Faith like a Mustard Seed

“If you have faith like a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain ‘move from here to there’ and it will move…”

Until I took training in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, I always thought the gospel was talking about the mustard seed that I had in my spice drawer. It was pretty little. It was smaller than a lemon pit, smaller than most of the ingredients that I used in my kitchen - yes, pretty darn small. But it wasn’t so small that I couldn’t imagine mustering up that amount of faith. The question I kept coming back to, though, was if it was really faith or hope.

According to Norman Fried,  director of psycho-social services for the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Winthrop University on Long Island, New York,  hope is … “a dynamic process involving the active pursuit of goals, a determination of how to reach these goals, and the willpower to see them to fruition.”

In his article, “What is the Meaning of Hope?” Dr. Fried gives us pointers about separating hope from faith by the stories of Adam’s role in the two creation stories in Genesis. In the first story, he says, Adam displays hope, that through he actions he will achieve what God asked of him – “to fill the earth and subdue it.”

In the second account, where Adam is place in the garden of Eden and asked to cultivate it and keep it, he has to believe that what is asked of him is possible. He has to trust his creator and, sometimes despite the evidence at hand, believe that he is capable of the job he has been tasked with. That requires faith.

SO back to my understanding the meaning of the scripture about the seed, the mountain, the faith.

I look at the little grain that is the mustard seed and think of the problems that surround us; it gives me some conviction. That little bit, I could maybe summon up that much faith.

We are facing ever greater challenges in our world. Good seems to be overpowered by evil, kindness by cruelty. It saps the energy from us. But it seems that faith means that we need to keep true to what we believe is asked of us, like Adam. We have to trust our Creator - not stop working for the good, but underlie it with determination.

You know how it is when you’re out walking, you went further than you meant to go and you just want to stop, but you say, just one more step, and if you do that often enough you get home? That is what faith is. We gather up all our inner resources and take one more step. And that step can be as small as the biblical mustard seed – as small as a grain of pepper.

Hope requires optimism. Faith requires grit. There is no assurance that the work you are doing will produce the results that you are looking for, but you do know that if you give up, the end you’re trying to achieve will definitely not happen.

Be of good faith. Check out where in the scriptures we are exhorted to keep the faith. We only that tiny little speck to produce a large