The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost | 05.10.2025 | Luke 17.5-10 | Richard O. Johnson |

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 “Will any one of you who has a servant[a] plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly,[b] and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants;[c] we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17.5-10, ESV)

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’” Could there be any prayer that rings more clearly with us—us, who find ourselves so often faltering, so often doubting when we want to believe. “Increase our faith!” If we could think of nothing else to pray, that would be enough, for it is indeed the cry of a heart that longs for God and yet feels still incomplete, still distant from him.

What would it mean for us if God answered that prayer? What would it mean if we, indeed, had more faith? This morning’s text suggests some things that may be surprising; come along with me and let’s see where it leads us.

Letting go of ourselves

Let me suggest, first of all, that having more faith would mean being able to let go of ourselves, our image of ourselves. It would mean we could stop pretending that we are someone we are not. Wouldn’t that be something? To be able simply to be who you are!

This funny little parable or saying about worthless slaves is a little obscure to us. If you have a slave, Jesus says, you wouldn’t thank him for waiting on you; that, after all, is just his job. Now leaving aside the harshness of this saying, and its difficulty in an age where we value affirmation and expressions of gratitude, there is still a point here that has to do with faith! If you have faith, Jesus is saying, then you are free to serve. You do not require, nor do you expect reward or payment. You understand who you are, and you are content to be who you are, to do the task given to you, without pretension or arrogance. We find this an uncomfortable illustration because we dislike the idea of being a servant; but what Jesus is getting at here is that happiness and contentment comes from accepting your place in the universe and doing what you’ve been called to do. Our place in the universe is to be God’s servants, and having more faith means to accept that place with gratitude and gladness.

Brother Juniper once asked St. Francis, “Teach me to preach as eloquently as you.” Francis replied, “Meet me tomorrow, and I shall teach you to preach.” Brother Juniper dutifully met Francis the next morning, and they began to walk. They walked through the marketplace, smiling at the workers, the merchants, playing with the children. They helped an old woman carry her wash up the stairs. After some time, an exasperated Brother Juniper said, “Francis, when will you teach me to preach?” Francis replied, “Why, we are preaching!”

Having more faith means accepting the tasks given to us, however humble they may be, however unlike our visions of how important we are and what we would like to be doing! Having more faith means letting go of our pretensions and learning to serve.

Letting go of the hurts

Having more faith also would mean learning to let go of the hurts and the bumps that life brings us. It wasn’t part of our reading this morning, but in Luke’s gospel this request, “Increase our faith,” comes right after Jesus has told the twelve that they must learn to forgive, again and again and again—that they must not hold grudges and bear ill feelings toward even those who have sinned against them. It looks to me as if the disciples understand that forgiving like that is going to require more faith! And it works the other way, too: increasing our faith would mean that we would forgive more easily and freely.

Florence Nightengale, the saintly nurse who touched so many lives in the Crimean War, was once heard to say something very kind about a person who had hurt her very deeply some time before. A friend was shocked. “Florence,” she said, “don’t you remember what that person did to you?” “No,” the nurse said quietly. “I distinctly remember forgetting all about that.” That is faith! Having more faith means learning more and more to let go of things that hurt us.

Letting go of “can’t do”

Then there is something else here. Jesus says this strange thing about faith the size of a mustard seed. If you have it, he says, you could say to a tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea.” It’s not as dramatic as the saying about faith moving mountains, but the point is the same: Increased faith means letting go of the attitude which says, “That’s impossible! It can’t be done!”

Some years ago I took some young people to confirmation camp. At our camp, they had a high ropes course. They also had what they called a “low ropes course,” though why they called it that I have no clue, since many of the stations have no ropes involved. On one of them, a group of five or six people stood on a wooden platform, just a couple of inches off the ground. There were two more wooden platforms nearby, but not near enough to step or jump from one to the other. The group would be handed a couple of two by fours, but they were short—not long enough to stretch from one platform to the next. The challenge was to figure out how to get the entire group to the second platform, and then to the third, without ever touching the ground. It appeared, at first blush, to be utterly impossible. But if you believe it can be done, then you figure out a way. And sure enough, we learned that it could be done.

Faith is like that, you see. Faith doesn’t assume that something is impossible, but it believes that it can be done. Having more faith would mean letting go of our “can’t do” attitudes about so many things. It would mean trusting. It would mean stepping out, like Abraham, not knowing where we’re going, but knowing that God will lead us. A tree, uprooted and planted in the sea? Not possible! But faith says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Not adding, but letting go

Now maybe you’ve noticed that these three things I’ve mentioned—letting go of our pretentions and learning to serve, letting go of the things others do that hurt us, and letting go of our “can’t do” attitude—they all have one thing in common: “letting go!” That’s a remarkable thing! I suspect the disciples, when they asked for increased faith, had in mind taking on something, adding to what they already have—indeed, one translation of the Greek here would be, “Add to our faith.” But they’ve got it just wrong! Faith means letting go, giving up, putting things in God’s hands, relinquishing things to God. Oh, but that is hard to do! “Increase our faith” means “take away from us our holding on to things, take away our jealous guarding of our rights and privileges, take away our preoccupations with self.” Do we really want that?

Maybe not. Maybe we’d rather stay in control. Maybe we’d rather hang on to things. I read a story the other day about a woman who was moving to a new house. She hired the movers to come in, and she told them that everything was to be packed up and moved. She got to the

new house and found that they had even packed up and moved her garbage! Maybe that’s us! Maybe we don’t want to let ANYTHING go—our self-image, the resentments we enjoy nursing, the complaints we enjoy making, the fears we like to roll around in our minds—all these faithless things that clutter up the spirit and make a barrier between ourselves and God. Maybe we’re so comfortable with all this garbage we need to cling to it.

But if you want to pray it … If you want to pray, “Increase my faith” … then be ready for the answer. Be ready to give things up. Be ready to come to the altar, claiming “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling” and singing, “My hope is build on nothing less than Jesus.” Be ready to come, not clinging to your exalted self-image, not holding on to your hurts and resentments, not thinking about how hopeless your life is. But come with open hands, open hearts, ready to receive, content to serve. Come taste and see that the Lord is good, and that what you lack will be freely given. Come and pray, “Increase my faith”—and then let go of all the garbage.

Pastor Richard O. Johnson
Webster, NY
roj@nccn.net