Sermons

What It Means to Live in God’s Love

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “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. “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'” 

Happy St. Francis Day to you all. Today invites us to remember that all creation is interconnected and precious in God’s sight. As Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez of Pennsylvania said, “We have a responsibility to be caretakers—stewards of God’s creation—whether it’s animals, the land or the sky … everything.” 

It is a day when we have our animal companions with us in church, and we pause to marvel at the creation that we are called to care for. It is also a day that helps us remember our place in the story of creation, not above it, but woven into it. And that sense of being small but connected, humble but loved, comes right alongside the gospel text we’ve just heard. 

The disciples come to Jesus with what sounds like a perfectly reasonable request: “Increase our faith!” Who doesn’t want that? And some of us have prayed for it at some point? We imagine that faith is something we could measure, like the amount of coffee in a mug or the amount of gas in a tank. And if only we could top it off, then we’d finally have enough to do the big, amazing things that God asks of us. Jesus doesn’t answer that way. Instead, he tells them that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey. 

Huh? Uprooting a mulberry tree and putting it in the sea is not a fabulous example of a usable faith. Nobody needs a tree growing out of the ocean. So you have to wonder if this is not another way that Jesus is talking to us that turns our world upside down. It feels like Jesus is tweaking us a little, saying faith is not about quantity or power, but about trust in God. 

The Book of Common Prayer reminds us, “Faith is the means by which we receive God’s grace and blessing” (BCP, p. 862). Faith isn’t magic. It isn’t spiritual horsepower that we use to bend the world to our will. It is trust in the presence and the tug of something bigger than us. It is a promise of being able to see something bigger than ourselves and living into that obligation to others, knowing we are not alone and that we do our best to see and to love one another. Receiving that blessing can also come from being part of this community, working with and being present to one another. If we do that, then a community is formed, and we can support one another in the tough times, especially those of you who are unsure about when your next pay cheque will arrive. 

And that’s where this ridiculous image of a tree in the sea is so helpful. Because if we think faith is about power—about controlling outcomes—then we’re missing the point. Faith is not about giving orders to trees. It’s about leaning on God when the ground feels shaky. It’s about planting ourselves in the truth that God is God and we are God’s beloved. It also is sensing and seeking the divine spark that moves beyond ourselves, chasing down that good, orderly direction and moving towards something greater. 

We are not the source of grace. We don’t earn God’s love by racking up good deeds. Everything we do—acts of justice, compassion, mercy, even just showing up to worship on a Sunday—these are not ways of “proving” our worth to God. They are simply the things we “ought to have done” as people who already live in God’s love. 

Francis did not set out to be extraordinary. He lived with radical simplicity, preaching to the birds, caring for lepers, and attending to those who suffered. He did not think of himself as a hero, but simply as a servant doing what God had asked of him. His life of humility has inspired centuries of Christians, not because he was powerful, but because he was faithful. 

This passage also speaks to the long, slow work of discipleship. The apostles want faith in bulk. They want to achieve spiritual maturity quickly. But Jesus teaches that discipleship is not about dramatic gestures or supernatural feats. It is about showing up, day after day, with trust and humility. It is about knowing who you are.

I am the daughter and granddaughter of strong Haida women from Old Masset in Haida Gwaii. My relationship with the earth has been one that is slow learning and emerging reciprocity. It is a place of learning because, after the residential school system removed my awh from her culture, my family and I have had to walk back toward who the Creator made us to be. It has not been an easy journey, as we had no map, and different members of our family have come to their own understanding of what it means to be Haida. 

What has aided me on this journey is growing food and specifically is growing fruit and especially berries. Specifically, Gaan xaw’laa, what I grew up calling saskatoon berries, and what my neighbors here know as serviceberries. When I planted a serviceberry tree in my backyard, we did so because it was intended to be an ornamental tree, and yet it bore fruit abundantly. I looked it up, and the berries were edible. I tried one and it was sweet and sage-y. However, not much weight to it. So I thought nothing more about it. 

One morning, looking at the branches heavy with berries, I heard a whisper: jam. I listened again, and again it came: jam. So I gathered with the naans my ancestors, and together we made jam; they whispered in my ears the whole time. They reminded me not to take all the berries—leave half, mainly for the birds. Each year the berries return, and each year they teach me something new: patience, gratitude, restraint, joy. I thank the tree before I harvest, I remember the birds and the balance, and I listen for what the berries have to say. 

For me, the serviceberry is more than food—it is a living sacrament of connection. It tucks me back into the rhythms of creation, reminds me of my ancestors who tended the land before me, and shows me that the Creator is still speaking to all the people through the land itself. In the sweetness of these berries, I taste both memory and promise: the call to live with reciprocity, to remember who we are, and to walk gently and honor the sacredness. 

On this St. Francis Day, may we remember that we are small, but never insignificant. Like the mustard seed, like the sparrow, like the servant in the field—we are part of God’s incredible creation, loved beyond measure, called to trust, to serve, and to rejoice in the interconnected web of life. 

Amen.