In our Gospel today (Luke 17:5-10), Jesus tells us that even faith the size of a mustard seed can command a mulberry tree to be uprooted and replanted in the sea. What is meant here certainly goes beyond the literal. No person of faith should go around ordering trees to dig themselves up and plunge into the deep.
Similarly, no interpretation of this passage should ignore the verse before it where Jesus challenges us, ‘If [your brother] wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.’
A mulberry tree is notorious for having a dense network of roots that can spread up to fifty feet from the tree. Imagine the effort needed to trace and untangle this root system that invades and damages building foundations. So too can the hurt from being wronged be described. It invades the deepest core of your being and destroys the foundations of relationships. To forgive is to root out all the ill feelings and risk again. Perhaps this is why the image of uprooting the mulberry tree is paired with planting it in the sea. For the ancient Israelites, the sea symbolized chaos. To forgive is to face turmoil instead of just hiding or running away. Only with faith can we do this.
But what is faith?
The passage about faith uprooting the mulberry tree must also be read with the passage after it. Brace yourself:
‘Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.”
I am not sure how you feel about those lines. Would you prefer what Jesus said five chapters before: ‘Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them’ (Luke 12:37)?
The former passage paints an aloof God, an employer instead of a Father. The latter shows us a more intimate Lord. And isn’t this what Jesus exemplified at the Last Supper? ‘He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist’ (John 13:4-5).
Is your God near or far?
While I am sure we would all prefer the God who is near, I think the answer closer to our experience is: God is both near and far.
We feel God close when blessings surround us, when peace, as the calming hymn sings, is ‘before us, behind us, and under our feet.’ But God may seem distant when those who are just suffer while those who oppress them prosper, when we cannot understand his mysterious ways. During those times, we need faith to hold on until God feels close again.
But what is faith?
Here is one way to understand faith: It is a personal relationship with God that allows us to trust that even when God seems far, he is still somehow near. Even when it seems that God is asking something impossible from us-like forgiving seven times in one day-our relationship with him will also give us the confidence to question and to complain, but ultimately, the strength to do his will. That is faith. It is wrestling with roots that may seem to have trapped us and then diving deeper into our relationship with him.
Nice words. Now here is something to make them real: I recently had a conversation with someone who enlisted in a Bible class I facilitate. I asked him why he was so interested in Scripture. He told me it was because, not too long ago, he had been diagnosed with cancer. His answer puzzled me until I prayed with this Sunday’s Gospel. When the diagnosis dropped like a judge’s gavel, God must have seemed infinitely far. Yet this man sought God even more.
Your prayer assignment for this week:
Imagine yourself in the shoes of that man diagnosed with cancer. What would you do? It may be cheesy, but the voice in my mind cannot help but sing these modified lyrics: ‘Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that our hearts do go on. Once more, you open the door, and you’re here in my heart. And my faith in you will go on.’