Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen

You’ve got an 8:00am class, a four hour meeting, or you‘re simply having trouble keeping your eyes open staring at a computer screen while sitting at your desk studying.  Whatever the case, you‘re part of the countless number of people, including many young adults like yourselves looking for a quick way to raise your energy level.  Traditionally, that role has been served by a strong cup of coffee (or for me two or three cups of coffee); however, for many these days, the frapacino and latte have become old news.  Real adrenaline now comes from a can.  And a small can at that—the energy drink.  Need to fly through that midterm?  Crack open a Red Bull.  It “gives you wings.”  Drained after a night on 6th street? Get back on track with “Rock Star.”  Got a big project to tackle at the office?  A big task calls for the appropriately named—“New York Minute.”  Perhaps you have a favorite of you own. 

With colorful names and a strong connection to party scenes all over the country and world for that matter, energy drinks have become the fastest growing segment of the soft drink market, with sales going from a mere $12 million in 1997 to well over $1 billion this year.  Surveys show that 22 percent of college students are slurping down these sugar packed and caffeine fortified cans of juiced up—juice.  There are now some 200 brands of energy drinks on the market as we speak.
 
So what’s the real attraction?  It’s probably not the taste.  Red Bull, for example, in my opinion, tastes something close to cough syrup.  Caffeine is a bigger draw, but the reality is that an average energy drink has about the same caffeine content as a weak cup of coffee.  The most hyped ingredient, though, is “taurine”—a nonessential amino acid.  Taurine sounds a whole lot like Taurus and Taurus, as we all know, is a bull hence the name “Red Bull” the granddaddy of all energy drinks.  The presence of taurine in the ingredients has even led to ridiculous rumors on college campuses that “Red Bull” energy drink actually contains bull testosterone.  Fortunately of unfortunately, depending on your point of view, it’s not true (It’s just a lot of bull).
 
Regardless of whether energy drinks actually work or not, there’s a real appeal to the thought that slamming a can of Red Bull can transform you from tired and sluggish to exuding the energy of a stampeding bull.  Energy drinks are the pop culture equivalent of Popeye scarfing down a can of spinach.  Whatever the situation, whether facing a final, battling a Brutus, or just trying to get through a late night, the popularity of energy drinks suggest that people are crying out for energy—to make it through all the demands in life.

Similarly, in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus’ spiritually weary disciples cry out to him, “Increase our faith!”  The disciples’ desperate plea is like the countless number of people turning to some energy drink for an extra boost to face a difficult tasks set before them. 

You see today’s gospel lesson doesn’t include the first four verses of chapter 17.  However they are absolutely essential to understanding verses 5-10 which we did hear.  The disciples cry for help, “Increase our faith!” is a visceral response to an incredibly difficult teaching that Jesus gives his disciples in verses 1-4.  Jesus says to his followers, and to us who wish to be his followers today, in those four proceeding verses, “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.  Be on your guard!  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.”

Jesus is saying in effect, “It would be better for you to drown than to cause another person to sin.”  On its own, that’s a pretty tough teaching.  Speaking for myself, I feel certain that somewhere along the way I have caused someone to sin.  And, Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to say, “In addition, you’ve got to confront the people in your life when you see them behaving in a way that is harmful to themselves or others.”  That’s a difficult teaching as well.  Episcopalians are terrible at confronting people about their behavior.  We’re always afraid we are going to be perceived as judgmental or close minded.  And Jesus’ lesson doesn’t stop there either.  He gives a third command to his followers—that might be the most difficult of all.  He says, “Every single time someone who hurts you says that they are sorry and means it you have to forgive them.  Even if, the same person hurts you in the same way seven times in the same day—if they say sorry and mean it, you must forgive them.”  Collectively, Jesus’ three commands call his followers and us to a life of loving people perfectly. 

Now, loving people perfectly is a daunting task.  I’m sure the disciples were completely freaked out—wondering how in the world they were going to accomplish this. How they were going to become the super lovers, if you will, that Jesus was asking them to become.  So they respond in exasperation, “Increase our faith!”  The disciples, hearing Jesus’ commands, were suffering from a severe case of spiritual fatigue!  They needed a quick boost of strength to face the difficult tasks set before them, so they turn to Jesus to pump them up with the moral fortitude and spiritual power that come through their faith. 

Now, one might expect that Jesus would warmly receive the disciple’s request for more faith.  It seems to me that if you are going to ask Jesus for more of something faith is a good choice.  However, Jesus answers the disciples sharply implying that they have not really understood the nature of genuine faith.  You see, the disciples assume that they have some faith but will need greater faith in order to measure up to Jesus’ challenging teaching.  Like a tired student might slurp down a “Red Bull” to have the energy to get through an 8:00 AM class, the disciples think they just need to be pumped full of faith to get through the challenges of being a Christ follower. 

However, Jesus shatters his followers’ illusion about faith.  He points out that actually his disciples have very little faith to begin with.  In fact, he says that the size of their faith is not even comparable to a tiny mustard seed.  Jesus says that if they even just had that much faith, they could command a mulberry tree—a sizable tree with a very deep and complicated root system—to be uprooted and planted in the sea.  We don’t have that much faith.  We can’t do that miracle.  The truth is our faith is likely no greater than the faith of Jesus’ first followers—less than the size of a mustard seed.  Therefore, if our success at living the Christian life is tied to the amount of faith we demonstrate in our lives, we are all in real trouble.  However, the Good News in today’s lesson is that our capacity to live as Christ followers is not based on the size of our faith but, instead, on God’s faithful activity in our lives.  

You see, Jesus is teaching his disciples and us that we don’t need more faith to live into the challenges of being a Christ follower.  Rather, we need to understand that faith, even the little we have, enables God to work in our lives in ways that defy ordinary human experience.  God working through us can accomplish more than we could ever ask or imagine.  We don’t need to fuel up on faith giving us an extra boost of miraculous power to be a follower of Jesus.  Faith isn’t like an energy drink that we throw back in order to get that extra burst of energy to meet the challenges of school or work—or make it through a long night out.  Jesus is teaching us that we need only a little faith to love people perfectly because that kind of power comes from God alone.  And God works through all people of faith whether that faith is great or small. 

You only need a little faith to open the door for God to work in your life.  And when God faithfully does, you will have all the strength and energy you need to accomplish unimaginable good, at times, even loving people perfectly.  Amen

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