We have had a flurry of new restaurants in that have opened up lately in Maumelle, particularly of the fast food variety.  I really like one of the new places, called Taco Bueno, which is a chain out of Texas.  It is really nothing more than a supped up Taco Bell, but it is better than Taco Bell and better than some of the Senior Tequila knock-offs that occupy strip malls everywhere in Maumelle.  I went by the other night to take an order home after working late, and in doing so I bumped up against one of my personal limitations.  You see, I am drive-in window challenged.  I don’t know why, but I cannot order from drive-in windows.  The information on the ordering signs is information overload, it all looks alike to me.  Then throw in the pressure of trying to figure out what I want while a long line of hungry motorists are behind me only adds to the tension.  I also get overloaded when my family is in the car and they can’t make up their minds.  So it is probably their fault.  So I find myself in a drive-in window futility spiral featuring genuine existential angst.  Now I understand the menu at McDonald’s, but no way can I decipher Taco Beuno’s from my car, so I went in and decided just to eat the meal there.

            I ordered the “number 4 combo” as numbers make the ordering easier as well.  “I’ll have a number 4 with an Iced Tea.”  The guy behind the counter said, “Do you want to nacho-size it?”  Nacho-size it?  What the heck does that mean?  I begin to scan the menu to see what nacho-sized meant, and the young man never looked up from the cash register.  I finally gave in and said, “OK, what does that mean?”  He pointed to the menu on the wall and looked back down.  I still could not figure it out.  Finally the impatient 17 year old behind the counter who probably thought I was as dumb as a fence post said, “You add chips, cheese dip and upgrade to a large drink for 99 cents.”  Oh.  No nacho-size for me.  

            Have you noticed that it seems everyone nowadays wants to nacho-size you?  Everyone on the planet understands the words “would you like to supersize that?”  And what a deal– for a few cents more you can get a heck of a lot more food, which is what we all seem to want.  Now that I am forced to watch what I eat I marvel at the fact that for years I would want to super size everything, and now I am paying the piper as a diabetic.  But enough about me!

            The truth is that we live in a “more is better” society, and that is why type 2 diabetes is at epidemic proportions.  We need more.  More stuff, more time off, more money, more fries.  We want more wins from our football team and if we pay more for a coach like they did at Alabama we think we will get more wins.  Whatever we’ve got we believe that we are entitled as tax paying Americans to more.  More gasoline (how dare those Chinese use so much fossil fuels), more bigger, more better, more “of” than anyone.  We hold a staggering disproportionate share of the world’s wealth in this country, yet we all want more.  And that is the truth.

            The “more better” has struck the church as well.  We believe in big, and if our church is growing it affects our corporate self-esteem and is a sign that “God is at work blessing a congregation.”  Isn’t that the message we hear?  Come on now, you have heard that a million times.  God is blessing us by giving us more.  The mega-church is prospering and almost every other type of church is struggling on some level.  There are 3 or 4 very large churches in this city that just seem to grow and prosper and get richer and richer.  Every other church I know about is behind on their budget for the year (except us of course because we don’t have a budget).  Every church in town has lost members to these behemoths (again not us, we only lose members to atheism).  And I am quick to say that I have never attended any of these, so maybe what they offer is better.  I am sure their music is better than my cardboard dulcimer.  I am convinced that even when it comes to our churches we believe more is better.

            I have had some questions about Providence lately as our cyber-congregation is growing.  And many are scratching their heads because we buck convention in some ways, or maybe we don’t have the same goals as most other churches.  Someone this past week marveled that I only preach to a few each week.  The fact is this, are you ready for it? We have less.  A lot less. Now that doesn’t make us right either, it is just who we are.  Less people, less programs, no Sunday school.  We do not have youth mission trips to Panama City Beach or senior citizen trips to Branson.  Shoot, we don’t even have our own building (which is good and bad). 

            But there are ways in which we are more (even with less).  We really know how to worship (and even that is over in 45 minutes) and we have through the years been a way station for those wounded by religion. And we still minister greatly in that way.  We have supported local missions in a big way with money and with sweat and we have had a few quality ministry partners such as the Hope for the Future Daycare, Safe Places, and we have even been RAIN care partners for two men.  We give money to the Rice Depot, Safe Places, the CBF and the Alliance of Baptists every month.  We are small and happy, and that goes against every model of church growth I have ever heard of. 

            We also don’t take our religion and maybe ourselves too seriously, but we are doggedly determined to be autonomous Baptists in the best sense of the word.  We are open, ecumenical, and preaching here is the most liberating experience I could have as a minister.  It is freeing.  We do warmly welcome all who would be part of this enterprise if even for a while– no strings attached, and never any guilt or expectations. But we also know that we are not for everybody, maybe not even for very many everybodies.  So if we are to be about “more is better,” we are going to be very frustrated as a church, because frankly that is not ever who we are going to be. But I am also here today to say what you already know, and that is God has indeed blessed Providence.

