The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on June 12, 1988. The title is, Have You No Faith? and the scripture reference is Mark chapter 4, verses 26 through 41. 

The Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, according to Mark. Jesus said, The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground. It should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow.

He knows not how. The earth produces of itself first the blade, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts it in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

And he said, With what can we compare the kingdom of God? or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth.

Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, But privately to his own disciples, he explained everything.

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them, just as he was in the boat. And other boats were with him.

And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care if we perish?

And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said to them, Why are you afraid?

Have you no faith? And they were filled with awe and said one to another, Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him? The Gospel of our Lord. Why are you afraid? Have you no faith? It's a disturbing enough question if you take it the way it's usually taken.

I think it becomes more disturbing when you read a little bit more carefully. The way it's usually taken is something like this. Jesus saying to his disciples, what's the matter with you?

Why are you so anxious? Don't you know that I love you? Don't you know that I'm concerned about you?

that I care for you, that I want to protect and provide for you. Haven't I demonstrated that consistently? Haven't I shown myself faithful and trustworthy?

I know there's a storm brewing, swirling around us, but I'm not going to let you capsize. Don't you have faith enough in me to believe that I'm going to take care of you? That's a good question.

It's one that I think most of us come up against time and again. Jesus commanded us in the Sermon on the Mount not to be anxious. Notice that is not an option.

That is a command. That is across the board for all of us. Do not be anxious.

You stop and think about the amount of time you waste worrying about things that might happen. That's anxiety. Worrying about what might happen.

Usually it doesn't. God has promised I'm not going to let you get into a circumstance that is too much for you to handle I will provide for you a means to deal with that so it hasn't happened yet and because it hasn't happened yet I don't now have the resources but I worry about what might happen not having them now and I waste all that energy when it might not even happen don't be anxious if it happens I'll provide for you Jesus says consider the lilies of the field consider the birds of the air your heavenly father clothes and feeds them though they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns aren't you much much more valuable to him than they are trust him your father in heaven knows your need before you ask so why are you anxious I think St. Paul went a great deal farther than most of the rest of us in learning that lesson. He could write to the Philippians, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound.

I know how to have nothing or how to have everything. And my joy is not dependent upon my circumstances. My joy is dependent upon knowing the Lord in the midst of my circumstances.

If I were to ask how many of us could say that wholeheartedly, all the hands that went up would be lying, probably. But that's what we're supposed to be learning. I will not be anxious.

And I think that's the way most folks take this question of Jesus in the boat that afternoon. Why are you anxious? Don't you believe that I'm able to handle this?

It's the sort of question that we face all the way through Scripture. The people of God have been having to learn and relearn and relearn that lesson. God delivers the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt.

He spares them from one devastating plague after another, including the death of all the firstborn. All the Egyptian firstborn are dying around them and Israels are protected with the blood of the Lamb. he leads them dry shod through the Red Sea and then drowns the whole host of Pharaoh's army when it tries to follow after them he provides manna from heaven quail every evening water from the flinty rock in the midst of the desert he gives them victory over the Hittites the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hevites, the Jebusites, the Amalekites and any other kites they had he brings them to the border of the promised land land flowing with milk and honey They've been dreaming about this for 500 years.

They finally get there, send in 12 spies, and they come back saying, there are giants in the land. Didn't you learn anything? Why are you anxious?

If I can deliver you from Egypt, through the Red Sea, against all of those various armies coming against, don't you think I can handle a few giants? Why are you anxious? Have you no faith?

Elijah faces down King Ahab in a day of total apostasy in ancient Israel. He speaks drought into existence for three and a half years as a judgment upon a disobedient nation. He challenges 450 prophets of Baal and another 400 prophets of Asherah to a public contest on Mount Carmel.

He says, you prepare a sacrifice and you call upon the name of your God to send down fire and consume it. Then I'll prepare a sacrifice and I'll call on the name of the Lord God of Israel to send down fire and consume it. And the God who answers by fire will be the true God.

And all the people say, right on, I like that contest. So you have 850 prophets screaming and howling and dancing and cutting themselves with knives and calling upon their gods all day long and nothing happens. No voice, no answer, no fire from heaven.

And Elijah mocks them. Can you get into that picture? I mean the whole nation is gathered.

850 to 1. And he's mocking them. And then he drenches his sacrifice with 12 barrels of water.

And calls upon God to send down the fire. And the fire consumes the sacrifice. Laps up the water in the trough.

Even consumes the wood and the stones on which the sacrifice has been built. The people say, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God.

And Elijah says, you take all those false prophets down to the brook Kishon and kill them. The next chapter we learn that Queen Jezebel is furious. And Elijah says, oh God, let me die.

Why are you anxious, Elijah? If I could handle 850 prophets, don't you think I can handle one angry woman? some of you would question that do you find yourself in that kind of a dilemma God provides over and over and over day after day in common things and sometimes astonishingly and then we come up against a new problem and we just buckle under it why are you anxious don't you have any faith Well, that's the way that question is usually taken.

Don't you have the faith to believe that I can handle it? But I'm sure that Jesus, in fact, is asking something even more challenging than that. Would you look at Mark chapter 4 with me for just a moment?

I'm going to do this very quickly, but I bid you to study it more carefully at your leisure. It's a fascinating passage. The whole of the chapter is a sort of continuous narrative telling us of one day in the life and ministry of Jesus as he is teaching all day long.

With such tremendous crowds gathering that he has to borrow a little boat and push off from shore to just get enough distance for people to see and hear him. And all day long he's teaching on the same theme. Parable after parable, they all fit together.

