Are you ready to hear my confession? (Don’t get all worked up; it’s not that interesting.) I take off my shoes by the dresser, and I just leave them there, and after a few days they start to pile up, and I don’t really care. And then Charlotte starts gently nagging . . . I mean, reminding, me to pick up my shoes. And I don’t do it because (and this is the real confession) I know that she’ll eventually get disgusted with me and throw all my shoes in the closet (in such a manner, but the way, as to jumble them up as much as possible).

My confession is that sometimes, like when I don’t pick up my shoes, I just go with the basic human tendency (and not one to be proud of) not to take responsibility if you know someone else will take it for you. Parents know about this: if you tell a child to pick up his toys, and he doesn’t, and you holler and threaten and cajole, but the child knows that in the end the parent will pick up the toys and there will be little consequence to the child, guess what? That kid ain’t never picking up no toys! (Or shoes.)

Family therapists refer to this as over functioning and under functioning. If one person in a family over functions by taking responsibility for things another family member should be responsible for, the other family member is almost certain to under function and not be responsible. Picking up shoes is really a pretty benign example. Often this dynamic works itself out as someone makes excuses for their alcoholic spouse, thereby shielding them from the natural consequences of their disease.

Okay, so, other than getting myself in hot water at home (and having assured that Charlotte will never pick up another shoe of mine), what has this got to do with the gospel? Well, the gospel begins with the apostles saying to Jesus, "Increase our faith!" I can really understand why they’re saying that. Jesus has just told them that it would be better for them to be tied to a millstone and thrown in the sea than to cause one new believer to stumble. And if that weren’t hard enough, he says that when a fellow disciple sins and then repents, they are to forgive. That can be hard. But listen to this: "If the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive."

Wow! No wonder they say, "Increase our faith!" I mean, when you hear that, don’t you want God to increase your faith? And when you came to church this morning, didn’t you want God to increase your faith? I did. I figure I can always use Jesus increasing my faith.

So I certainly understand when they hear these hard words about forgiving over and over and over and they cry out, "Increase our faith!" Isn’t it our cry, too?

But Jesus doesn’t give us the easy answer. He doesn’t say, "OK, I’ll do it." Because when we say, "Increase our faith!," he hears, "Jesus, you be responsible for my faith." And he says, "Sorry, you’ll have to find an over functioning, co-dependent Messiah for that. If you want to deal with me, you have to be responsible for your own faith."

He starts off by saying, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed." That sounds to us like he’s saying that they don’t have faith the size of a mustard seed, but Greek is more nuanced than English, and the grammar indicates that this means that they do have faith the size of a mustard seed. This Greek word for "if" implies that something is true, like when we say, "If God is for us, who can be against us?," or "If you love your children, you’ll care for them." So, he starts off saying, "You’ve got faith. Just a little bit (a mustard seed is almost too small to see), but that’s enough to do amazing things, absurd things, to say to a great mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and have it obey you."

I have talked to lots and lots of people who worry that they don’t have enough faith. They don’t think they’re worthy to stand before God, or that they can stack up against the other people in the church who seem to have so much faith, or they’re afraid that somehow their cover will be blown — everyone will discover that they don’t have as much faith as they pretend, and they’ll be unmasked as a hypocrite.

The great irony about this is that for many of those people, that worry about whether they have enough faith becomes an impediment to living a more faithful life. People can become paralyzed, frozen; they don’t do anything faithful because they say to themselves, "I don’t have enough faith."

Jesus says, "Look, this is the most powerful force on earth. And maybe you don’t have much, maybe you’re racked with doubt and all that, but you’ve got a tiny grain, and that’s enough."

You know, people who are refusing to over function often sound pretty tough to those of us who are trying to get them to so we can under function. So Jesus sounds a little insensitive when we say, "Jesus, increase our faith!" and he responds, "Stop whining. Even if all you’ve got is a tiny bit, you’ve got what you need. You just don’t use it. Be responsible for yourself."

Well, that’s not a warm, fuzzy Jesus. That’s probably not a Jesus who will ever pick up my shoes for me. Sometimes I long for that warm, fuzzy, co-dependent Jesus who would just be responsible for me, and call it kindness, and not say harsh things like, "Stop whining and be responsible for yourself."

But I really do believe that everyone here has enough faith. Maybe not as much as we would like, but enough. If you even have a desire to have more faith, that’s a mustard seed; that’s enough.

And while the warm, fuzzy Jesus gives me images of just lying back and being taken care of, the "Stop whining and be responsible for yourself" Jesus sure is intriguing. That Jesus sure makes me wonder — wonder what amazing, absurd things — things we barely faithful people in this room — could accomplish — I wonder what we could accomplish — if we all took responsibility — responsibility for our one, tiny grain — our one, tiny grain — of the most powerful force on earth.