The Mustard Seed Parable is a favorite of many people. I can remember mustard seed necklaces, little glass balls with a tiny mustard seed in it. How popular they were. That was J. C. Penny’s idea. As I recall you could write him, not to the corporation but to him personally, and he would send you one.

J. C. Penny was an active churchman. He practiced tithing in his personal life. He believed that tithing was the reason for his spectacular success in business. I remind you of that as we look forward to our financial campaign around here in a few weeks.

Jesus said, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”

 Matthew says the disciples have just returned from trying to be disciples. They have tried to help somebody, and have failed. They were sent out to conquer the world, and they came back having fallen on their faces. They assume something is wrong. Their diagnosis is, maybe we don’t have enough faith. So they ask Jesus, “Increase our faith!”

Their assumption is a common one. Many people assume that faith is a quantitative thing, something we can store up, something we can accumulate, so that the more we have, the more we can do. Jesus confounds that. He says that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, the smallest seed there is, then we can move mountains and uproot trees. We don’t need a lot of faith, because faith is not a thing.

Money is different. If we have only a little cash, we can do only a few little things. But if we have a lot of cash, we can do impressive things. But faith is not like that. It is not quantitative. It is qualitative. Faith is a relationship with God. Faith means trusting God. Either we trust God, or we don’t.

It is in this same understanding of faith that Jesus says to the disciples, “God is still doing these wonderful things in the world. You can order this sycamore tree to be uprooted, and be planted in the sea, and it will obey you, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed.” The problem is not that we don’t have enough faith. The problem is we aren’t using what we have.

Madeleine L’Engle put it perfectly, “I don’t have to have some special qualification to do what I have to do. All I have to do is have the courage to go on and do it.”

We are in the midst of the baseball playoffs leading to the World Series. I am going to share a baseball story with you about Nolan Ryan. It was told by Richard Reeves who started out as a sports reporter for The New York Times backin the days when Nolan Ryan was a rookie with the New York Mets. Reeves wrote his article in 1989 when Nolan Ryan reached the incredible level of 5,000 strike outs as well as all those no hitters. Ryan was a phenomenal baseball player, but Reeves, in writing his article praising him, remembered 1971 when Ryan was a rookie with the New York Mets.

Gil Hodges was the manager and he was impatient with Ryan. Although Ryan could consistently throw the ball over ninety miles an hour, most of the time it didn’t go over the plate! He was walking everybody and hitting a lot of people, too. Hodges told Ryan at the beginning of a particular game that he had to pitch better in that game or he would pull him out and trade him. He would be finished with the Mets.

Ryan went into that game trying to do his best, determined that he was going to succeed. He was miserable. He walked something like seven or eight batters in four innings. Hodges took him out. Later that season he was traded to the Angels.

After the game Richard Reeves went down into the locker room to interview the players. He noticed Nolan Ryan sitting apart from the others, looking into a mirror, obviously having difficulty tying his tie. Reeves got closer to him and noticed that there were tears in his eyes. He couldn’t see to tie his tie.

Reeves remembered that incident on the occasion of celebrating Nolan Ryan as one of the immortals of baseball. He remembered that this legendary man, Nolan Ryan, began thinking he had failed, but he kept on working. He kept on practicing. He didn’t give up.

In one of her books, Madeleine L’Engle says. “Slowly I have realized that I do not have to be qualified to do what I am asked to do. That I just have to go ahead and do it, even though I can’t do it as well as I think it ought to be done. This is one of the most liberating lessons of my life.”

That is exactly what Jesus is saying to the disciples. “You don’t have to be qualified to do what I ask you to do. You just have to be faithful.”

Paul Tillich, the great theologian, defined faith as courage. Tillich said that is what faith will look like when we see it. It will look like courage. Faith is acting on our trust that God is faithful. Most of the time, if we are doing anything worthwhile, it is done with faith, and that takes courage.

The disciples returned to Jesus. “We can’t seem to do it. We can’t get this right. Increase our faith!” Jesus said, “Your problem is not that you don’t have enough faith. Your problem is you don’t use the faith that you have.”

All this is true for anyone who has even only a little faith.  But what if you don’t?  Where do you find this faith?

          The simplest answer I can give is that you don’t have to go looking for faith.  Faith will find you.  God is still speaking and God is speaking to you all the time.  When we sincerely want to hear God calling us in faith I believe we will.  No, not in thunder and lightning, not in words spoken from a cloud, but in a soft quiet voice we hear in our hearts.  “I am here, my son, my daughter.  I am here.  I love you.  I care about you.”  If we listen I believe we can and will hear that still, small voice.

          And the only answer God wants from us is the same as the man said to Jesus:  “Lord, I want to believe.  I do believe.  But help me where my faith falls shorts.”  When we say something like that I believe we will have the same experience as Day Hammarskjӧld.  This is what he said in his book “Markings” . . .

          “I don’t know Who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put.  I don’t even remember answering.  But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”