Sermon – Psalm 137 & Luke 17:5-10
Sermon Preached by Reverend Tracey Gracey on Sunday, 5 October, 2025
Have you ever felt like you just don’t have enough?
Enough energy. Enough patience. Enough faith.
That’s exactly how the disciples are feeling in today’s Gospel reading.
[In the previous verses] Jesus has just told his disciples that forgiveness is part of discipleship — not a one-time gesture, but a way of life to be repeated again and again.
So, it’s no wonder the disciples cry out: “Increase our faith!”
For forgiveness is never easy and may be one of the most challenging demands Jesus places on his disciples.
Their plea is deeply human: “Lord, we can’t do this. We’re not strong enough. We don’t have what it takes.”
It’s a very human cry. It’s the cry of people who feel inadequate, insufficient, and overwhelmed.
But notice how Jesus responds. He doesn’t tell them they need more faith. He tells them they already have enough faith.
For even faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to accomplish the impossible.
The disciples’ cry of, “Increase our faith!” is not theirs alone.
It echoes the cry of Abraham and Sarah, uncertain if God’s promise could really be trusted.
It echoes the voice of Israel in the wilderness, hungry and afraid.
It echoes the early church, persecuted and scattered, yet still clinging to hope.
Again and again, God’s people have cried out from places of uncertainty, fear, and exile.
In Psalm 137, we hear another desperate cry:
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.”
God’s people had been removed from their homeland.
Their temple was destroyed. Their captors mocked them: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
But they couldn’t. Their grief was too raw. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
This is the cry of exile language. And many of us know it.
When we carry grief that won’t shift.
When we feel cut off or alone.
When we are weighed down by guilt or regret.
Like God’s people in exile, like the disciples, we want to cry out: “Lord, increase our faith!”
Psalm 137 is a psalm of lament, giving voice to deep sorrow and grief, and reminding us that faith is not about hiding our struggles or keeping silent about our pain. Faith is bringing all that weighs heavily on us into God’s presence.
The disciples did that when they admitted their weakness. And God’s people did it in exile, when they wept by the rivers of Babylon.
In both cases, God’s answer is the same: You already have what you need.
Anthony De Mello tells a wisdom story that helps us see this more clearly.
A seeker came to a guru who had a reputation for holiness, though in truth he was a fraud.
The guru said, “Before I accept you as my disciple, you must prove your obedience. Wade across that river filled with crocodiles.”
The young man’s faith was so great that he stepped into the river, crying out, “All praise to the power of my guru!”
To everyone’s astonishment, he walked across unharmed.
The guru thought, “I must be holier than I realised!”
So he stepped into the river crying, “All praise to me! All praise to me!”
And the crocodiles devoured him.
Faith is not about self-reliance. It’s not about superhuman strength or making ourselves into something we’re not.
Faith is about a relationship with God — a God who plants a seed within us, and who asks us to nurture and trust that seed.
Jesus chooses the image of a mustard seed — the smallest of all seeds — to tell his disciples, “You already have enough.”
Even the tiniest seed of faith, he says, can tell a mulberry tree to uproot itself and be planted in the sea.
A mulberry tree has deep, tangled roots. It clings stubbornly to the ground, hard to dig out or shift.
This is an image of the things that take hold in us — old hurts, patterns of bitterness, and struggles that feel too heavy to move.
And yet Jesus says that even a mustard seed of faith has the power to confront what looks immovable and to plant something new in its place.
Faith is not about waiting until we feel stronger or more capable.
It is about planting what we already have and trusting God to make it grow.
Faith begins with the small seed that God has planted in us.
When we tend it, even in small ways, it takes root and grows into acts of forgiveness, compassion, justice, mercy, and love.
The psalmist wept by the rivers of Babylon.
The disciples despaired at the call to forgive.
And we too know what it is to feel overwhelmed — by fear of the future, by disappointment, by broken relationships and by our own inadequacies.
But if we continue to focus on what we lack, nothing will change.
If we wait for faith to feel bigger or stronger before acting, nothing will change.
Jesus reminds us: it’s not about the size of our faith. It’s about our relationship with God, and trusting that relationship.
If you feel like you are sitting by the rivers of Babylon, if you feel like hanging up your harp, if you feel like the disciples saying, “Lord, I don’t have enough,” then hear this:
You already have enough.
God has planted a small seed of faith within you.
Even a mustard seed of faith can grow into acts of healing, peace and forgiveness.
So take what you have, however small it feels, and plant it.
So that, with God, your faith can grow in ways you never imagined.
Amen.