Sermon based on Luke 17:5-10
“Increase our faith!”
That’s the disciples’ plea in Luke 17. And you know what? It feels like a prayer that we’ve prayed ourselves more than once. It sounds so familiar that it could be whispered in a hospital waiting room, scribbled in a prayer journal, muttered in a quiet car ride after a long day.
“Lord, I don’t think I’ve got enough to handle this. I need more faith.”
We live in a world where more is always the goal. More money in savings. More followers online. More activities for the kids. More productivity at work. More security for retirement. And, sometimes we bring that same expectation into our spiritual lives: more faith, more certainty, more assurance.
The disciples ask for more because Jesus has just laid down some of the most demanding teachings imaginable. Hea teaches them: Don’t cause the vulnerable to stumble. Rebuke sin, but also forgive, even if someone sins against you seven times in one day and repents seven times. Forgive again and again. That’s too much, Jesus!
And so they ask for what seems like the only thing that could possibly get them through: “Increase our faith!”
But Jesus doesn’t pat them on the back and say, “You’re right, let me sprinkle some extra faith on you.” Instead, his answer sounds like a rebuke: “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.”
For Jesus, It’s not about more. It’s about trust. It’s about the kind of faith that may look small, but when put into practice, can move things we thought immovable.
We tend to think of faith like a bank account. If only I had a little more stored up, I could draw from it when life got rough. But Jesus redefines it. Faith is not a measurable commodity, something you can count, chart, or compare.
Faith is practice. Faith is action. Faith is trust put to work in the real world.
One commentary I read this week put it well: Jesus isn’t talking about quantity but quality. A mustard seed is tiny, yes, but alive. It carries the possibility of growth, change, transformation. Faith—even small, fragile, hesitant faith—is like that. When it takes root, it grows beyond what anyone would expect.
Think of the people throughout Luke’s Gospel whom Jesus names as faithful. The woman who crashes a dinner party and pours out ointment on his feet. The blind beggar crying out by the roadside. The Samaritan leper who comes back just to say thank you. None of these people show what we’d call “big faith.” They simply act, in trust, in response to Jesus.
Meanwhile, the disciples—the ones who left everything to follow him—often look like they’re stumbling their way through the story. They panic in the storm. They argue about who’s the greatest. Peter denies him. And here, they ask for more, as if what they already have isn’t enough.
Jesus doesn’t dismiss them, but he also doesn’t let them off the hook. You already have enough, he tells them. Enough to forgive. Enough to act. Enough to live this way of discipleship. What you need is not a bigger dose of faith but the courage to use the seed you’ve already been given.
Martin Luther King Jr. once told a story about a night during the Montgomery bus boycott. After weeks of threats, one phone call broke him down. He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t think he could continue. He prayed. And in that prayer, he heard God whisper: “Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever.”
King later said the threats didn’t stop. The danger didn’t vanish. But he experienced a peace and calm that carried him forward. That wasn’t “more faith.” That was mustard-seed faith—tiny, trembling, but rooted in the living God. And it changed the world.
Most of us won’t face a moment like that. But we know the feeling of being at the end of our rope, unsure if we have what it takes. And in those moments, faith is not a heroic surge of confidence. It’s a small step forward. It’s showing up. It’s forgiving when it’s easier to resent. It’s risking kindness when it feels safer to stay distant. It’s putting one foot in front of the other, believing God will meet us on the way.
The second half of this passage unsettles us even more. Jesus turns to an image of a master and a slave, or as we just read in the Common English translation, a servant.
Jesus says, “Would any of you say to your servant, who had just come in from the field after plowing or tending sheep, ‘Come! Sit down for dinner’? 8 Wouldn’t you say instead, ‘Fix my dinner.…’?”
This imagery is hard for us to hear. It leans on a system of slavery we rightly reject as cruel and dehumanizing. In Luke’s world, slavery was woven into the fabric of household life. That doesn’t excuse it, but it helps us understand how this metaphor functioned.
Jesus uses this uncomfortable picture not to endorse systemic slavery but to teach about discipleship. A slave/servant in that world did what was expected, without reward or special thanks. And Jesus says, “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘‘We servants deserve no special praise. We have only done our duty.’”
