Pentecost+17/Proper 22C (Luke 17:5-10)

“Increase our faith!” This request of the apostles to Jesus sounds similarly humble to the cry of the demon-possessed boy’s father, “Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) But not so. The second parable of Jesus on the role of the master and the slave ironically directs the apostles to be humble as if he can read their minds. They want to get big and famous, and faith is a means to that end. The medicine that Jesus prescribes for their misdirected desire is a mustard seed. More specifically, it’s the size of a mustard seed. It’s not the size of their faith that needs to be increased. They don’t seem to have what they call “faith” to begin with. 

One’s faith is not something that can be grown by someone other than oneself. You can explain your experience of what it is like to ski or swim or actually meditate but I cannot really experience it myself. I need to go in and through. Faith is just like that. I do not know how you breathe and what kind of breath energizes or calms you. We can be compassionate companion or guide for each other but cannot fully share this experience of faith. Then, we might wonder what faith is. It is more of a conviction that is strengthened by lived experiences. As we live our lives, going through ups and downs, faith is that which enables us to carry on when we have all the reasons to give up. We might not get what we so desperately desire. We see life is unfair. Yet, there’s something deep in our hearts that empower us to move on, though with a limp. 

What we want to do with the faith that is planted in us is to grow and cultivate heedfully. Imagine we have a bucket filled with the water of the Holy Spirit. Without water, there’s no growth. Who waters? It’s ourselves with the help of the Holy Spirit. There are different ways to cultivate the seed. Hardships of summer heat, snow, or wind change and mature our understanding of God who might have been like a vending machine or a Genie in a bottle. In this sense, faith as conviction is more like a working hypothesis. It’s not a fixated state but a dynamic process that develops through our lived experiences. The more our life experiences enrich in and through, the more wisdom we gain and the more we feel certain of God’s presence dwelling in us. We live out Jesus’s good news on God’s inner kingdom, God nearing closer than we are to ourselves, God becoming so human to us in our hearts. The mystery of the incarnation is nothing to be sought without but within. 

Faith is anchored not in our head or dogma but in our very own breath. This breath that we are taking in and out, which is not merely the air traveling into our body, is the breath of God. This belief, not coerced but experienced and confirmed conviction, motivates our practice of contemplation. Again, to increase our faith is up to us. The bucket filled with the water of the Holy Spirit is always available wherever, however, or whoever we are. So, the key takeaway from the second parable of Jesus is that no one can do this work for others while the analogy of the master and the slave is not appropriate in our context. If we truly understand that this work of increasing faith or cultivating the seed of faith is our duty, we wouldn’t want others to do it for us. Not only is it impossible but also whoever attempts to do that work on my behalf does me a disservice. “This is my work. Let me do my job.” We wouldn’t take away a scalpel from the surgeon and say, “You sit here and give me that scalpel. I’ll do it myself.” (ref. Luke 17:7)

Breath is like a mustard seed. We may not even notice we’re breathing because it’s like that small mustard seed that is about 0.039 to 0.079 in diameter. Once we start paying heedful attention to our breath, it will reshape the way we think/feel, speak, and act. This transformation is no less than uprooting and planting a mulberry tree in the sea.