Some of the most impressive commercials on television in recent years have been the Nike shoe commercials with the theme, Just Do It. The moment you see their logo, you remember their theme.
Actually, Nike did not invent the phrase, Just Do It. Thousands of years before, Ezra said, “Be of good courage and do it.” 10:4 (Or we could translate it, Just do it.)
When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, to paraphrase him in today’s language, he said, “Just do it.”
Why did Jesus answer their plea for faith in this way? I believe there are two significant reasons:
The disciples’ problem was not a lack of faith. Jesus tells them that the size of their faith is not the issue. It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea. (The mulberry tree is deeply rooted. It cannot easily be transplanted.)
Jesus was saying to them, if they want to do great things, miraculous things, it takes only a minute amount of faith.
A mustard seed is about the smallest seed. No one who was there could miss Jesus’ point.
The context of this particular incident in Luke’s gospel is about Jesus giving his disciples a lesson on forgiveness. The disciples were distraught because they did not know if they could do what Jesus was teaching.
In verse three, Jesus told the disciples, “Even if your brother mistreats you seven times in a single day, and each time asks for your forgiveness, you must forgive him.”
The disciples must have rolled their eyes in disbelief and thought, “This Jesus, he is asking us to love people we would normally hate. He is asking us to forgive people who have hurt us time and time again. He is asking us to feed the hungry, and to work for justice in the world. He knows that we are not him.”
And so they responded, “Well, Jesus, before we can do that, we must have more faith.” Their request for faith was a way of asking God to fix them so they could be forgiving.
I suppose with more faith, they believed they would just magically be what God wanted them to be.
But Jesus said to them, “You don’t need more faith; just use the faith you have. If you have faith even the size of a tiny mustard seed, you can do it.”
Jesus wanted his disciples to understand that faith, even as tiny as a mustard seed, is a powerful force. The disciples, though, felt their faith was too weak to ever accomplish all the things Jesus wanted them to accomplish.
But Jesus assured them that they do not have to have a mountain worth of faith, just a seed’s worth. What really mattered was not the size of their faith, but the size of their God. A little faith in a great God can accomplish a lot. Faith is a matter of aligning our lives with the purposes of God. And when we do that, miracles can happen.
Many times like the early disciples, we also think that if we just had more faith, we could be better Christians. We can volunteer to serve in mission projects risking our lives, or be more committed to the everyday ministry of the church that God has called us to do. So we pray, “Give us more faith.”
When we talk about the conflict in Mindanao, it would seem too much for us. When we think of transforming our political leaders, it would seem impossible. If we want to be more forgiving, it seems it’s the most difficult thing to do. And when we get sick, looking up to the ceiling wondering whether we will get well; or having a problem with relationships in the family, we tend to think that our faith is not enough to carry us through. And so we pray, “God, increase our faith.”
We want God to magically do something which will require little or no action on our part.
We are like a man Ernest Fitzgerald tells about in his book Keeping Pace
There are some church people who resemble Jeremy Bentham. They are present but not voting.
These members of Christ’s body have good intentions but they think their faith is not enough, and therefore, do not do anything.
Their problem is not a lack of faith. It is lack of action. That is the second reason Jesus answered the disciples’ plea in the way he did. He knew they needed to get started living what they already believed.
It never dawned on the disciples they had to take action to forgive others. While the disciples were standing around fretting about their perceived inability to act, Jesus’ message to them was, “Hey, just do it.”
Again like the early disciples, we do not use the faith we have. Actually, we have more faith than we think. If you sent an e-mail to someone, you have faith it will arrive; if you have flown in an airplane, you have faith that a huge airplane can fly; if you rode in a boat, you have faith it will stay afloat.
By waiting around until we receive more faith, or until God gives us some special feeling or some other unmistakable sign, we remain immobile, dysfunctional Christians.
I read a story about a group of French prisoners during World War II. They were forced to work in a German munitions factory. Upon realizing that the very bombs they were building were being used to destroy their beloved homeland, they made the decision to create a malfunction in the devices that detonate the bombs. The bombs were designed to explode on impact. But with the changes that the prisoners made, the bombs were harmless, no explosion occurred. Puzzled by so many failed attacks, the French government finally conducted an investigation. Upon opening the bombs, they found slips of paper inside, bearing these words: We are doing the best we can with what we’ve got, where we are, every chance we get.
God wants us to get into action using the faith we already have. God wants us “to do the best we can with what we’ve got, where we are, every chance we get.” A little faith in a great God can change the world. It is just a matter of aligning our lives with the purposes of God.
If we start doing what we know, then we will see our faith grow beyond our wildest imagination. Christ’s word to us today is “Just do it! Get into action.”
As someone had said, “The devil trembles when he hears God’s weakest servant say, ‘Yes, Lord, I’ll do it!’”
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