What I've learned just a few days ago

The other night I had two insights: here is one. I was thinking about the pericope where Jesus' disciples ask to have their faith increased and Jesus' response is that if they had faith like a mustard seed they'd be able to toss a mountain into the sea through some kind of ttelekinesis. The telekinesis part is what gets emphasized in most uses of this text. Usually there is an exhortation to take risks, or some method of building faith is put forth - the focus being on the image of tossing the mountain into the sea, as if Jesus here is saying, "I want you all to toss mountains into the sea, or Faith is therefore the belief in impossible things - ergo Throw away your crutches, don't take your insulin; or else Ask for anything, no matter how outlandish, and if you have faith you'll get that rocket-powered cadilac bass boat sauna.
What I think happens here si that Jesus doesn't tell them how to increase their faith. A mustard seed could care less about tossing mountains into the sea. In fact the image Jesus crafts is of an insignificant seed growing and becoming what it is meant to be. Nothing could be less dramatic. Nothing could require less telekinesis - which is a good thing because telekinesis doesn't work.
Jesus describes a seed, and it doesn't matter if it's a mustard seed, it could have been a cotton seed - a seed is unlike what it will be and at the same time can become nothing else. A seed is more likely to be eaten by the bird than to provide a nest for it. Yet even in this event the seed emerges fertilized and able to grow.
It's almost as if Christ is telling them: Have faith to be who you are.
Eventually the mustatrd seed does grow and becomes a place of refuge for the birds that threatened to consume it.
Perhaps the disciples request springs from that story of Elijah and Elisha where Elisha wants to get Elijah's power. The disciples realizing that they're incapable of doing what Jesus does have begun to reckon that they may eventually be on their own with their own traveling messiah show and they got nothing. So they say We got nothing. Increase our faith. And Jesus is like So you'd like to throw a mountain into the sea? Who do you think you are? I'll telll you who you are: you're a mustard seed. You're not Vesuvius. You're a seed, a germ of what you could be. If you could only have the faith to be who you are you would really be something. A bush for instance doesn't seem like much. See I'm tying a donkey to one right now. I could uproot this with some effort - but why? Would I then plant it in the sea? What would be the point?
Have faith to be who you are. You are disciples. Have faith that that is good enough. Have faith that you don't need the largest house. Have faith that you lead by serving. Have faith that your life is in loving one another and sharing out of your abundance. Have faith that what you have is abundance and that you don't need to hoard. Have the faith of the birds and the grass.Have the faith to Be in the moment. To live in the present. And if you do this you will form a connumity that offers refuge to a world that now threatens to swallow you. That is who you are. That is the faith that is in you.