Looking for a Mustard Seed?

Do you know how big a mustard seed is? The internet tells me it is 1/20 of an inch. I don't even know how to convert that to metric. I just know that it is small. Really, really, really, really very small.

The disciples were a crew of twelve men, chosen by Jesus to be 'apostles' to travel with him and learn on the job. The word apostle was another word for 'messenger' and the grand plan was for the disciples to go off and tell the world about Jesus. As part of this apprenticeship the disciples are sent out by Jesus to do some healing. The disciples knew Jesus, had spent time with him and believed that he was who he said he was ~ the son of God. They knew that Jesus could do miracles. The disciples had been taught by Jesus, first hand. They had seen what impact Jesus had on the world around him.

So you wouldn't think they would have an issue with anything to do with faith. I don't think that the father of a son afflicted with fitting doubted them either. He approached them, probably with some degree of confidence (otherwise why even ask) and presented his son to them for healing.

This is when the disciples realise that they are not having a good day. To know that the disciples failed means that they must have tried. Picture the father, desperate for his son to be healed. Picture the son, desperate for a normal life not falling into water or fires. Picture the disciples desperate to heal. I am guessing there was an audience. A supremely awkward moment for the disciples and devastating for the dad who had put his hope in these men.

All credit to the dad, who probably driven by the desperation to see his son healed goes straight to Jesus... "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.’"

Jesus heals the boy and later the disciples ask him (in private unsurprisingly) why they failed so badly. Jesus replies, “Because you have so little faith."

I would have been gutted if I was a disciple had to call my faith into quesion. Ask myself what faith I had and what it meant ~ in front of Jesus himself. It is bad enough asking myself that question now, a question that is still relevant over 2,000 years later.

Jesus finished his advice with "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.”

A mustard seed isn't very big. But it a lot bigger than nothing. I don't think the plan is to go around re-organising the Himalayas, but it doesn't take much faith at all to do something amazing. Time and time again I have seen very ordinary people take extra ordinary steps of faith with incredible results.

If you are an ordinary person, it is ok to question what faith you have and how much faith you possess. It is also not unknown for a faith filled person to set out to do something amazing and fail (as did the disciples!).

The desire of Jesus is for us to recognise when we need to address the issue and most importantly to do something about it.

For the Jesus geeks these verses are from Matthew 17. As Matthew was one of the disciples I imagine this is a bit of cringey account for him to write about. But then he had been a tax collector so was probably used to cringing.