            But what about in the arena of our faith?  Is more better?  Our lectionary text for today would seem to indicate so, on some level, as we have Luke’s version of something Jesus evidently said about faith. The metaphor is mixed a bit from what we read in Matthew; nevertheless it seems to be on the surface about increasing one’s faith. Here the disciples boldly request the Lord to increase their faith.  Sounds noble enough.  Surely with more faith they could do more.  That theology was popular then and is really big now.  More faith.  More results.  Pretty simple numeric equation to balance, and many, many people believe or practice this on some level.

            Actually, most of us believe it at some time or another.  If you don’t thinks so, you probably have not suffered enough to think you have disappointed God in some way, or by praying fervently enough you can convince God to change you status or situation. Jesus said to the disciples, if you had the faith of a mustard seed you could uproot a Mulberry tree and plant it in the sea and presumably make it grow faster than that guy who ate supersized McDoanld’s every meal for a month. The metaphor in Matthew is about moving a mountain with the faith the size of a grain of mustard seed. But no matter– same difference.  A little, itsy-bitsy mustard seed, barely visible to the eye, is big enough to move trees with lots of gnarly roots and or if you will, mountains– in other words this faith is enough to do the impossible.  If we had just a little faith, we could do the impossible.  And if you think that sounds ridiculous, we pray that way everyday especially when we pray for ourselves.

            There surely are many who want to increase their faith.  And why not, it does sound so noble.  If I had more faith I could do more and be better.  I wouldn’t stumble so much over my humanness. Maybe God would like me better.  And if God likes me better then I will be more blessed.  And if I am more blessed I will be happier and more spiritual.  If I had more faith, I wouldn’t sin so much and I probably wouldn’t get so much of what I deserve in life.  And nobody really hopes that they get what they really feel like they deserve in life, at least from the Almighty.  And maybe God would throw me a bone as one of his favorites.  However, if Israel of old was one of his favorites, I might be inclined to say choose someone else.  His choosing only caused them grief for several thousand years.  Regardless if faith works this way or not, it makes sense to want more faith. I mean really, who would want less faith?  What could it possibly hurt to have more faith?

            I guess there are some that don’t want more faith; they just want a simpler faith, one that works better.  Maybe a blind faith, or at least a faith that has an answer for every question.  I saw a billboard once that said “Jesus is the answer for Pine Bluff.”  I guess that anti-sagging britches ordinance they tried to pass last week wasn’t the answer for whatever ails Pine Bluff, so maybe Jesus is Pine Bluff’s answer (without even knowing what Pine Bluff’s question is).  And there are many groups who acquiesce to this type of blind, simplistic faith. You have to admit is certainly very palatable, especially if you have ever walked the dangerous street called ambiguity.  More faith simply means less doubt and more certainty for these folks.  And that means a whole lot less stress.  As a result, there are things that they know to be directly from God, and this level of surety is something that “strengthens” their faith, or at least is an icon of their faith.

            I am not knocking simple this morning (I’ll save that for another sermon), but my experience has been the opposite– that faith is a very complex thing.  I do wish that this was not so. I do at times want to regress by not having so much of it.  Because the truth is, faith can make one’s brain hurt, it can prick your conscience to sleeplessness, and it can make you do crazy, uncomfortable things with your life.  Who the heck needs more of that?  It can make you change careers, associate with people you would rather not, turn the face of reason away,  give away a lot of your money, and at times it can have  you embracing the ludicrous for no other reason than just because.  Again, who needs more of that?

            Faith is often at conflict with what we know to be true about the world from other means, and this is the trademark and the problem with blind faith.  We believe something based on faith, but if it is proven then there is no need for faith at all.  The plot thickens when we not only have to prove say, God exists, but our view of God is the correct one.  I sometimes find myself agreeing with Ambroise Bierce’s definition of faith, that “faith is a belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”1  Faith and reason are often bi-polar opposites.  Yet we believe, and we believe strongly enough to die for our convictions, especially our dogmas and creeds.

            Yet we at times are strangely weak in our faith as well, and could use a booster shot.  Some Christians believe it really is a question of how much faith you have, and you should acquire or horde more of it, sort of like a savings account.  These represent the ubiquitous “more is better” crowd. They say if you have enough faith you won’t get sick, you will speak in tongues, you will perform miracles, and you might even become familiar with God enough to make him jump through your hoops.  As a bonus, you will understand God’s will perfectly which just so happens is often the same as your own will, even down to the incidentals in life, like where you should go out to dinner or what job you should take.  Jesus said, “If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed you can transplant a tree to the sea and it will live. You can really move mountains as Matthew interprets. 

            Well, the problem is most of us don’t quantify faith, we qualify it, and as long as you have it, it doesn’t really matter if you have moved any mountains lately.  In fact, most of us are better at making mountains, say out of the proverbial molehill that we are moving them.  And as Baptists, we would rather climb a mountain that move it, because we’ve got an excellent program for just that purpose!  You can take a class on mountain climbing, and rededicate yourself anew to the mountain climbing task.

