The following sermon was presented by the Rev. John W. Howe, Rector of True Row Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 5, 1986. The title is, You Must Forgive, and the scripture reference is Luke, chapter 17, verses 1 through 10. 

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. the apostles said to the Lord increase our faith and the Lord said if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed you could say to this sycamine tree be rooted up and be planted in the sea and it would obey you for any of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him who has come in from the field, come at once and sit down at table. Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and gird yourself and serve me till I eat and drink and afterward you shall eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. the Gospel of the Lord. I ask you to turn with me to the passage that David just read to us, Luke 17. You'll find it on page 910 of your pew Bibles if you don't have your own. At first glance, it might look as if Jesus is giving us two completely unrelated teachings.

Two unrelated sayings. The first one having to do with the quality of our faith rather than the quantity. And then the second, the theme is that there's no merit in obedience.

I want to take a closer look at that. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. I wonder if you've ever prayed a prayer like that.

Maybe you came up against one of the great promises of Scripture. And you just paled before it. You said, I want to believe that.

I want to claim that. I want to own that. But somehow I can't. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all that you need.

You believe it? Lord, increase my faith. Or maybe you found yourself with some particular need.

A need for healing. Or a need for financial provision or something like that. And you know that sometimes God deals with His people when they're in need according to their faith.

We hear of the woman who laid hold of Jesus' garment, just touched the hem of his garment and she was healed. And so you say, Lord, increase my faith that somehow I might lay hold of what I need. Well, Jesus says, you don't need more faith.

What you need to do is exercise the faith you have. If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, be rooted up and planted in the sea and it would obey you. I wonder how you read that.

What does that say to you? If you had the faith of a single grain of mustard seed, you could command a tree and it would be moved into the sea. So you check it out, you say, well, I can't command the tree and make it move, so obviously I don't have faith as a single grain of mustard seed.

Is that how you read that? I think that's how a lot of people read it, and I think, in fact, it means exactly the opposite. Because when you stop and think about it, you obviously can move a tree into the sea.

Think about it. Dig it up, cut it down, root it out, toss it in the sea. You can do that. No big deal, right?

Jesus is not saying if you had as much faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could do that. He says you can do that. You have much more faith than that.

As a matter of fact, if you had only as much as a grain of mustard seed, you could do that. Do you get the difference? Some of you have heard me tell the story when I was a little boy and we moved into a new home.

There was a great huge boulder out in the backyard. And we noticed, my father and I, a little tiny green shoot coming up through a crack in the boulder. And I was about to whack it off.

We were cleaning the backyard and he said, leave it. That's an oak. And 30 years later, that boulder has been just crumbled into smithereens.

As the oak has moved it, has destroyed it. If it were up on the top of a mountain, it would have moved it into the sea. Mustard seed could do the same thing.

could move whatever is near it. If it began growing near a sycamine tree, it would move that sycamine tree. It could move a boulder.

You may know this is a variation on what Jesus says elsewhere. If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain. You say, well, I can't do that.

Maybe I can move a tree. I can't move a mountain. Sure you can.

Get a shovel. It just takes a little longer. I'm quite serious and I'm quite convinced that that is what Jesus was saying because it's based on an Old Testament scripture from Zechariah 4 we've said it to music many of you would know it not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord what?

this mountain shall be removed and in the same paragraph it goes on to say despise not the day of small beginnings you could move a mountain with a shovel if you were persistent you could move a mountain with a grain of mustard seed or with a tiny acorn you could move a sycamine tree with a small beginning and persistence it's not how much faith you have it's what you do with what you have in fact that's one of the great themes of the parables the parables of the kingdom just think how many of them play upon the theme of small beginnings plus persistence leads to victory grain of mustard seed a little leaven leavens the whole lump the widow's mite just little tiny mites and yet look at what that unleashed she gave all of her living Jesus says over and over and over if you're faithful in small things, you'll be faithful in great. If you're faithful in a few things, you'll be entrusted with many. Jeff quoted to us Bishop Stanway's comment, as now, so then.

Little things determine the way big things work out. Five loaves and two fish doesn't seem like much. Give them to Jesus.

It's enough to feed a multitude. Two or three gathered in my name. I'm in the midst of them.

I'll hear their prayer and change the course of history. It doesn't matter whether you've got ten talents or five talents or one talent. The issue is what did you do with what you had?

I think that's what Jesus is saying. Don't worry about all the faith that you don't have. Do something with the faith that you do have.

In fact, if you had only as much as a grain of mustard seed, that would be enough if you used it. Use it or lose it. Romans 12 verse 3 says that God has given to each one of us a measure of faith.

To each one of us, a different amount. Some are the great heroes of faith. Some, it would seem, have only a very little.

You've got enough to do what God asks you to do if you'll use it. That's the first thing Jesus is saying. And then it looks as if he abruptly changes the subject.

Will any of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he's come in from the field, come at once and sit down at table? No, you won't say that. He's the servant.

You're the master. Other way around. You're not inviting him to sit down.

You're inviting him to come in and serve you. Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and gird yourself and serve me till I eat and drink and afterward you shall eat and drink? Jesus is not recommending that we be harsh with servants.

