Scripture Notes: Faith Like a Mustard Seed (Matthew 17)

When Jesus, Peter, James, and John descend from the Mount of Transfiguration, they come upon a rather chaotic scene.  A desperate father has brought his seizure-plagued son to Jesus for healing. But since Jesus is up on the mountain, His disciples try to heal the boy themselves. They fail. Miserably.

Jesus seems to sigh when He hears this. “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” Jesus is not out of patience with His disciples, but He is letting them know, quite clearly, that they haven’t been listening. They haven’t developed their faith in Him. They haven’t learned their lesson. They haven’t gone deep enough.

The father also doubts. He has faith enough to bring his son to Jesus, but he isn’t completely sure. In Mark’s account, the father asks Jesus to heal the boy “if You are able to do anything.” Jesus responds with “All things can be done for the one who believes,” to which the father replies with a sincere prayer, straight from his heart: “I believe; help my unbelief!” His faith probably receives a divine boost right at that very moment.

After Jesus heals the boy, rebuking the demon possessing him and driving it away, the disciples ask why they couldn’t do it.  The problem, Jesus tells, is unbelief.  Then He says something rather shocking: “if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”

Is Jesus exaggerating? No. He has already revealed how faith can and does work miracles according to God’s will. The problem is with us. Our faith is so small. It isn’t even the size of a mustard seed. Even if we were to tell the mountain to move, deep down, we probably wouldn’t believe that it would or even could. We would doubt, and that doubt would block a miracle. God is the one who performs the miracles in us in His way and at His time, of course, but we must not block the channel of His grace with our unbelief.

So what do we do to increase our faith? We ask our Lord to help us. We ask Him to infuse the gift of faith into us. And we open our hearts to receive it through prayer, the sacraments, Scripture reading, study, and fellowship with other Christians. We tear down the mountains of unbelief and allow rivers of faith and grace to flow. Then we can expect miracles.