Just do it

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
He replied, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea' and it will obey you. Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat.' Would he not rather say, 'Prepare your supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink?' Would he thank the servant becuase he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty. (Luke 17:6-10).

Last time I read this passage of scripture, I paused. What an unusual juxtaposition of ideas it contains. First, when the disciples ask for their faith to be increased, Jesus tells them about what miraculous things they can do--planting trees in the ocean, healing illnesses, doing great things. This paints a rather grandiose notion about what faith consists of.
But then Jesus talked about something quite different--servanthood. Servanthood in the context of having faith.

It takes faith to be a good servant. We are told to plod along, doing what we are instructed to do as children of God. And so we do as we are told--not for a reward--because as the parable points out, the role of servants is to obey without hope of reward beyond mere sustenance. Yet we seem to be called to a life of obedience without much variation. It sounds like hard work for a long time. It could be considered boring, it's so unchanging.

The world likes sensation. It becomes disheartened with ceaseless rounds of responsibilities without variation. Movies of the latter would simply not sell. And yet it appears that God calls us to do our duty, the everyday responsibilities that He requires, without reward or renown. The "Just do it" kind of faith.

The sensational kind of faith produces sensational results: healings, being able to find items that have been lost, receiving a check in the mail for a certain amount of money that is needed that hour. We believe in Christ in part because of these kinds of miraculous events. These are the miracles born in extremis. The other kind of faith is an entirely different thing. It is the kind of faith by which we act from principle. We do what is right because it is right, not because it feels good, nor that we will gain anything from it. It means that our everyday actions are rooted in the belief--the faith--that God can do what He has promised in making us righteous. That He can make our actions count for something much greater than anything we can make them mean. It means putting one foot in front of the other, doing what He calls us to do, cheerfully, wholeheartedly, without hesitation. Because we know that God can do what He has promised in and through us. That is reward enough.

Faith and works travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, then works; and then faith again, and then works again; until they can scarcely distinguish which is one and which is the other. (William Booth, 1992).

I believe that this is the kind of faith, everyday "just do it" faith that Jesus referenced in his parable. In my mind, it is a manifestation of much greater faith to move through life doing one's duty responsibly and well, than to have the flash-in-the-pan variety. It is interesting that Jesus would talk about these two kinds of faith here in this one conversation and that most people miss the fact that the second part of His comments are about faith--just a different kind. This division of faith types is picked up again in Hebrews 11, the "Faith Chapter."

Hebrews 11 is comprised of accounts of marvelous things that people were strengthened to accomplish and perform--women received their dead, Noah built an ark, and others were able to endure scourgings and being sawn in two. But then there is the comment, "These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what was promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:39, 40). Abraham did what he was told and never saw the reward. Moses had the horrible job of trying to coral all those garlic smelling people into the Promised Land, and he still didn't get to go in. And what about all the women of the Bible who were alive but not mentioned? The wives, who had to follow their husbands around without question; who had to see their boys go off to war; who had no say about so many things.

Our faith tells us that the obstacles to obedience, endurance, and steadfastness in what we are called to do for God, will one day be repaid over and above anything that we could fathom. But for now, we put one foot before the other. Just do it.