Tradition is a funny thing.

It can also be a very bewildering thing…

especially when it moves into the territory of superstition.

Think about some of the ‘traditions’ that we have inherited:

don’t walk under a ladder;

don’t step on a crack in the pavement;

don’t break a mirror…

don’t touch the bottom when you cut a cake…

and don’t open an umbrella inside…

or it will bring you bad luck.

You may be able to think of others––

things that you may well have been told when you were young.

Similarly, how many of us––

perhaps especially when it comes to playing sport––

have certain items of clothing that we consider “lucky”…

or certain little rituals that we go through before a ball is bowled or play commences…

which, if we don’t do them, we think will bring bad luck?

And it doesn’t really matter how educated and enlightened we are––

and how aware we are that such things are nonsensical––

it’s hard, sometimes, to shake them.

According to one psychologist, we may cling to superstitions because they are familiar––

a legacy of our childhoods––

and, hence, comforting.

But, she also suggests that we cling to them… 

because we have difficulty believing that things happen outside of our control;

because we need to believe that we’re able to influence or shape what happens to us;

that our life is not simply one random event after another.

But even if we are able to overcome all of our childhood superstitions…

they often still creep into our religious worldview.

Indeed, the line between superstition and faith can be a very fine one.

It’s easy to make God––

or our faith in God––

into a sort of lucky rabbit’s foot.

Or God becomes just another means by which we try to assert some control over our lives.

And we see that, especially, when it comes to prayer.

One of the last things to change––

when our image or understanding of God has evolved and matured––

is our attitude to prayer;

and, especially, the expectation that God will directly or intentionally answer prayer.

And yet, that’s exactly what most people of faith probably believe––

in some form or another.

Indeed, if you do a Google search for the expression “an answer to prayer”…

it comes back with one hundred and sixteen million hits!

And, if you steel yourself…

and you read even a few of the accounts and stories that people have written…

you would find–– 

time and time again–– 

the claim that God answers prayer because of our faith;

or, conversely, that God doesn’t answer our prayer because of our lack of it.

And this morning’s reading from Luke’s Gospel seems to support that way of thinking––

doesn’t it?

“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you”.

Leaving aside the obviously jumbled metaphorical nature of the response…

clearly, the Lukan Jesus appears to be scolding his disciples––

and, by implication, us––

for lack of faith…

suggesting that we don’t get what we ask for––

that we don’t get what we want or need––

because we don’t really trust God…

because we don’t really believe.

Indeed, this saying seems to be suggesting that, if we believed, anything is possible.

 

And yet… 

in the original Greek, the text doesn’t actually say that.

Unfortunately, most of our English translations––

which have been heavily influenced by Protestant dogmatic sensibilities––

speak here of “faith”.

And, let’s face it…

down the centuries in the West, that is what has been emphasised above all else–– 

belief.

Faith has been construed as belief in certain things.

If you don’t believe a certain doctrine, then you’re not really a Christian. 

If you don’t share a particular belief, then you don’t belong––

you can’t or you won’t be “saved”.

And yet, the word that’s translated here as “faith” more usually means “faithfulness”.

And, given the context of this saying, that’s clearly what’s intended in our reading.

The request of the disciples to Jesus, then, isn’t “Increase our faith!”…

but, rather, they ask him quite literally, “Grant us faithfulness”…

or, perhaps, we would say, “help us to be more faithful”.

In other words… 

the disciples are asking Jesus for help in living the sort of life that they know that they ought to.

The disciples are asking for help to be people of God.

Because faithfulness is not about belief––

faithfulness is about who we are… 

and how we live.

Furthermore… 

their request is a response to what the Lukan Jesus has said in the verses just prior to our reading:

“If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 

And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive”.

In other words, the request that the disciples make–– 

“help us to be more faithful”––

is in response to that.

It’s a request for strength to be able to do just that––

to forgive, and to keep on forgiving––

because it seems too hard…

because they don’t think that they can.

They want help to be able to forgive, as Jesus forgave.

They want help to be able to love, as Jesus loved.

In taking what was most likely an authentic saying of Jesus––

the saying about a mustard-seed––

and putting it in this literary context… 

the author is not saying that if you really believe something…

then it will happen;

because God doesn’t work like that.

God isn’t some sort of supernatural vending machine…

or, in the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick:

“God is not a cosmic bell-boy for whom we can press a button to get things done”.

God is not an interventionist deity.

God is not at our beck and call.

God doesn’t exist to meet our needs.

God isn’t there simply to give us what we want…

provided that we ask in the right way…

and provided that we believe that God can or will do it.

And it doesn’t matter how good or noble or necessary it seems to be.

The author, here, isn’t talking about prayer and the answers to prayer;

nor is he talking about belief.

What the author is talking about is faithfulness.

And his point seems to be that…

if you seek to be faithful to God––

within the realm of what you understand and have experienced of God––

if you aspire to live a life of honesty and integrity…

if you endeavour to be a channel of God’s re-creative, forgiving, and renewing love…

if you strive to be an agent of God’s purposes in the world…

if you’re open to God in the way that Jesus was––

open to the life and love of God within you––

then God is able to accomplish amazing things through you.

In the end…

that’s the very essence of ‘incarnation’.

It’s only through us–– 

being people of God…

and living faithfully as people of God––

that God can and does act in our world.