Title: Faith Smaller Than We Think Matters
Intro: Your small faith is enough because God is infinite. Your imperfect service matters because God is perfect.
Scripture: Luke 17: 5-10
Reflection
Dear Friends,
Last Tuesday morning, I stood in my kitchen staring at my coffee maker, and I realised something profound about faith. I pressed the button expecting coffee to brew. I did not pray over it. I did not wonder if maybe today the machine would refuse to work. I did not call my bishop to ask if I had enough faith for morning coffee. I just pressed the button and walked away to get dressed, completely confident that when I returned, there would be coffee.
That is trust. That is faith. Small, ordinary, unconscious, and absolutely real.
The apostles come to Jesus in Luke seventeen with a request that sounds so spiritual, so earnest. “Increase our faith!” they say. Lord, give us more. We need bigger faith, stronger faith, the kind of faith that makes miracles happen and mountains move. They have been watching Jesus heal the sick and cast out demons and speak truth that turns the world upside down, and they are thinking, “Whatever he has, we need more of it.”
I understand them completely. I have stood at bedsides and prayed for healing that did not come. I have counselled marriages that fell apart anyway. I have baptised babies and buried them far too young. I have watched people I love walk away from faith entirely, and I have whispered the same prayer the apostles prayed: “Lord, increase my faith. Give me more. What I have is not working.”
But Jesus does not give them what they ask for. He never does when we are asking the wrong question.
He says if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it will obey you. A mustard seed. I held one in my hand once during a children’s sermon, and a five-year-old girl said, “Father, I think you dropped it.” It was so small she could not even see it against my palm.
That is the point Jesus is making. You do not need more faith. You need real faith. Authentic faith. Faith the size of something barely visible that trusts in a God who is infinite.
My father is not a religious man by most standards. He does not quote scripture or lead family devotions. But I watched him live with a quiet confidence in God that shaped everything he did. When he retired from his job, he did not panic. When my mother got sick, he did not rage. He just kept showing up. Kept praying in his own simple way. Kept trusting that God was good even when life was hard. Someone told me, “Your dad has the strongest faith of anyone I know.” I realised then that they were right. He had mustard seed faith. Small. Quiet. Unshakeable.
That is what Jesus is trying to tell the apostles. They are focused on quantity. God cares about quality. They want to feel more certain, more powerful, and more spiritual. Jesus tells them that even the smallest genuine faith contains the full power of God himself.
Think about what a mustard seed actually is. It is not impressive. You cannot build with it or eat it or trade it for anything valuable. But plant it in the ground, and something miraculous happens. Without any help from you, without any encouragement or coaching, that seed knows exactly what to do. It breaks open. It sends roots down and shoots up. It becomes a tree that provides shelter and shade and a home for birds. It transforms its entire environment.
Real faith does the same thing in a human soul.
Then Jesus tells this parable that makes us uncomfortable. A servant comes in from working all day in the fields. Does the master thank him profusely? Does he throw a celebration? No. The servant prepares dinner, serves his master, and only then takes care of himself. Jesus says, “So you also, when you have done all you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
This is not about God being cruel or demanding. This is about understanding reality. This is about knowing who we are and who God is and how the universe actually works.
I learnt this lesson from Mrs. Jackson, a woman in my first parish who cleaned the church every Saturday for twenty-three years. She never missed a week unless she was hospitalised. She scrubbed toilets and polished pews and vacuumed carpets, and when I tried to thank her once, she looked genuinely confused. “Father,” she said, “this is God’s house. It is my privilege to care for it.” She did not want recognition. She did not need applause. She understood something deep about service and faith and what it means to be part of God’s family.
We serve because we are servants. Not because God is keeping score. Not because we are earning our way into heaven. Not because we need to prove we are good enough. We serve because that is what children of God do. That is what people with mustard seed faith do. We trust God’s goodness so completely that we stop worrying about getting credit and just do the next right thing.
Paul writes in Philippians two, verses twelve and thirteen, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.” We work, yes. We serve, yes. But it is God working through us. Our mustard seed faith simply opens us up to let God’s power flow through our lives.
I think about the apostles and their request for more faith, and I wonder if they ever understood what Jesus was really saying. Did they grasp that the faith they already had was enough? That what they needed was not addition but activation? Not more faith but real faith?
Peter walked on water with mustard seed faith until he started wondering if he had enough faith, and then he sank. Thomas doubted until he saw the risen Christ, and his tiny declaration—“My Lord and my God”—contained enough faith to echo through two thousand years. Paul persecuted the church until one encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road gave him mustard seed faith that planted churches across the Roman Empire.
None of them had perfect faith. None of them had it all figured out. They just had real faith in a real God, and that was enough.
In my office, I keep a small glass bottle with a mustard seed inside. People come to me desperate and doubting. They have lost jobs or children or hope itself. They tell me their faith is too small, too weak, and too broken to matter. I show them that seed, and I tell them what Jesus told the apostles: “You do not need more. You just need real.”
Real faith shows up even when you are scared. Real faith prays even when heaven seems silent. Real faith serves even when nobody notices. Real faith keeps loving when love is not returned. Real faith plants seeds and trusts God for the harvest even when you cannot see how anything good could possibly grow in such hard soil.
Jesus connects these two teachings—the mustard seed and the unworthy servant—because they are really the same truth. Faith is not about our adequacy. It is about God. And service is not about our worthiness. It is about God’s invitation.
You are invited into God’s story. Your small faith is enough because God is infinite. Your imperfect service matters because God is perfect. Your uncertain prayers are heard because God is always listening.
Bring your mustard seed faith. Plant it in the soil of the community and water it with worship. Let scripture feed it, and let service strengthen it. Do not compare your seed to anyone else’s spiritual garden. Do not measure your faith against some impossible standard.
Just trust. Just serve. Just show up.
Press the button and walk away expecting coffee.
That is faith. Small. Real. Enough.
And in God’s hands, it is everything.
May the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all. Amen…
