The Gospel should be self evident from the sermon, but William Carey is a possibility in the Holy Women, Holy Men (Holy Smokes this is a lot of commemorations) trials to replace LFF.
“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
When’s the last time you moved a mountain?
How big was it?
How exciting was it?
Who did you tell?
William Carey moved a mountain. William Carey was born in 1761 in Paulerspury England, also known as the middle of nowhere, the place the Industrial Revolution forgot. His parents were weavers, they apprenticed him to a shoemaker, and he married the shoemaker’s daughter.
How in the world did he end up founding the Baptist Missionary Society? How in the world did he end up in India?
How in the world did he translate the Gospel into Sanskrit and Bengali and found a printing press that published in 44 languages or dialect of India?
“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
William Carey lived his life by this. William Carey moved a mountain. William Carey knew why he was a Christian and what he was going to do about it.
The father in our gospel today is someone else who wasn’t going to let a mountain get in his way. His boy was going to be healed, no matter how big a mountain he had to move. He heard about Jesus’ ministry and that the Apostles were able to do the same, and off he went. And when the Apostle’s couldn’t do it. Did he go home? No, he pushed his way right through the crowd to Jesus and said, Have mercy. I tried going to your disciples but they couldn’t cure him. Have mercy.
Not only is he so gutsy as to walk up to Jesus himself, he complains about the quality of service. And still, Jesus heals his boy.
William Carey called this: Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.
Jesus calls this faith the size of a mustard seed. When I compare a mustard seed, to a mountain, I realize that the operative word here is audacious. Possibly even obnoxious.
The kind of faith we are asked to have is not based on probability or likelihood or reasonableness.
It is something far removed from confidence, because it doesn’t come from our own abilities. In fact, it is so contrary to our own abilities that it takes a complete lack of embarrassment in order to live into it. Because if we are going to move a mountain, metaphorically or literally, our faith is going to look utterly ridiculous to someone who doesn’t have that sort of faith.
Are you prepared to act like a fool for Christ?
Because the apostles weren’t. When they asked Jesus why they couldn’t cure that epileptic boy, he told them, you don’t have enough faith.
I am guessing, the disciples had gotten a little confident. Cast out a couple of demons, move a bit of a molehill, and we all start thinking, hey, look what I can do.
But if I am doing it, faith isn’t.
Doubts.
Details.
Disbelief.
All of these can shake our confidence. If we aren’t careful, they will shake our faith, too.
Faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain. That isn’t very much faith. I think we don’t need to have Jesus himself lay hands on us to have faith the size of a mustard seed. I think I could have faith the size of a mustard seed. I think you could, too.
But a mountain. Really? Jesus isn’t just fooling around. He really means for us to move mountains.
And if we aren’t very good at it, we aren’t alone.
Jesus doesn’t just rebuke the apostles for not having enough faith; he rebukes an entire generation. “Faithless and perverse” he calls them. “How much longer must I put up with you?”
But if we want to be good at it, we can’t let embarrassment stop us.
William Carey didn’t. It seems William Carey wasn’t ever embarrassed, even if we, hundreds of years later, might wish to be embarrassed by him. The pamphlet he wrote in 1792, it was called “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.” That same year, he co-founded a missionary society, the “Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen.” In 1793, he and another missionary were on a boat for India. Seven years later, they baptized their first convert.
There is a lot of faith in those 7 years. Because when all the missionaries that get sent to you die, and when wife has a nervous breakdown, and your child dies from dysentery and your printing press burns down and the East India Company doesn’t want you there, you know you are sitting on some mountain.
“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
How many of us are living that kind of faith?
How many of us are an embarrassment to our family and friends?
How many of us are moving mountains?
“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