            My faith journey has made me a skeptic and my experience requires that I am a realist.  I have been up to my neck in both over the last 26 years as a chaplain at Baptist.  And after seeing a 1000 different people suffer and die a 1000 different ways, I find myself being skeptical of fairytale religion.  I am a skeptic, and some would say I lack faith perhaps.  Because I don’t believe in UFO’s, or the reality of the WWF.  I don’t believe in every conspiracy theory that comes along, and I don’t believe the car salesmen at the world’s largest Chrysler dealership.   And I don’t believe half the stuff I hear from televangelist.  In fact I often don’t believe what I hear from the average pulpit very often, because it is not realistic, and is based on blind faith, and it doesn’t work in real life.  I resist blind faith.

            Blind faith is the nightmare of the true skeptic.  Blind faith is the antithesis of the scientific method.  Blind faith has led centuries of Christians into many errors and heresies.  Blind faith has led to selling indulgences and to the crusades.  Blind faith has led to Jihad and other holy wars.  Blind faith has led to burning witches at the stake, and heretics thrown in jail. Blind faith has led to schisms and splits in Christendom.  Blind faith has led to all sorts of beliefs, such as a literal four- headed beast coming out of the sea to do battle with a Christ who rides a white horse and carries a sword.

            Blind faith seems so arbitrary to me.  Blind faith throws all reason out the window, and believes with a lack of evidence.  Blind faith is one that has to have all the answers in order to cover up any insecurities or any inconsistencies in ones belief or value systems, no matter how much of it we posses. 

            I am convinced that people who are religious know-it-alls like we have talked about before, are people who in reality are trying to convince themselves more than anyone else. They have to increase their faith to keep it working.   They are people who need to know, and cannot deal with everyday realities of life.  And the more dogmatic they become, the more blind their faith becomes. And the harder life gets, the more dogmatic they become.

            A faith that has to have all the answers is a faith that contorts reality to fit its world view.  Sooner or later you have to reinterpret experience to fit your faith system whether it fits or not.  You have to drive some square theological pegs into some mighty round holes.  I see people do this every day. And they have to have more, it is the law of diminishing returns in action.

            Experience, reason, and science are all threats to the more is better crowd, and their blind faith becomes a master mechanism for denying their way through life.  This blind faith has no room for doubt, and in fact doubt is the opposite of faith for these individuals.  You can’t doubt and you cannot question God.  Not ever.  No matter how preposterous your propositional theology becomes, you cannot question God.  You might get struck down by a bolt of lightening or meet some other distasteful demise.  For the life of me, I am not sure where the lightening bolt metaphor comes from.  But you can’t question or have doubts.  That my friend, is faith that is blind as a bat, and I’m here today to say that I am skeptical!  I have plenty of questions for God, and some sort of religious based denial doesn’t really make them go away.

            You see, blind faith is a noun.  Blind Faith is something you get or posses.  And you have to have a lot of it to be spiritually mature or a spiritual giant.  And you get a lot of blind faith by simply believing a set of propositions or buying into a formal or many times informal creed.  It may be an intellectual assent or it may be an emotion, but it is a noun, not a verb,  that is quantifiable.  If you have enough, you can do great things and witness many miracles.  But how much faith is enough?

            The interpretation of this scripture turns on its literal meaning. The conditional clause can be translated, “If you had just the faith the size of a mustard seed…and you do…you do have faith.” Are you familiar with the saying of Mother Teresa? Our calling is not to do great things, but to do small things with great love. The scripture might be saying something similar to us: we do not need more faith; we need to use the faith that we have!
            It then becomes not a question of how much we have.  That has never mattered.  If I have more than you or you have more than me is of no consequence.   If you have the faith of a grain, one single, solitary, little- bitty grain of a mustard seed you can move a mountain or do a little transplanting. Having more doesn’t matter and misses the point.  It’s not the quantity, but the quality, the kind, the type of faith.  A faith that is not blind allegiance, but a faith that is worked out in and born from real life situations.    It is a faith that is a verb, and it does not die with the harsh realities of life, but is instead born out of those realities.  I have seen it over and over again.  Real life sheds light on blinded eyes, and the naivete that some call faith has to have substance to endure.   It is this faith that moves mountains.  It has substance, and the evidence is clear, like handwriting on a wall, say the walls of our hearts.

            This faith helps us to move mountains.  Mountains to tough to climb, and to far to walk around.  Mountains of fear and mountains of doubt.  Mountains of anxiety, and mountains of grief.  Mountains of failure and mountains of sadness.  Mountains of oppression and mountains of depression.  Mountains that you are facing and mountains that loom on our horizons.

            This type of faith is not fact, it is not science, but it is not blind either.  It is not “evidence that demands a verdict,” but rather substance that demands a decision.  Us skeptics might even say it is the substance of what we hope for.  The evidence of what we have never seen, yet somehow know in our hearts is there. It is a substance that really does make a difference in all that we experience in life, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  It is a faith that works.  It is the reason that we are here.  It is as simple as that– and as profound as that!   The good news is, we don’t have to have a bucket full of it– just a small seed.  Just the amount, like the disciples, that we already have.  No more.  No less.  Thanks be to God! Amen.