It sounds harsh, but at the heart of it is this: discipleship is not about earning credit. It’s not about piling up accomplishments to prove our worth. We serve because that’s who we are—servants of a God whose generosity is beyond measure.
And here’s the paradox: while Jesus tells this story using the language of master and slave, we know from the rest of the Gospel that he flips that. In chapter 22, at the Last Supper, he says: “I am among you as one who serves.” The master takes the role of the servant. The one entitled to be served is the one washing feet.
So when Jesus says, “Don’t expect thanks for doing your duty,” he’s not diminishing us. He’s inviting us into a way of life where service is simply natural, like breathing. Where love and forgiveness aren’t heroic acts but ordinary discipleship.
I recently read a story that another preacher told about being twelve years old, lying in a hospital bed. He wasn’t raised in church, but during that hospital stay, he received two visits: one from a part-time pastor and one from a youth group. The youth group brought a little gift with them to give to the patient. It was a simple gesture, but it was one that would stay with him.
Years later, when he finally embraced faith, he remembered those visits. Ordinary acts of kindness. Nothing spectacular. But mustard-seed faith at work.
We sometimes imagine discipleship as grand, world-shaking acts of devotion. But more often it looks like that youth group showing up at a hospital. Or a casserole delivered after surgery. Or a phone call to someone who’s lonely. Or a quiet prayer whispered when no one else knows the struggle you’re carrying.
Faith is not spectacular spirituality. It is ordinary faithfulness. Small acts of trust that, when planted in God’s hands, grow into something beyond what we can measure.
That’s also why our stewardship campaign matters. Filling out a pledge card or setting aside part of your income for God’s work here at Dove doesn’t always feel spectacular. It feels ordinary. But that’s exactly the point. Mustard-seed faith shows up in these regular, sometimes unseen choices — the faithful commitments that keep this community strong, that sustain ministries of care and justice, that make space for future growth. Your pledge isn’t about “more” faith or bigger recognition. It’s simply one more way of saying, “We will serve. We will trust. We will do what disciples do.”
We also shouldn’t miss the connection between this teaching on faith and the command that comes just before it: forgive, even seven times in one day.
That’s the real context of the disciples’ cry for more faith. Forgiveness is hard. We carry grudges because they feel safer than letting go. We replay wrongs because they give us a sense of control. But Jesus says forgiveness is not optional—it is essential for the life of the community.
And when the disciples groan, “We can’t do this without more faith,” Jesus says, “Yes, you can. You already have enough.”
Because forgiveness isn’t about heroic strength. It’s about mustard-seed trust that God can do what seems impossible: heal wounds, mend relationships, break cycles of resentment.
So that leaves us with the question, what mulberry trees are rooted in our lives, too stubborn to move?
Maybe it’s an old wound that keeps resurfacing. Maybe it’s fear about the future, or anxiety that you can’t shake. Maybe it’s the struggle to forgive someone who hurt you deeply.
Jesus says even mustard-seed faith can move it. Not because faith is magic, but because God is faithful. The seed is not about what we can do, but what God can do when we dare to trust, however slightly.
There’s another caution here. Sometimes we long for faith to be a spectacle. We imagine it as a dazzling certainty, an overwhelming experience, a mountaintop moment that leaves no room for doubt. And when we don’t get that, we wonder if our faith is enough.
But mustard-seed faith reminds us: it’s enough to pray when you’re not sure anyone’s listening. It’s enough to keep forgiving, even when it doesn’t feel like it’s working. It’s enough to keep showing up in worship, keep serving your neighbor, keep offering love in small and hidden ways.
Faith isn’t an escape from struggle. It’s the courage to walk into the struggle with Jesus beside you.
So when the disciples cry, “Increase our faith!” Jesus answers, “What you already have is enough.”
Enough to forgive. Enough to love. Enough to serve. Enough to live as disciples.
And the beauty of mustard-seed faith is this: it grows. Not because we manufacture it, but because God brings the increase. Our part is simply to plant it—to act, to trust, to serve.
Sometimes discipleship looks spectacular. More often, it looks ordinary: forgiving again, serving quietly, showing up faithfully. But in God’s kingdom, ordinary faithfulness is never wasted.
So let’s not wait for more faith. Let’s use the seed we already carry. Because in God’s hands, even that little seed can grow into something we never imagined. Amen.
Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson
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