“I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God,” writes the Apostle Paul to Timothy.  God is the most generous giver, more than we could ever imagine.  God constantly gives us the gifts of grace and faith.  It’s our work to say “Yes” to these gifts, and to nurture the many things God gives us, to fan the flames and keep the fire of grace and truth alive.  And it doesn’t take much on our part.  To bring in the other major image from today’s readings, a mustard seed is not a big thing: it’s tiny.  But if our Faith and trust in God were only that big, we could move mountains.  That’s all we need to contribute to this whole equation: the tiniest little bit of faithfulness and trust and perseverance. 

The apostles had asked “Increase our faith.”  They already had Faith in the Lord but they knew they needed more, and that’s probably where most of us are too.  We obviously have some Faith already: we’re here in this church this today for a reason: we do believe in Christ.  But the apostles have a very apt and reasonable request that we can make our own: increase our Faith.  This whole thing reminds us that Faith depends partly upon grace, but also partly upon us.  And this is why the Lord gets into this whole business about the servant who is expected to do what he is supposed to do; when we choose to be in relationships of any kind, there are always obligations involved.  And that’s certainly true of our relationship with God.  Faith is a grace from God, but it’s also something that we choose and do.  Faith is a gift because it’s infused into us directly by God in various ways, especially in baptism and when we receive the other sacraments: the grace of God moves us and assists us to have Faith and to live it out.  But it’s also true that Faith is a human act as well.  In an act of Faith, the human mind does something intellectually, and the human will chooses something voluntarily.  And what we’re assenting to with our mind and what we’re choosing with our will, is fundamentally to be in this relationship, intentionally and meaningfully.  We’re willing to take on the obligations of this relationship and dedicate the time and effort necessary to foster it.  We choose to accept Christ, allowing him to dwell in our hearts and to prepare a fire of his divine love there. 

The mustard seed is small, but it’s full of wonderful flavor.  So those simple little mustard seeds, those little acts of Faith in our life: they really make a difference.  Things like: coming to Mass every Sunday, receiving the other sacraments, trying to learn the Faith more deeply, doing good for those in physical and spiritual need, all of these things that really are the kinds of things the servant in the gospel is an example of: just simple things that we are supposed to do: we don’t pat ourselves on the back about them; we’re people of integrity who fulfill the basic obligations of our relationships; we don’t pat ourselves on the back, but at the same time, we recognize that these things matter.  A mustard seed is all it takes.  And finally, we should never forget that Faith always involves that free and direct gift from God, pouring that Faith into our minds and hearts.  So we have to remember to pray for Faith, directly.  And there are many ways: “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.”  “Jesus, I trust in you.”  Perhaps the simplest, the prayer of the apostles today: “Lord, increase my Faith.”  So we pray today for all of us here together and for each one of us individually: “Lord, increase my Faith.”  We hope that at the end of our lives we’ll be able to say with humility and integrity: You know, I’ve just done what I was obliged to do.  And our loving Lord’s response, we believe in Faith, will be, Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your Father’s house.