They all have a common message that he is giving that day. All of his parables, you check me out on this, have to do with the growth of faith. That's the theme.

The whole first section, the first 20 verses are about the parable of the sower. You remember God goes out as a sower scattering seed on all different kinds of ground. And where it falls on the good soil, it produces 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold.

What's the message? God's word is like that. God's word is the seed planted in the good soil of our hearts.

And if it is properly planted in the soil and the soil has been cared for, it will grow. It will produce a rich harvest, 30, 60, 100 fold. Verses 21 to 25, the parable of the talents.

Just quickly summarized here, he tells it at greater length than the other gospels, but here he just comes to the bottom line. Faithfulness with a few things will produce more, and lack of faith will lead to even what you have being taken away. He who has, unto him who has will more be given, and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

Faithfulness, with a little bit, will produce a lot. The growth of faith. Verses 26 to 29.

The parable of the seed producing of itself. First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain. When we're patient, we allow it to grow.

it will seem almost as if it's doing it by itself. Of course, it's the power of God operative there. Some of you have heard me tell about moving into a new home in Connecticut, and the backyard was completely overgrown.

My father and I went out to clear the backyard, and underneath all the weeds we found this huge boulder that had come down, they told us, in a glacier in one of the ice ages. And there was this little green shoot growing up out of a crack in the boulder. And I was about to lop it off.

And my father said, don't do that. It's an oak. And I looked.

And sure enough, I don't know how that acorn got in there. But this little green shoot coming up out of the crack in the boulder. You go there 30 years later and you know what you'll find?

A huge, gnarled, twisted, mighty oak tree. And in place of a boulder, a bunch of pulverized rock. of itself it produced first the blade then the ear of a whole oak tree it grows when you leave it to do its thing verses 30 to 32 the parable of the mustard seed it starts out the smallest of all the seeds and when it grows up it becomes the greatest of all the shrubs birds can come and nest in it the theme of the whole day is faith And in all these parables, Jesus is saying exactly the same thing.

A little bit, planted carefully, tended patiently, exercised properly, will grow into enough faith to do great and mighty things. Faith, faith, faith, just a little bit of faith. You don't need a whole lot.

Just use what you got. Faith, faith, faith, right? Do you see it?

Scripture Jamie read to us, says that with many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. Parable after parable after parable, all of them saying the same thing. And then he took his disciples aside and taught them what they really meant.

Now comes evening. Pop quiz. That's what's happening.

He's been teaching all day long, now he's going to see what they learn. They're out in the middle of the lake. A storm comes up.

Jesus is resting on the back cushion asleep. They take one look at the waves and feel the wind, and they utterly freak out. Teacher, don't you care that we're perishing?

Why are you afraid? Have you no faith? He's not saying, don't you have faith that I can handle it?

He's saying if you've learned anything from what I've been teaching you all day long, you will understand that you can handle it. You got it? That's much more challenging, isn't it?

Don't you have faith to handle it yourselves? I'm absolutely convinced that that's the correct interpretation because that is consistently the way Jesus taught. He shows them what to do and then he sends them out to go do it.

You go heal the sick. You cast out demons. You proclaim the good news.

He's walking on the water and Peter says, Lord, if that's really you, bid me to come with you. And he says, come on, Peter, you come walk on the water with me. Get to the end of another long day.

There are 5,000 men, probably an equal number of women, three or four times as many kids. The disciples say, how in the world are we going to feed all these people? And what's Jesus' answer?

You give them something to eat. And what? We've only got a couple of loaves of bread here.

Five fish. He says, give them something to eat. And they begin to break the bread and break the fish and break it and break it.

And it's enough to feed 25,000 people maybe. With 12 baskets full left over. You don't need a whole lot.

Just use what you got. It's enough. You say to the mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and it will come to pass.

Whoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whoever sins you retain, they are retained. He gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, He will do also and what? Greater works than these will He do because I go to the Father. Do you get it?

It's not just a matter of whether or not Jesus can handle it. Of course Jesus can handle it. It's a matter of whether or not you and I can handle it.

In the power of His Spirit. Go and make disciples of all nations. Teaching them to observe, which means to do everything that I've commanded you.

have you no faith? Have you no faith? Let me put an important qualification on that.

We've got to be very sure that it's something that the Lord Himself is leading us into. There's a big difference between faith and vainglory or presumption. The essence of Satan's temptations to Jesus Himself was to try to get him to do what God never told him to do in the first place.

But if the Lord is leading us into something, if the Lord is telling us to do something, don't you believe that He's going to equip you to do it? How many of you know that the absolute bottom line of discipleship is what the Lord calls us to do, He equips us to do? Do you know that?

Very few hands went up. You say, but the Lord hardly ever leads me into something that calls for the miraculous. I know, that's the point.

He's given you plenty of other stuff to work on, hasn't he? But should he lead you into something that requires the supernatural, that too he will supply. If he's leading you into it, that's the point.

That's the whole point. those whom he calls he equips whether it's a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself whether it's a matter of returning good for evil whether it's a matter of sharing the gospel with somebody whether it's a matter of giving a cup of cold water in his name whether it's a matter of walking the second mile or feeding the multitude or stilling the storm or whatever it might be. Faith is a matter of daring to believe that if He calls me to do it, He'll equip me to do it.

Let's bow our heads together. Lord, that is a very challenging word, and yet an encouraging one as well. Lord give us the humility to wait upon you for clear direction but give us the boldness to believe that if you call us to do whatever you will equip us and may we do it as unto the Lord that your name will be praised Amen