He's simply describing that's the way servanthood works. The guy's been out doing his job. He's not finished yet.

Comes in, it's time to wait on table. And the point is, verse 9, does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? Implicit answer, no. You don't thank him for doing his duty.

You don't commend him for what you commanded him. And so you also, when you have done all that is commanded, you say, we are unworthy servants, we have only done what was our duty. We don't get commended for what's commanded.

Now most of the commentaries will tell you that there is no connection between the first paragraph and the second, which is one of the reasons I'm not all that thrilled with most of the commentaries. Somebody said, read the Bible. It'll shed a lot of light on the commentaries.

I think the key to this whole passage is found in backing up to the beginning of the chapter, verse 1. Jesus said to his disciples, Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him.

And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times and says, I repent, you must forgive him. Over and over and over, Jesus returns to this theme. He calls us to be those who would extend forgiveness to those who wound us and hurt us and offend us and sin against us.

I'm sure you remember another conversation in which Peter began to get very uneasy at the drift of things. And he says, Lord, how many times do I have to do that? as many as seven times?

And Jesus said, no, not seven, but what? Seventy times seven. And most of you by now, I think, know that that was a Jewish figure of speech.

That does not mean 490 times. You can just see the guy saying, 488, 489, I'm going to kill him, right? No, no. The figure of speech, it means an endless number of times.

An endless number of times. And now here he says exactly the same thing in a different way. If your brother does the same rotten, horrible, painful, sinful thing to you seven times a day, you must forgive him.

And it's at that point that the apostles cry, Oh Lord, increase our faith! You see it? It's not some great promise that they'd like to lay hold of.

It's, I don't have it in me to do what you just said, Lord. Forgive him seven times a day? Maybe you've heard somebody say, well, I'll forgive you this time, but don't you ever do that again.

Right? And you know, biblically, to forgive is to forget. Which means if He does it again, you didn't realize He did it before.

Huh? God says, I will remove your sins from you as far as the east is from the west and I will remember them no more. Which means that if we confess our sin and then the devil comes along and tries to convict us yet again of our guilt for what we've already confessed So we get down on our knees a second time and we say, Oh Lord, do you remember that sin I was talking to you about 15 minutes ago?

And he says, No. Well, how do we do? I'll forgive you, but I will never forget it. I'll forgive you this time, but don't you ever do that again.

And Jesus says, if he does it again in two hours, and two hours after that, and two hours after that, seven times a day, day after day, without end, you must forgive him. Lord, increase our faith. And Jesus said, get this straight.

What we're talking about is not a matter of faith. It's a matter of obedience. Faith isn't the issue.

You've got more than enough faith to deal with that. The issue is, will you obey? This is not an option.

This is not a matter of I'll believe all the promises, but I'll do nothing about what I'm commanded. This is part and parcel of the marching orders. If you would be My follower, this is required.

You must forgive Him. Now, I didn't say that. Jesus said that.

I remember visiting a man in Sewickley who was a member of our church did not come very often he was terribly crippled up and full of illness and I made a pastoral call one afternoon and after about five minutes of pleasantries all of a sudden out of nowhere totally unprovoked. I didn't even know the man. He started telling me about all the people that he hates, one after another.

I mean, hates. And his voice got louder and louder, and the pitch went higher and higher, and the language became much more colorful, and he was cursing and swearing and shaking, and in moments was totally incoherent. His manservant had to come in and restrain him and give him a sedative.

It was one of the scariest things I ever saw. and I happen to know his doctor he also went to our church and I spoke to him about it and he said that man his illness is completely a factor of his unbridled hatred and it is literally killing him and in the interim it has done just that he killed himself with unforgiveness and Jesus said it's really a lot worse than that it's really much worse than that unforgiveness is not just going to make you ill in this life if you don't forgive your brother from your heart hear it if you don't forgive your brother from your heart neither will my heavenly father forgive you you realize that every time we say the Lord's Prayer, we're condemning ourselves if we don't forgive? Father in heaven, forgive me my sins as to the same extent that, in the same manner that, I forgive others who have sinned against me.

And the corollary is, if I don't, He won't. and it may be that somebody has hurt you so terribly that your response is I can't do that it just hurts too much God increase my faith and Jesus would say to you it is not a matter of your faith it is also praise God not a matter of your feeling you don't have to want to do that you don't have to feel like it he didn't say like your enemies he said love them which is a choice and forgiveness is a choice and he said this is part of my commandment do it. Do it. You must forgive.

Let's come under that word. Let's bow our heads and pray together. Father, in heaven, we're sinful, broken people.

And every one of us has hurt another terribly, and many of us have been hurt terribly. But we begin to see that You're calling upon us to make a decision. And that the feelings of forgiveness may or may not come, but the fact of forgiveness is something that You ask us to make real in our lives.

Indeed, You command it. so right now we'd think of that person who has terribly wounded us and we would choose I choose right now to forgive that person and ask you to love him through me let Your love for Him fill up the emptiness of my heart. And I recall how much You have forgiven me.

And in like manner, I want to forgive Him. And I pray that You'll heal our relationship through the praise of Your name. Amen.