Brothers and Sisters,
Have we ever found ourselves questioning whether our faith in Jesus is sufficient or “big enough?” The Apostles must have been struggling with that same question at times. In this week’s Gospel from Luke, they ask Jesus to increase their faith. He responds that if you only have a small faith the size of mustard seed, you can do unbelievable works. Do we believe this or are we stuck in our doubt and uncertainty when Jesus speaks these words to us?
Jesus follows the statement about the mustard seed with a rather strange story involving a slave doing what is commanded. What’s the point of that story? I think that it is simply to remind us that we’re not in charge. So, we don’t have to have it all figured out. We don’t need certainty. We don’t need to see the whole picture. God is in charge. And God knows what he is doing. There is more going on than any one of us knows or understands. So, we are asked to trust him and follow his commands. Don’t wait until we have it all figured out before following him. Part of figuring it out comes by trusting the master and following anyway. Or, as St. Augustine put it, “We do not understand in order to believe. We believe in order to understand.” Trust Jesus. Do what he says. And in time we will understand his purpose and his plan.
Your faith, however small it may seem, is plenty big enough. Because it isn’t about how big your faith is. It never was. It was always about who you put that faith in. No matter how little our faith, when we put it in Jesus there is no end to what he can accomplish through us. We just need to be open and trust him.
God Bless,
Deacon Howard
