Photo of a mustard seed in the center of a palm 5The apostles said to the Lord: Give us more faith. 6The Lord said, If ye have faith as a mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, 'Be rooted up and plant yourself in the sea, "and it would obey you.
7Qui of you has a servant plowing or grazed by cattle, will say when he returns from the fields: "Come immediately put you at the table! "8NE him say he not the contrary:" Prepare my dinner, put yourself in place to serve me, till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you too can eat and drink. "9Saura he grateful to that servant to have done what he was ordered? 10of Similarly, you also, when you have done everything that was ordered, said: "We are slaves useless, we did what we should do. "
Dear brothers and sisters,
dear friends
Give us more faith. The application of the apostles is urgent. It almost seems that their faith is almost as necessary as oxygen. It must be said that Jesus is their deal a real blow in the face.
In the passages that precede our text, Jesus pronounced effect in strong words: "Woe to him who causes others to sin, it would be better for him that attaches to a neck that the large stone and thrown into the sea "(Luke 17.1-2) or" If thy brother shall be guilty towards you seven times in a day and each time he returns to tell you: "I regret" thou shalt forgive him. "(Matthew and Jesus said that even asks you forgive 77x7 times!).
solemn warning against those who drop their brothers and sisters, obligation of an attitude of complete forgiveness and radical: the apostles feel on their shoulders the whole weight of the exorbitant demands of Jesus. Then, conscious of their weakness and their inability to obey these commandments, they turn to Christ and implore his help. This attitude is healthy, but still lack the target.
It is healthy because the Act has done its work in the hearts of the apostles. The law is really all that God requires of us and can be summarized thus: "Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all thy heart and with all your soul and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself." Beautiful words, but also terrible, because we only have to look into our actions, our words and thoughts to make us realize how much we lack love. We are far from the goal! We do not succeed, despite all our efforts! The Act makes it work: it shows our shortcomings and challenges us to look elsewhere than in ourselves, to God himself.
is what the apostles, but also where they miss the mark "gives us more faith. " The apostles seem to regard faith as a kind of power, energy, almost as if they were the Gallic village of Asterix's magic potion that require the druid when the Romans attacked! Looks like the apostles, the faith can be counted, weighed.
This reminds me of that time I heard, that a Christian has died after a long illness, "we did not have enough faith when we asked her healing through prayer." That's the kind of speech well pious and totally anti-biblical revolts me. It's not as if we needed one gram of faith for a typical day, 10 grams to pass the tray and 10 kg for cancer face victoriously! If we believe that God has not responded as we wanted to our prayers is not a lack of faith. With God all things are possible, but that does not mean that "everything" is part of God's plan.
The apostles are placed in terms of quantity. They need more faith. Their problem is that he does not understand precisely what faith is and how it "works." That is what Jesus will tell them.
If you have faith as a mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, "Be thou rooted up and be thou planted in the sea", and it would obey you
The seed Mustard is one of the smallest that exist. This is not a question of quantity Jesus said. Presqu'infime a measure of faith is sufficient to accomplish something extraordinnaire, like sending a sycamore tree (a tall tree with roots deep and very extensive) in the sea Now in the original text, Jesus uses a conditional expected be translated as "if you have faith as a mustard seed, and you ... "
It's like a woman expecting a child. Towards the end of the pregnancy of my wife, someone told me "hey, I saw your wife the other day, she is very pregnant now."
The phrase made me smile, because it is not very kind either pregnant or a little. You are pregnant or you do not, and regardless of the egg comes just been fertilized or that either at the end of the ninth month! Similarly, the issue is not to have great faith or little faith. The question is whether one has faith or not. Jesus invites the apostles to enter a new dimension to realize the potential that the faith placed in them.
Faith is measured not with a ladle. What matters is not its weight or size, but its reality. What is faith? We've already seen what she is: a sort of magical power, mental talisman. Faith is not intellectual superiority that would allow us to probe the mysteries of the universe and our exitences always having the right answers.
me "faith" comes from the Latin fides, "which meant" trust ". Faith is simply trust. We all have faith in something. Some put their trust in their bank account, others in their families, Christians are those who put their trust in God. Christians are those who trust in Christ, his message, what he did for the world.
have faith in Jesus, it wants to rest on him, trust him to give us this new look which will allow us to see our lives differently and the world around us. And if we put our trust in Jesus, despite the doubts, certainly questions that assailed us and sometimes are not bad, then great things can be accomplished.
The other element of faith, loyalty, fidelity. The Christian is loyal to his God, which he has received so much. This is what Jesus seeks to understand the second part of our text, when he tells the story of this slave is not thanked after completing all its tasks. This is not that Jesus approves of slavery, he just uses a current image of his épqoue to convey a spiritual truth.
Why are they asking the apostles to have more faith? To have the strength to obey the commandments. Why all the world religions say it to people to obey God? To win her favors!
Using sharp image, Jesus wants us to understand that God does not owe us anything. Our work does not allow us to gain status with him. Even if we would succeed to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves, we would have done anything extraordinnaire, but only what is required of us. We are far!
Our loyalty to God is not motivated by the desire to win points with the Lord or be good to see that no one knows. A man is not faithful to his wife out of respect for social conventions or because he expects a reward. He is faithful because he loves her, and it is love that must be central to our relationship with God, a love that came from God first.
Jesus never to say "thank you for trusting me, thank you for be faithful to me." This is rather for us to say 'thank you Jesus because I can trust you, thank you Jesus because you are faithful ".
That is also what brings faith: the assurance that Jesus has already given us what we needed to be saved, restored, and we do not have to be under the Slavery of the Act.
Jesus told us today that sycamore sent ships into the sea? Not quite. Because the text says "planted". Planted, that is to say rooted, able to bear fruit and grow. Well, that's right that faith allows. The sycamore, this large tree is the symbol of life in all its force. The sea, for the Hebrews, the symbol of death.
Faith is the empty hand stretched and allowing God to plant all our dead (dashed hopes, broken relationship) the power of new life. That is what the Lord wants for each of us because he is the God of life, because his son has conquered death. So, let's open our hearts to this new life, the love that comes from the Father. Let's trust him to keep all the promises it makes us in His Word. He is faithful and He will show us.
Amen +
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