Originally posted July 20, 2011, at Bishop Mike. Republished with permission of the author.
Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed: tiny, but with great power and potential. He compares the kingdom to things that grow, like seeds and yeast. This is one of two places where the mustard seed crops up in Matthew.
Jesus is always calling the disciples “oligopistoi,” which means literally “little-faith-ones” or “littlefaithers.” It gets rendered “ye of little faith” or “you of little faith.” It begins with this passage from the Sermon on the Mount:
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30) Trust is important to Jesus.
But sometimes it sounds like a put-down to me. In Matthew 14:31, Jesus chides Peter, who is walking on water, for losing faith and sinking: “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’”
In the long run, however, it turns out you don’t need much faith. If you have only the faith of a mustard seed, apparently you can move mountains:
“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20).
Whenever I read this passage I always remind people that the “you” here is plural. “Y’all.” Jesus is not promising a platform for personal power through prayer.
It may be a remarkable affirmation of the power of unity. When people come together and agree on something in prayer, however small their faith, mountains move.
This saying of Jesus about faith to move mountains must have been important. It almost certainly floated around as a free oral saying of Jesus’, long before the Gospels were written.
Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians 13, three or four decades before Matthew wrote his Gospel: “and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (v. 2). Makes me wonder what sayings of Jesus Paul knew.
It also reminds me that for James, faith without works is dead, but for Paul, faith without love is dead. Faith for faith’s sake can, in fact, be dangerous. It leads to inquisitions and crusades. Faith for love’s sake is what really matters.
So if you feel your faith is small like a mustard seed, fret not. It just might be enough.
Find a link to Michael Rinehart’s blog Bishop Mike at Lutheran Blogs.
"Makes me wonder what sayings of Jesus Paul knew."
Paul knew whatever sayings of Jesus the Holy Spirit revealed to him as he wrote. Given the essential unity of Christ and the Spirit, potentially Paul could know everything Jesus said. Moreover, the Spirit could reveal the mind of Christ to Paul over and beyond what the historic Jesus said during his earthly ministry, although certainly Jesus would have uttered everything necessary for us to know regarding our salvation and caused the disciples to remember it.
If the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and His Resurrection, and the primary function of the Spirit is to reveal Christ, and if the Spirit inpsired Paul, then what Paul writes is on parr with what the gospel authors say Jesus said. N'est pas?
Sorry for the long post. Good theology won't usually fit on a bumper sticker.
Chemnitz is exactly right! And sorry is not....
One of my favorite verses that reveals Paul's relationship with Christ is 1 Cor 7:10 -- "To the unmarried I give this command -- not I but the Lord -- that the wife should not separate from her husband...." This tells me that Paul was hearing the voice of Jesus. Using reason, I do not see how there is any way we can "spin" this (the entire passage) -- and we all know what a sticky issue it is -- but we cannot select only the Scripture we like and that fits our agenda. Henry VIII tried that.
I think the parable is not being read with the right lenses. The solution to 'you don't have enough faith' (I do think Jesus is "putting down" Peter when he is rebuked for lacking faith) is NOT 'you only need to have a little faith'; the solution is that it's not our perfect faith that saves, but the perfect object of our faith who does.
Chemnitz,
I think you're moving away from the incarnational aspect of Christianity. God took on flesh to be about His mission of salvation, and both Baptism and Holy Communion are conveyed in the physical elements of water, bread and wine. Even to pass on the Promise, the Spirit uses human institutions, human proclaimers to accomplish the task of ministry. So while it's possible the Holy Spirit directly implanted some/most/all of Christ's sayings to Paul when he was knocked off his donkey en route to Damascus, it's more likely that the Spirit worked through Jesus' earlier disciples telling Paul what had been said. It's important to keep in mind that Paul is first and foremost a sinner-- something he continually acknowledges-- and by definition that means he's going to get some things wrong.
Karen,
An alternative explanation is that Paul is specifically telling the reader that he is not speaking with Christ's authority. He's acknowledging his personal preference here.
Peter: Re. 1 Cor 7:10, I think you may be in denial. Just read the plain meaning -- same thing with Mt 16:13-20.
The plain meaning I get out of it is Paul saying 'I-- not the LORD-- give you this command'. That means it's NOT coming from God, it's coming from Paul. Matthew 16:13-20 is also the confession, not the person. Consider the next 3 verses-- Peter is called Satan. ...or are you building a case for the papacy as the anti-Christ (that last question is intended as a joke)
Peter: I am able to read some Greek, but I use the New Oxford Annotated for a good translation. It says: "not I but the Lord." I think that is crystal clear.
Re. Mt 16 -- what you said is the standard Schismatic interpretation. Again, the plain text is crystal clear. (Also, Jesus says a house built on rock will stand, but not the house built on sand. Interesting.)
About the Papacy as the Anti-Christ, yeah, we've had some pretty bad Popes... but that's life. The Church survived -- after all, Jesus promised that the Gates of Hades would not prevail against it.