. Luther, for example, was
not afraid to pray with boldness. In 1540, his good friend Friedrich Myconius lay dying. Luther received a farewell letter from his friend, written with a weak and trembling hand. And immediately, Luther sent back this reply, I command thee in the name of God to live, because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church. The Lord will not let me hear while I live that thou art dead, but will permit thee to
survive me. For this I am praying. This is my will. And may my will be done. Amen. Because I seek only to glorify the name of God. That's big faith. And I tell you the truth, I have never been able to pray a prayer like that. I'm with the folks of little faith. And that's a burden. I remember early in my pastoral ministry going to the home of one of God's dear people. A nurse, a mother
of two, dying of breast cancer. Blaming herself for not having discovered it sooner. But more importantly, blaming herself for lack of healing because of her little faith. Her little faith. Isn't it interesting, though, in Matthew's version of this story, the problem is identified as little faith. And then Jesus goes on to say, according to Matthew, if you had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, which apparently was the smallest seed known in the day.
If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to that mountain, move. And it would move. So according to Matthew, the problem includes the solution. Little faith inhibits us from being instruments of God's purpose and power. And at the same time, little faith, teeny faith, makes us instruments of God's purpose and power. I have a friend in ministry who has been very instrumental in effecting and a rather incredible ministry to the orphans
in Romania. He was merely a pastor, merely a pastor who developed a burden for the orphans in Romania. He believed that God had given him this burden. He himself went to Romania. He went to Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania and realized that if he were to affect any kind of ministry to these young children, he would have to have the cooperation of the Orthodox and the Reformed. The Orthodox are Romanian, the Reformed are Hungarian, and these Jews
have no dealings with these Samaritans. The ethnic hatred runs deep. And even the bonds of Christ are inadequate to bind them together. He could not even get beyond the gate to see either the bishop of the Orthodox Church or the presiding bishop of the Reformed Church. And so he was turned away and that night in his hotel room as he was awaiting an early flight to Frankfurt, he couldn't sleep. And he arose and walked the hand
really was in this. At three in the morning, he decided to shower and prepare for a five o 'clock departure. And while he was showering, it wasn't a voice he said that he heard, but it was something, someone who said, wear your suit home, wear your suit home. Ordinarily, he would not do this. He would dress casually, especially when you're flying that far. And he thought it was very strange. But before he realized what he was
doing, he was putting on his suit. When he got to Frankfurt that morning, he suddenly realized that his travel agent had routed him from Frankfurt to London, from London to Chicago, from Chicago to Los Angeles. And there was a flight directly from Frankfurt to Los Angeles. And so he went through all the rigmarole of having his flight plans changed and his tickets reissued. And then suddenly he realized, someone told me to wear my suit. Am I
short circuiting God's plan in this? But he didn't have the gall to ask his tickets to be reversed. And so he got on the plane that was nonstop Frankfurt to Los Angeles. There was no one in the seat next to him. And the last person, the last person to enter the plane before it closed was a man in a business suit who sat down next to him. Now, my friend had figured out that one way to
get the attention of the orthodox and the reformed was to help replenish their theological libraries, which were now virtually 40 years out of date. And he was wondering how in the world he could raise enough money to make a significant difference in providing books to the two theological seminaries in that community. And there he is dressed in his suit, sitting next to a German dressed in his suit. And they began to converse with one another. And
who is this man sitting next to him? But the chief publisher of theological works in Germany of foreign language literature. And one thing led to another in the conversation. And before he left the airplane in Los Angeles, he had secured a promise of great supplies of books for the theological schools, inclusion of Napoca. My friend, Gary Dennis says, he's a man of little faith. He was prone not to put on his suit. Maybe the suit made
no difference. But in God's providence, the books opened up the door. And he was able to visit with the bishops of the orthodox church on another visit and the bishop of the reformed church. He has even been able to bring together, believe it or not, world vision and the world council of churches. You talk about moving mountains to the benefit of little children in Romania. The problem really is not how much faith. It's just enough faith
to give God the freedom in our lives to move the mountains. And may it be so in our life and ministry. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for being the instrument of God's power of redemption and renewal and healing in the world. We ourselves are much more prone to analysis than we are to redemption. We know why things are wrong. We don't know how to make them right. And we pray that we ourselves as
disciples of little faith may yet become men and women who are channels of your gracious power in this world. Enable us to believe that even we can be the instrument of your glory. And some of us may be like Luther. Some of us may have that kind of courageous, audacious faith that to your glory claims its own will for the sake of the church or the world. But most of us are not like that. We're hanging
on by fingertips, if not fingernails. And yet help us to see that the mustard seed is all it takes. So use us to glorify your name and all the earth. Use us to bring your healing power to a world that is so desperate. For we pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.