Increase my faith?

My sermon prep sometimes involves movement.

Or.

You can find me at the coffee shop downtown sitting at a table in the corner staring outside through the big plate glass windows, trying to figure out what to write.

But, mostly, it involves movement.

I read the verse before leaving the house and I walk.

I walk and think it through.

What is Jesus calling me to hear in the reading?

What is Jesus asking me to wonder about?

How can I get my message across?

How can I break through the rhythms of the everyday and reach into the text and pull out something that will connect?

And then past the hope comes the text.

Is Jesus really saying what I think he is saying?

Which sources did I reference?

Do they agree?

Where do they agree?

Where is the thread?

And past the study comes the word.

Show me Jesus, show me your inspiration?

How do I meet you?

How do I share you?

Where are you on this walk?

On this journey?

In this lifetime?

Show me Jesus, where you live in this passage?

Show me your eternity.

Show me your grace.

Help Lord Jesus.

Help me to share your word, your message, your love.

Normally, this walk, this movement, happens close to home.

A walk from my house to the linear trail, inspiration found in the blowing leaves of early fall; still on their stem, they think about falling to make room for new life, new possibilities.

This week, I was in Manhattan, my quiet walk for sermon prep happened on the streets of that wonderful city.

I read this passage, “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.”

I read that message in my hotel room in the Hilton Midtown.

I stood at the foot of my bed, the light of my phone lit my face and on my phone was the word.

The apostles said, “increase our faith.”

I was on the 39th floor.

I left my room, I was diagonally a left hand turn from the bank of elevators.

Increase our faith.

I waited for the elevator.

Increase our faith.

Waiting.

Increase my faith?

The elevator arrived.

The door opened.

I entered.

Keeping those words close, I listened.

Increase our faith.

Increase my faith.

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.”

If I had the faith the size of a mustard seed.

A mustard seed.

I imagined I held a mustard seed in my hand.

This is where you can place your own mustard seed if you’d like or save it for later.

Bring it home.

Pray over it.

Find some time to sit, enter into stillness.

I exited the elevator.

I exited the lobby through those large automatic rotating doors.

I took another left onto 53rd and 6th.

I carried my imaginary mustard seed in the palm of my left hand.

I circled that seed in my palm with the middle finger of my right hand.

I felt the mustard seed, hard and round, move about in the palm of my left hand.

Circular motions as I walked down 6th Avenue.

Increase our faith.

Increase my faith?

I walked north towards Central Park.

I wondered about this seed.

It can grow into a massive bush.

From the couple centimeter size in your hand, it can grow into a bush anywhere from 6 feet to 30 feet tall.

It can spread to a width of 20 feet.

From this very small thing can grow a great good thing.

A large and great thing, increase our faith.

Increase my faith?

I continue my walk.

I enter the Duane Reade, (it’s Manhattan’s version of Walgreen’s.)

My revery quiets.

I put away my seed.

I forgot deodorant on my trip.

I find the deodorant.

I buy the deodorant.

I head back out into the street.

Distractions don’t help sermon prep.

Ok.

Mustard seed.

Pause.

Breathe.

Continue.

I enter back into that space.

I return.

I imagine the seed back in my palm.

Circle.

Circle.

And wonder.

If I had the faith of the mustard seed, it would grow into many things?

Would my faith grow from such a tiny seed to something great and good?

Would my faith uproot sin and banish it to the desert floor?

Would sin shrivel rootless beneath the desert sun?

Would my faith grow into a spreading bush, giving shelter to the shelterless?

Would its greenery give food to the hungry?

Could I climb its branches and bows and get closer to God?

Would I approach the heavens?

Will my faith grow Lord?

Is that the mustard seed?

Increase our faith.

Increase my faith?

Should I plant this seed, Lord?

Should I plant the seed so that your power might spread?

Are you looking for me to scratch the earth, pull back your green lawn in Central Park and scrape away the topsoil so that I might plant this seed?

Will I passively watch it grow amidst the green earth of your creation?

Will it compete with the silver and stone towers of Manhattan, will its shade cover the sundrenched in shadow and comfort?

Will its cover be the blanket under which our faith is safe and warm and ours and something to which we can return in times of heat and turmoil?

Is that the faith that will increase?

Will we passively watch this faith grow from millimeters to meters?

Will we witness change by just planting a seed, letting the rain waters fall, the sunshine adequately?

Increase our faith.

Increase my faith?

I walk the edge of the park, but do not enter it.

I turn south down 7th I pass Carnegie Hall.

It is wrapped and surrounded by scaffolding, a new face on an old building will emerge even as music and song still emerge from its interior.

And I see her.

She is sitting on the ground, laying against boxes and old suitcases, she sits behind a collection of soft drink cups on one side and fast food bags on the other.

She is eating a sandwich on rye bread, the plastic container from which it came balances on her chest.

Her hair is gray, her face is weathered, but I can see she is my age.

We pass on different paths; she is wearing flannel and sweatshirts, preparing for the cool evenings of early fall.

I pass her yes, but with a blessing and a question.

Are you okay?

She stares in silence.

And continues to eat her sandwich.

My mustard seed is small.

It is not enough.

Are you asking me Lord to lift away all that you hate?

With just this seed am I to plant great things and good things?

Is that my faith?

Increase our faith.

Increase my faith?

From the branches of this plant, shall I construct a sledge and carry all who suffer to no more suffering?

Lord, increase our faith

The mustard seed circles in the palm of my hand, I rub it between my thumb and forefinger, it is small Lord, is it enough?

It is not the seed.

I walk.

It is not the seed.

It is your faith.

If your faith was but the size of this mustard seed, you could move mulberry trees.

If my faith was but the size of a mustard seed, I could do great things.

For my faith would be in great things.

It is not that the seed will grow and transform and root, it is the seed itself.

You hold.

I hold.

We hold the amount of faith we need, just the right amount, to change the world.

Our faith does not have to be terribly large, for what we have faith in is infinitely big.

In the palm of our hand is enough.

Between our thumb and forefinger is enough.

For our God will do great things.

Our God will lift up the poor and our faith, our mustard seed of faith, will too, lift up the poor.

As humanly imperfect as our faith might be, it is enough.

It is always enough.

I has always been enough.

I walk.

I am faithful.

I have faith.

Amen.