So, there is a small book written by Stephanie LeLand called Random Acts of Kindness by Animals. In it, there is a story about sparrows. In a street in Italy, a fallen sparrow lay helplessly. Soon many other sparrows surrounded it, trying to carry it to safety, away from the heavy traffic.
A man got out of his car and waved other drivers away. Traffic then came to a standstill. The sparrows, with great effort, managed to carry the fallen bird to the side of the road. There they rested for a minute, and then managed to prop up the injured bird and fly it over a wall into a garden.
While the motorists who saw this amazing thing remarked over the kindness of the birds, within the world of sparrows it seems what they did was what was expected. It was their norm. What they did is notable among humans because studies show we do not usually stop when someone is injured along the road. We just rubberneck and move on.
Of course, as followers of Jesus, we know this is nothing new. Jesus famously told a story about this very thing. A wounded man is in a ditch on the side of the road and two out of three people turn their heads and keep on trucking. It was the third man, a member of a segregated minority, like the sparrows, that stopped to help.
Luke builds on this concept of the simple act of of humanity, of kindness, of grace, in today's Gospel reading. Jesus is sort of fussing at his disciples. They have asked him to increase their faith. If only they had more faith, then, maybe, they could do those things they know in their hearts they should be doing anyway.
Maybe, with just a little more faith, they might actually give that shirt off their back...and their cloak, too. Maybe, with just a little more faith, they might actually intervene when that master is beating his slave.
Maybe, with just a little more faith, they might actually follow the words of their prophets and care for the widows, the orphans, the aliens in their midst. Maybe, with just a little more faith they could finally do what is expected of them by God.
You can almost hear Jesus sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks, “How can I get through to these knuckleheads?” And using a mustard seed as an example, he says, “Don't y'all already know, a small amount of faith, so small you can barely see it, can grow into a large deed, even into a life’s work?”
Faith is found not in the mighty acts of heaven but in the ordinary and everyday acts of doing what needs to be done, responding to the needs around us, and caring for the people who come our way. Faith is one dude, flying to Poland to bring a family from Ukraine to Central New York, not knowing, but really knowing, that the community will open their purses and hearts and be welcoming.
Faith is found in grilling hot dogs for folks on the streets of Norwich. Faith is found in your calling one another just to check in. Faith is found in gathering for a potluck, welcoming new folks into your midst, and being rewarded with a Broadway song as a result. Faith is found in a bag of groceries given freely to those in need.
Faith and kindness and grace are found in every sincere thank you and you're welcome and please we utter when we don't need to.
Jesus truly calls so many of the unnoticed things we do each week faithful. Showing up for work and doing a good job. Listening when someone needs to talk. Sitting with someone in the hospital who looks like they could use a friend. Voting even if the field of candidates seems discouraging. Praying for a neighbor who is having a hard time. The list could go on.
And that’s the point. None of these is any big deal, and yet it is just these kinds of acts that occupy so much of our lives. And I suspect it wouldn’t cross the minds of most of us that they are acts of powerful faith.
I sometimes wonder if people have fallen away from church because some folks have made it so daunting. To be a “good Christian” seems overwhelming for so many who just aren't sure they are up to the task, not sure what they are signing on for. They want to walk with Jesus, but what if they stumble?
No wonder, then, that some of our folks feel like being a disciple is beyond them. But, strangely enough, that's probably just how the disciples felt who had Jesus sitting right there in front of them!
And Jesus, maybe after taking a calming breath reminds them that faith doesn't have to be heroic.
Faith, as Jesus describes it, is just doing your job, just doing your duty, not because of any reward but simply because it needs doing. Faith is doing what needs to be done right in front of you. And this, Jesus says, the disciples can already do. Folks who feel daunted by discipleship need to hear that sometimes faith can be pretty ordinary. That’s what Jesus means, I think, by saying that faith is like a mustard seed.
It really doesn’t take all that much faith to be, well, faithful.
Even the simplest things done in faith can have a huge impact.
Y'all, we are here for one reason – to be an active witness to Jesus’s love in the world; loving God; loving our neighbor. We were never meant to be bystanders, asking Jesus for a fresh order of faith before we can stir ourselves to follow him. In Baptism we get a life-time supply. God is the source of all grace, but it is up to us to keep the tank topped off. Faith evaporates when it is idle. It multiplies when it is active. We are meant to grow it, to show it, and to share it.
We must use it or lose it.