The Size of a Mustard Seed

All Saints-SC Admin
Oct 6
5 min read

17th Sunday after Pentecost - Oct 5, 2025

Rev Sarah Colvin

You can find this week's readings here.

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy. Amen.

During this past week our Jewish brethren observed Yom Kippur, their day of atonement. I remember a Jewish friend explaining that it is their very big day for confession. Of course, our ritual practices are to confess our sins weekly, but perhaps if you save your sins up all year, when you lay them before God at Yom Kippur, it is a very meaningful release.

We share a good chunk of our scriptures with our Jewish brethren. If you hold up a Bible (reverently), it is quite the visual to remind ourselves how much is the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament and how much is the New Testament. We do well to remember that we share the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly as we linger over them. We have moved from reading passages of Jeremiah to passages of Lamentations. Fair warning: it may be that it is not a particular good idea to read the small book of Lamentations if you are looking for a word of biblical lift.

The book is a genuine downer; it is an ode to shock, horror, and disquieting despair. There is little wonder that the book has long been connected to Jeremiah, although there is no evidence that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, but it could have been composed by that dark prophet who witnessed the end of Judah, the destruction of the temple and the king’s palace at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar's thugs, and the exile of the final Davidic king, Zedekiah, after the murder of his heirs. Jeremiah must have felt pretty dejected after forty years of a ministry that announced doom and destruction, all of which came horribly true.

Of course, these images are familiar to us in the 21^st century; we have visuals from the news with similar scenes, sometimes from faraway lands of war and exile and terror, and sometimes closer to home.

As we read Lamentations, we see a struggling people clinging to hope in God amidst pain and death that could consume them and consume their faith. It is a wonder how one can maintain faith in the hope and promise of God when confronted with the genuine awfulness of what we humans can and have done to one another. And we don’t have to go far in our imaginations to think of more recent occurrences. There are, of course, the horrors of the Shoah---the death camps of Hitler. I promise myself to not always perseverate over what we could term today’s versions, but we have said “never again” and yet, we have Christian nationalists with their masked ICE agents kidnapping people off the streets and disappearing them.

One can imagine that some who were there in Jerusalem during those days, might have felt that the old beliefs were no longer possible. Maybe some days we do too. The memorable book of Lamentations could urge a preacher to get real about the dangers and difficulties of faith in a world gone mad. When the promises of God are all gone in a rush of Babylonian blood lust, faith may become compromised and difficult and questioned. When the anticipations of ease and comfort and success are snatched away in economic chaos, terroristic plots, and personal health challenges, faith may become compromised and difficult and questioned.

But other than into a rather mire of dismay, where does this lead us?

Lamentations remind us:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

We know that this is not easy to hold to when life gets dark. It was not easy for those in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, it was near impossible for the Jews persecuted at the hands of the Nazis. But here is the paradox: in the times when this faithfulness is hard to hold is exactly the times when it is most crucial to hold it; and most life-giving to do so.

Perhaps the Gospel will help here.

Let’s first go over the basics of this passage and clear up any issues:

The “faith like a mustard seed” parable is shared by Luke and Matthew gospels: the versions differ in form and purpose. Both are directed to the inner circle. In Matthew, Jesus slightly scolds his followers when they can’t do what he can. In Luke, however, the apostles just ask for more faith and Jesus implies that the faith they already have— even if it is tiny— is enough to do everything that they want to achieve. The reference is to a great mulberry tree (in Matthew, it’s a mountain) being uprooted and moved. This is hyperbole with one plant image humorously juxtaposed with another to make the point that even a little faith can do a lot.

And then Jesus teaches the apostles that the fulfillment of the responsibilities that come with leadership are not a reward system, but a kind of service. And this service is just WHAT WE DO. the service does not create any kind of obligation on God’s part. God does not owe us anything. Succinctly then the point of the passage then is for us to make use of what little faith to perform great things—faith is not sought as a badge or some sort of power.

And why does it matter, where is there hope in this?

So, I will let you in on a little thing about me, if not a secret, it is something I don’t routinely broadcast this. In a world where many like to say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” I like to say that I am “religious, not spiritual.” I don’t say this to be cute, and I say this phrase with my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek, because of course, I have spiritual moments, as do we all. However, having spiritual moments involves a “feeling”, so what I mean by this is that I continue to be religious even when I don’t FEEL spiritual. There are always moments that are dry.

How does this help me and how could this help you?

There are times when we may feel abandoned by God, there are times when we may feel we don’t have enough faith, there are times when we may feel like we are in a competition, there are times when we don’t know why we come to church, there are times when some may feel we are trying to get credit so that we can “make it into heaven.”

The truth of it is, we show up in God’s mission for the world because God calls us to; because God’s love and mercy never cease; God calls us and if we have even the smallest of faith, even the smallest of faith is enough. It is enough to answer to show up. And we show up, answering God’s call, and God is there. In the times when this faithfulness is hard to hold is exactly the times when it is most crucial to hold it; and most life-giving to do so.

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,to the soul that seeks him.

We show up at church to get refueled for the ministry. We will fail to be worthy, but we don’t follow Jesus to be worthy; God makes us worthy so that we can follow Jesus. It is Jesus who makes that bridge of redemption for us, with just the smallest of faith.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;great is your faithfulness.

Join me and sing LEVAS 189, verse one and the chorus.

IMAGE ATTRIBUTION: Hochhalter, Cara B.. A Parable - The Mustard Seed, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59282 [retrieved October 8, 2025]. Original source: Cara B. Hochhalter.