Episode 1582: Faith to Change

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,582 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Becca Powers: I am Becca Powers. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find real success and happiness is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: That's the faith that we need to increase, not a faith that comes out of fear, not a faith that comes about holding others down, but rather that faith that builds all people up together. [00:01:00] That's the faith that can move mountains that seem like they can't be moved. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in your. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Luke chapter 17 verses five through 10. I share how we often stumble and fall and need faith to walk straight, and I also share how one of the most well-known parables of faith is uncomfortably paired with one we tend to avoid and how they are also [00:02:00] maybe related to how we're supposed to move forward in faith.

Luke chapter 17 verses five through 10 says. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. The Lord replied, 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. Who among you would say to your slave, who is come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, come here at once and take your place at the table.

Would you not rather say to him, prepare supper for me. Put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink later. You may eat and drink. Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, we are worthless slaves. We have done only what we ought to have done.

Think about how this passage starts with sort of an odd request increase our faith. And it seems odd 'cause it [00:03:00] comes out of nowhere and has no context here in the lectionary. It picks up in Luke chapter five and there's some information that comes before it. We don't have any background for this question.

We don't have any idea of. Who had to step forward as the lucky or unlucky one and pose that question, or maybe this was some sort of outburst from growing frustration or confusion or inability to do what Jesus seemed to be able to do and what Jesus was calling them to do. If you look back though and look at the verses in the lectionary that were cut out.

Jesus just got through telling the apostles that this journey is going to be difficult and that they're probably going to get it wrong. They're probably going to fail. They're going to stumble, they're gonna sin, and often those consequences of their sinning is not just gonna fall on them, but it may fall on others, especially innocent ones.

And will cause them to [00:04:00] stumble as well. And in that case their sin is even more grave and the punishment is even more severe. It was bad enough if you sin and caused yourself to stumble, but if you sin and caused an innocent person to stumble, that would be even worse. And then he goes on and talks about repentance and forgiveness.

But maybe this increase our faith is them recognizing their failings and how they really can't succeed without more faith. And I don't know about you, but I have that feeling a lot. I'm facing a struggle a choice, a temptation. I'm facing a moment where I've got anger or fear or hatred of someone, and I have to return to that cry.

Increase my faith, increase our faith. I [00:05:00] know I'm not strong enough or smart enough and others are going to get hurt, not just me, but others. So it's a time to cry out for strength. It is an important, and it's a heartfelt question, but if you look at the answers that Jesus gives, it's almost like he tosses it aside or gives a sort of harsh answer, one that seems out of character.

And there's two responses to the question. Maybe they were joined together later in time. Maybe there were two different stories from two different teaching occasions, and Luke put them together here. Or maybe we should just take it at face value and ask what Jesus was talking about here. And let's assume for a minute that both of these are really responses to the distress being called out by the disciples when they say.

Bring me more faith, increase my faith. [00:06:00] And I'll tell you, one of those responses is one that you probably heard before it. It's one that we use a lot and we say a lot. You'll hear it in children's time all the time. And the other one most of the time is ignored and left alone because it feels dangerous and uncomfortable.

And I will say it is unsettling and we can misuse or misinterpret these teachings in these words, like often happens with Jesus's words in the Bible. The mustard seed example has often been misused by this prosperity gospel kind of message that God wants us to have more and more. And the parable of the servant or the slave, depending on how that Greek word is translated, has been used to justify slavery.

And to say that some people should be above other people [00:07:00] and put people in their proper place. Both of these are, I believe, misinterpretations of the message that we're supposed to be taking from this passage. They don't really fit into the message that we're supposed to be receiving about increasing our faith.

Have you th and think for a minute, maybe they're an answer to the unspoken message. I don't know about you, but if I go back to what I said earlier about all the times that I've cried out for my faith to be increased, it was because I feared that I was about to screw it up. And think about how often Jesus warns against fear.

He says, do not fear or why are you afraid? And the plea to increase my faith may be coming out of a fear response, and maybe that's what it was here as well. I know for me it often [00:08:00] is it doesn't change the gravity of the requests, but it shifts it from avoiding error to maybe allowing us to claim possibility and service.

Maybe these two responses side by side give us a spectrum of faith responses in difficult and risky situations. Maybe it's trying to tell us that the real message here, the real call here, is to move forward. To take that step in faith to, to believe that next step is one that we can and should take.

We are being sent into something unknown, something fearful, something crazy, but we're being sent by Jesus and mountains may move in response. If you think about it, that's happened before. God's people have changed the landscape of the world [00:09:00] in which they live sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse by how we interpret those words.

But even if it doesn't change, or even if the change is too small to see right away, or even if we are never called to see the fruit of the change, we still are called to move forward in service and enjoy and in faith, it's what we're called to do. It's who we're called to be, not so that anyone, us or anyone else can be put in their proper place.

But because that's who we are and service and the joy of serving and being serving other people, he said, come to not be served, but to serve. That's the message of faith. That's the faith that we need to grow into. [00:10:00] That's the faith that we need to increase. Not a faith that comes out of fear. Not a faith that comes about holding others down, but rather that faith that builds all people up together.

That's the faith that can move mountains that seem like they can't be moved. Thanks for listening.

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Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.