When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus
replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with
you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the
demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
Then the disciples came
to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
He replied, “Because
you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as
a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’
and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:14-20)
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when
it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: (Mark 4:31 King James Version)
I mentioned this passage in yesterday’s
post, so we may as well look at it today, with enough of the surrounding
passage to give context. So, if we have “faith as small as a mustard seed.”
What does that mean? First, let’s deal with the second passage. I’ve shared it
in the King James Version because we’ve all heard that the mustard seed is the
smallest of all seeds, but that status belongs to the Aerides Odorata, which is
a type of orchid. It grows in Asia, meaning it was probably unknown to the people
to whom Jesus was speaking. Commentaries I’ve checked suggest that the mustard
seed was the smallest seed known to the people to whom Jesus was speaking. This
is possible.
The King James Version offers a slightly
different, possibly more significant explanation. The question wasn’t one of
its physical size, but it’s perceived size in terms of value. Chances are good
that most of us would not recognize a mustard plant growing in our garden, and
remove it as an undesired and undesirable, useless weed.[1]
As a weed, we cut it down, spray it with
herbicide, and pull it out by the root. And, like a weed, it somehow manages to
come back, apparently undaunted by the abuse heaped upon it. And, while a mustard seed may not reduce a mountain
to a mole hill, or a small pile of dirt overnight, weeds are known, over time,
to break up hard soil, allowing it to be washed to the sea.
It doesn’t matter to the mustard plant,
or the mustard seed, how long this takes. In fact, such isn’t even likely to be
the most important thing to the seed most of the time (if ever) but the mustard
seed keeps doing its mustard plant producing thing, being what God designed it
to be, and eventually, the mountain’s hard ground is broken up. The mountain is
moved very slowly, in a manner we would consider normal, but it is moved.
There is a second idea to consider. Granted
that the mustard seed is small and not well-loved, what about the size of the
faith in the mustard seed? We like to think that plants, being plants, don’t
think, and even if plants do think, seeds can’t possibly do so. And even
if some plants – maybe roses, or a mighty oak – might think, we’re talking
about mustard. That’s like saying a Dandelion thinks. Or crabgrass, or chickweed,
or the horrid little thistles that seem to attack feet as we walk through the yard.
Then there’s the fact that it’s not even
the plant, it’s a seed. It’s dead until or unless circumstances become right
for it to grow. It can sit in a container for a couple years and still grow if
planted. How can we possibly say that such a thing has faith? How much faith
can it possibly have?
But if we have the size and type of faith
that a mustard seed has…we can move mountains. It doesn’t say instantaneously
or without effort. We have no reason to think that the faith of a mustard seed
extends to something outside of what the mustard seed, and mustard plant, does
and understands. Jesus doesn’t say that if we had the faith of a mustard seed,
we would reach the moon or Mars. But breaking up mountain soil, that’s what
mustard seeds and mustard plants do. Our faith, therefore, isn’t meant to be focused
on moving a mountain into the sea but in doing what we are designed to do.
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