How much Faith to move our mountains? Matthew 17.14-20
Continuing in our series in the gospel of Matthew
In a college drama class, I put together a sweet collection of pieces about home, and recited them with great emotion. (Perhaps I was wistful as I was 2100 miles from my home at the time!) One poem had the line, 'It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home...'1 I've been wondering, does it 'take a heap o' faith' for God to do the miraculous? If not a heap, then how much? Take a look at what Jesus said to the disciples about what had hamstrung them:
Matthew writes,
"When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. "Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him."
"You unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me."Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."2
What Jesus said to the disciples defies logic, and I am wrestling to understand it. They have been with the Lord for a good length of time by then, and there is just no way they did not have faith! Plus Jesus had given them the authority to heal the sick and drive out demons3, so what was the problem? Why were they unsuccessful with this boy? Something to do with their faith.
Understand that this is not an exercise in semantics; it is something we must get right as Scripture says 'without faith, it is impossible to please God'.4
In Jesus' explanation, he draws a distinction between 'little faith' and 'faith as small as a mustard seed'. Is Jesus just splitting hairs? Isn't mustard seed-sized faith 'little faith', albeit very little faith? Hmmm. It seems that Jesus is talking about more than just the quantity of our faith. There is something more in the mustard seed piece. Jesus had spoken of the power in a single mustard seed earlier: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches."5The mustard plant in Palestine is a different kind of plant than what we see growing wild and blowing in the wind here in California, or on western mountain scapes6. In Palestine this little grain of mustard grew into a tree.7
Truly, Jesus was drawing a distinction between little faith which renders small things because little is proffered . . .
whereas the potential of a mustard seed,
when rightly planted,
when used for the Creator's purpose,
when watered
and cultivated,
has almost unlimited potential for growth,
and bearing great fruit!
Jesus spurns little faith, but lauds mustard seed faith. While we cannot know for certain the cause of the disciples' little faith which kept them from healing the boy, perhaps they were more into a 'don't we do it like this?' formulaic or stylistic demonstration of faith ... or perhaps they were acting in a manner that would draw attention to themselves rather than God. It is always worthwhile to check--to see that God's glory is sought and not our own.
And as for the mountain, the folks to whom Jesus spoke understood the expression 'to move a mountain' to mean a personal hurdle-that with a growing faith in God, the believer can handle even the impossible situation. For with God, nothing is impossible!8
This gives us something to think about. How does God look at our faith? Do you and I live our lives with little faith, having never moved beyond that? Or instead have we taken our mustard seed of faith and harvested it, inviting God to water and prosper it into a living, active, vital faith that wields great influence? For it is with a mustard seed of living faith that we can move the mountains in our lives to live victoriously for God.
Christine
Pastorwoman.com
1 - Home by Edgar Albert Guest
2 - Matthew 17.14-20
3 - Matthew 10.1
4 - Hebrews 11.6
5 - Matthew 13.31-32
6 - Amanda McClements/For The Washington Post
7 - William Barclay
8 - Luke 1.37
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