Tuesday, 28th Week of Ordinary Time

Matthew 17:14-20
The Daily Office

“For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move” (Matt 17:20)

This is one of those sayings of Jesus’s that can get a believer in trouble.  Either, it can set us up to fail, so that when all our prayers and best efforts don’t achieve the desired result, we beat ourselves up for our lack of faith.  Or, we can throw up our hands and say, “What’s the point of even trying?!”

Whenever you read this verse from Matthew’s Gospel, keep these verses in mind as well: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matt 7:21-23). 

We are not to sell ourselves, or our faith, short.  We (not solitary you) can do amazing things if we trust God to take our mustard seeds of faith and run with them.  But even if someone can do the “mighty work” of moving mountains, that doesn’t make them a follower of Jesus.  So, don’t be afraid to try, and fail, for the sake of love.  For as Paul says, “And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2).