The Faith to Forgive

“Faith like a mustard seed.”

It’s a famous phrase. It’s an encouraging image: you don’t have to have faith like a boulder or a Mack truck or a redwood. A mustard seed will do—and mustard seeds are about the size of the round head on a straight pin.

You see that phrase pop up twice in the gospels, in Matthew 17 and in Luke 17. Matthew tells the story of a demon-possessed boy whom the disciples weren’t able to heal. When Jesus is told, he promptly exorcizes the fiend, leading the disciples to ask him: “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus replies:

“Because of your little faith. 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.” (17:20-21)

With just a tiny amount of faith, one can accomplish incredible things, move mountains.

That’s Matthew.

I noticed recently that the way the phrase shows up in Luke is very different. Jesus’s actual words are pretty similar, though he goes for a more modest illustration:

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.” (17:5-6)

The big difference in Luke is the context of the teaching. In Matthew, the disciples didn’t have enough faith to perform an exorcism, and I can’t say that I blame them. But what leads them to plead “Increase our faith” in Luke’s version?

It's Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness.

“If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (17:3-5)

If forgiving someone—especially a repeat offender—feels like a small miracle to you, almost like moving a mountain, you’re not alone. The disciples felt the same way. And according to the Great Physician, the prescription is the same for forgiving someone as for driving out demons: you need a mustard seed of faith.

If forgiveness is a struggle for you, I think Jesus, Peter, and the rest understand.

But, at the same time, if forgiveness is a struggle for you, don’t think that it’s insurmountable. You don’t need a boulder or Mack truck or redwood of faith to do this. You don’t. All you need is a mustard seed. Maybe just enough faith to say ‘Lord, help me at least want to want to forgive him’. Or the faith to pray, ‘Lord, I hate her, but bless her family today.’ 

That’s a tiny start. 

But a mustard seed’s a tiny seed. The whole point of the phrase is that God can do much when we can only do very little.

So what tiny, mustard-seed-sized step can you take towards forgiveness today? Because Jesus assures us that the Lord can make miracles out of that.