In case you need reminding, this is the blessing of the animals. At my house, we share our lives with two dogs and a cat--Pretzel, Sadie, and Swiper. And though these animals have never come to us and asked us to increase their faith, I'm going to use them as an entryway for understanding both the apostles' request and Jesus' response from our Gospel reading.
Would you describe your animals as faithful? I'm going to take a leap here and answer for you by saying that yes, they are. But how can we describe the faith of a pet? To whom, or what, is a pet faithful? To you? To each other? To God?
Does a pet's faith rely on a belief in your existence? (I sometimes question, actually, whether the cat believes I exist outside my ability to put food into her bowl.) Do you think that your pet believes you will always provide for them?
I don't think that. The way our dogs act at suppertime, I wonder if they thought I might never feed them again.
This year we brought a new dog into our home--Sadie. She loves to play fetch, to chase the ball as fast as she can run, to catch the ball mid-bounce if possible, and return it to us just as quickly.
Sometimes, when I throw a ball for Sadie, if it doesn't go where she expected it to go, she can't find it. Once it stops moving, it's as good as lost. She searches the grass willy nilly, not making much progress toward the ball (she's more of a herding dog than a scent dog). When she tires of looking for it, she returns to me, hoping I still have it, that I've tricked her and will throw it again. But I don't have it. I point toward the ball. "It's over there," I say.
You know what Sadie does, don't you? She looks at my finger. At my hand. At my gesture. Instead of following the direction of my finger out toward the ball, she refuses to take her eyes off me.
"Go get it," I say, "No! Over there!" I say.
I try to keep myself from saying, "You stupid dog."
The more I yell and point and sigh and shake my head, the less she seems to understand that I don't have the ball, that it left my hand and it's thataway, Sadie.
But Sadie and I don't really speak the same language, no matter how much I may think she understands what I'm saying to her, no matter how many dog books I may write. She understands me in a very different way than I intend when I speak my ridiculous human language to her; she only truly understands when I take her out into the field and show her where the ball has been hiding. She picks it up immediately, even if I am already reaching to pick it up myself, and she puts it into my hands and steps away, waiting for me to throw it again.
So here are the apostles, playing their favorite game, and they say to Jesus, "Increase our faith." And Jesus points to it. "Go get it. It's over there."
I like to think that maybe Jesus was trying to keep himself from saying, "You stupid apostles."
Instead he tells the apostles, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, the mulberry tree would obey you." Now I like to put myself in a row behind the apostles here, trying not to look at Jesus' pointing finger as he shows them the way, so I sit there thinking he's telling us, maybe, that we just need that little bit of faith. A mustard seed. It's so tiny. Is that really all I need?
The danger, of course, is to look at this passage and think that Jesus was telling the apostles that they didn't even have faith the size of a mustard seed. But there's something else going on here. When Jesus follows up by asking if the apostles if they expect a servant to come in from the fields and be anything but a servant, shouldn't we we step back a few moments and wonder, do we ask anything of the mustard seed but that it be a mustard seed?
We expect that the mustard seed will become a mustard plant. The mustard seed cannot be what it isn't. It is true to itself-to God's creation. So long as the mustard seed does not try to grow into the mulberry tree, it is being faithful to God's creation.
Thus the servant in God's house is faithful by being true to his or her own nature.
Shakespeare put it this way:
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Shakespeare was a pretty smart guy. So long as you are true to yourself, you will be true to everyone else as well. God resides with you in the form of the Holy Spirit. You must let the Holy Spirit guide you. You might say, "but I don't hear that voice inside myself." But you don't need to hear voices to know when you are being true to your nature. You know when you are being true to the spirit, when you are being true to yourself as God created you.
Sadie, when we're playing fetch, watches me, fully aware that eventually I will show her the way to the ball. Our other dog, Pretzel, is true to herself by fetching the ball once and taking it to the far corners of the field, never letting me have the ball back in the first place. Swiper, the cat, climbs trees and hunts for mice and wonders what all the fuss is about. They are not so much faithful to me as they are faithful to themselves as God's creations.
To be faithful followers of Christ, the apostles, as well as you and I, have to be true to ourselves as God's creations. I like to think that when the apostles asked that Jesus increase their faith, this was good news to him. It was not the amount of faith that he found important, but the mere presence of that faith. That the apostles were asking Jesus to increase their faith meant that they were already being true to themselves, faithful to their creation, seeking out a faith that, though they didn't quite understand it, had already taken residence within themselves.
This kind of faith likely has as much to do with loyalty as it does with belief. And so long as we continue to turn our faces to God and ask forgiveness, so long as we continue to ask questions and worship and share our meals with Christ, we may not have all the answers we're looking for, but we will continue to have faith.
This is important, of course, for those of us who sometimes wonder-as the apostles did-if we have enough faith. It's good news for those who feel they've lost some of their belief, or that they've lost their faith altogether. Your concern for your own faith is enough to prove that your faith exists, and so long as your faith exists, you are sheltered by the grace of God.
"Increase our faith," said the apostles. Or rather, "Where's the ball? Where's the ball where's the ball where's the ball?"
Jesus, no doubt, was pointing back toward them. The faith was inside them-as much in their asking for it as in their belief in it--as it is within you. Perhaps the next time you kneel at the altar rail and accept the host, you will be tempted to lick your pastor's face in thanks. If this is the case I would remind you that the traditional response, though not as apparently demonstrative, is quite sufficient.
Amen.
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