No Recorded Sermon This Week

We’ve got the power. In fact, each of us is a little power plant.

Did you know that every time we take a step, we generate six to eight watts of energy? But then — poof! — it dissipates into the air.

If only we could capture it.

An architectural firm in London is now looking at ways to capture that energy on a large scale and turn it into electricity. At Victoria Station, for example, there are 34,000 people traveling through in one hour, rushing toward their trains.. That’s a lot of steps.. “If you harness that energy,” says the firm’s director, “you can actually generate a very useful power source.”

According to Fast Company magazine (September 2006), this architectural firm is working to develop vibration-harvesting sensors. These sensors would be implanted in the structure of train stations to capture the rumblings of commuters, turn the motion into electricity, and then store it in a battery.

There is power in small steps.

In today’s passage from Luke, the apostles say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” They feel as though their faith is too miniscule to make a difference, so they plead for Jesus to enlarge it. But Jesus understands the significance of small steps, so he says to them, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you’” (Luke 17:5-6).

Have you ever seen a mustard seed? Not many have. It is hard to see — each one is about one-twentieth of an inch in size. Very, very small. The point Jesus is trying to make is that faith doesn’t have to be huge to have an impact. It doesn’t have to make the news to make a difference.

There is power in mustard-seed faith.

Today is the launch of our 2008 Stewardship Campaign, the Sunday in which the elders of this church will begin to ask you to make pledges toward the mission and ministry of this church in the new year. Each of you is being asked to make a pledge based on your faith in God, and your belief that God is actively at work at Fairfax Presbyterian Church.

Nancy and I have made our pledge, and we’ve decided to give the church $220 per week. Is that a large amount? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. You all vote on my salary every year, so you know exactly what I make — you can decide whether this is generous or not. What Nancy and I do believe is that God is at work at FPC in a powerful way: Educating our children, guiding our youths, feeding the hungry, assisting senior citizens, visiting the sick, comforting the grieving, providing a house of prayer for all people. We are convinced that the pledge we make to this church each year is one of the very best investments we make.

At the same time, I know that our pledge is just a mustard-seed contribution. A gift of $220 per week adds up to $11,440 per year, which is just a tiny portion of a church budget calling for $900,000 in pledges. But when our gift is combined with your gift, and then added to the gifts of the people sitting all around you, suddenly you begin to see the power of small steps. The rumbling of all this giving is like the pounding of feet on the floor of Victoria Station — if you harness all that energy, you can generate a very useful power source.

It is critically important that we gather all these gifts, because the world is in need of the ministry we can provide. Not that FPC is going to become a mega-church, one that has a custom-made program for every person at every stage of life. I called a 4,000-member church in Detroit this week, one that offers a divorce-recovery ministry, a blended-family ministry, a grief-recovery ministry — a variety of programs designed to meet every person’s needs. When I asked to speak with the pastor, I was put in touch with the marketing department!

Yes, that’s right: The marketing department.

I did eventually get through to the pastor, and he was really very helpful. But my point is that we are not a mega-church. The ministry that we can provide is one that brings people together, and builds relationships between people in small groups. It is when we gather in small groups that we can do the work that Jesus wants us to do — work that can have a powerful impact on others.

The key is to start small, and to do our best to live according to Christian values. Think about the example set last year by the Amish people of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. What the world saw there, in a very small community, was a group of men and women who took a stand for forgiveness after a gunman killed five young girls at a schoolhouse. Most impressive about the Amish response to the murders was the way that these peace-loving Christians reached out with support to the gunman’s widow and children. They provided what the Bible calls “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

The world is in need of this kind of ministry, and it’s an example that any small group of Christians can provide. Such examples “stir the imaginations of the larger world,” says Greg Jones, dean of Duke Divinity School. “We need our imagination to be set on fire by stories that show that what we think is impossible or unrealistic is indeed possible — if we have the courage to cultivate habits of reconciliation.”

Habits of reconciliation. Those are small steps that can have a huge impact.

The work of reconciliation is our responsibility, as followers of Christ — it’s a part of our job description. The peaceful settling of disputes, overcoming of differences, and deepening of friendships are tasks that we perform in obedience to our master. In Luke 17, Jesus tells the story of a slave who comes into his master’s house after a day of working in the field. Jesus asks if the master would reward the slave with a place at the dinner table, or if he would be more likely to say to the slave, “Prepare supper for me … and serve me … later you may eat and drink”? The apostles know that the slave is not going to rest until his work is done both outside and inside the house, and that the slave is certainly not going to be thanked for simply doing what is commanded (vv. 7-9).

The same is true for you, says Jesus to his followers. The work we do for reconciliation is not going to make us famous, earn us praise from Jesus, or guarantee us a special place in heaven. When we have done all that Christ has ordered us to do, our response should be, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” (v. 10).

Our best efforts are just a few small steps. Nothing spectacular in themselves. But when combined with the efforts of other faithful people, like the rumbling of footsteps in Victoria Station, they can have a powerful impact.

I’m asking you today to make a pledge to Fairfax Presbyterian, in support of a church that is determined to settle disputes, overcome differences, and deepen friendships. I’m also asking you to practice these Christian values in your daily life, because the world is desperately in need of this kind of ministry.

You can:
- Get to know a Muslim neighbor, and hear their story of life in the US, especially since 9-11.
- Have coffee with a difficult colleague, and learn about the struggles they face at home.
- Find a neighbor from a different political party, and ask to hear their perspectives on issues.
- Reach out to a church member you don’t know, and have some conversation after worship.
- Volunteer at the Lamb Center, and talk with the homeless men and women who are being helped there. You’ll be amazed at what the world   looks like through their eyes.

None of these actions is going to transform the world overnight. But they will be part of a growing rumble of Christian ministry, one that will build in strength as more and more people practice it. On this World Communion Sunday, we think of our connection to Christians around the earth, and give thanks for the power being generated by tiny acts of faith and obedience.

In time, all this energy will change our world for the better. That’s mustard-seed-faith. That’s the power of small steps. Amen.


Sources:
Staedter, Tracy. “Good vibrations,” Fast Company, September 2006, 34.