(P)Review Bible Study: Luke 17:5-6 ... Your Roots Are Showing

        Back when I used to live in southern Florida we would make the annual pilgrimage back home to West Virginia each year for Christmas with the family.   It was a long drive, but the pleasure of spending the holidays with family was worth all that packing, driving, and hassle.  I always felt a touch of melancholy as we drove back to Florida after one of those Christmas visits.  We not only had to drive nearly twenty four hours back to Florida but it felt like we were driving to a different planet where we were far from home and isolated from all we recognized as normal.  The drive south in January had that effect in part because of he strangeness of driving not only over mountains and down to the shore, but also though the seasons themselves.  We would begin in the cold winter of the West Virginia January, drive south until we hit the inexplicable spring that blanketed the Georgia/ Florida line, then slowly we would traverse the length of the state of Florida to arrive at our house deep in the southern Florida January Summer.  

    You see, we lived south of the frost-line and down there anything under 70 is considered freezing cold.  If you think that photo there is a joke, let me tell you what, actual Floridians are for-real about putting on coats and hats when the temperatures dip down into the chilly fifties. Of course everything down there was different.  The grass isn't like grass in the north (it's sharp and pokey), the bugs aren't like they are up north (they are "YUGE"), and the trees are not like they are up north.  In fact down where we were there really weren't trees.  Not real trees at least. Sure we palm trees, and citrus trees, and coconut trees, and banana trees, but really there were no regular old trees...you know the kind with leaves.  
    I had a nice palm tree in the front yard.  If I am being honest, I liked it well enough...at least until it started invading my house.  

You see Palm trees have these little tiny roots that seek out water sources and if they can find one they can climb their way into, say a drain pipe, and then rapidly proliferate until they block off every single fraction of an inch so that no water can flow at all. I discovered this when one of those little rapid growing roots from my palm tree found my sewer line and completely choked it off virtually over night.  The next time we ran the washing machine water backed up all over the house spewing sewage out all our drains.  I really missed good ole normal trees with normal roots. 

  I will admit though, I had tree envy.  My neighbor had an Indian Banyan tree.  

    A banyan is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree or on buildings and bridges. Banyan often refers specifically to the Indian banyan, which is the national tree of the Republic of India, though the term has been generalized to include all figs that share a characteristic life cycle.

If you have never seen one of these things they are enormous and have these fantastic root systems.  Here is the famous one on the Edison Estate in Fort Myers Florida:

For the record folks, that is one tree. Yep, that is a fig tree...much like the mulberry tree Jesus is referring to in the scriptures for today. 

Luke 17:5-10
17:5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
17:6 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.

    Now if you know me, you know that when I quote scripture I always like to do it in context.  Right before this passage Jesus has just told his disciples that no matter what, if someone sins against you and repents, even if they do it over and over and over in the same day, you have to forgive them.  The disciples are dumbfounded by this teaching and wonder who would have the sort of faith to do something like this.  
    Jesus' response is that if you really have faith, even a mustard seed worth, you can tell this mulberry tree to uproot itself and be tossed into the sea.  

Fact Check:  Jesus is not referring here to a European Mullberry (you know, the kind that actually grows mullberries) so much as the eastern sycamore fig tree that is called a "mullberry".  It looks kind of like Edison's Banyan. 

    Was Jesus standing by a mulberry tree when he preached this sermon?  Maybe.  But I wonder sometimes if Jesus was not pointing to an actual mulberry tree so much as he was pointing to sin itself.  Sin finds ways to root itself in our lives much like the mulberry/fig tree he is referencing.  Like the branching roots of the mulberry it spreads and diversifies.

 Like the mulberry it looks like multiple trees while in fact merely being one thing that takes on many forms.  Like the mulberry it has an ever widening root base that can take over where it is planted crushing anything in it's path and rooting anywhere there is the slightest crack.  And, like sin, a mulberry can grow back anywhere even the least little bit of it's roots are left in tact.  What can take a force of nature like this and uproot it in a way that it could be taken and tossed away into the ocean?  Jesus says that this amazing supernatural force was one thing:  faith. 

    Now, the disciples were certain that faith was the key, that is why they were asking for more, but Jesus told them they only need a mustard seed worth of faith to root up sin and evil in their lives and live a life of forgiveness.  How can that be?
    Well, you see it isn't about how much faith you have...It is about what...and more importantly "who" you have faith in.   If we think of faith as simply another way of saying "strength of will" then we will inevitably think we need more.  After all, who feels completely confidant all the time.  
    But if we think of faith as an awareness of our weakness of will which points us to rely on the strength of God, then a little is all you need.  The only way to root out the stubborn mulberry of sin and toss it in the ocean is if we recognize that we cannot in fact do that at all, but Jesus can and did for each of us.  Christ took each of our sins to the cross with him, and that is exactly here he left them. We simply have to learn to live in that forgiveness and then let it overflow to those around us. 
    Our faith isn't in our strength...It is in Jesus' strength.  If he says we are forgiven, no matter how many times before we have asked, we are forgiven.  If he tells us our neighbor is forgiven by the same grace, no matter how many times our neighbor asks Jesus for forgiveness they are forgiven.  So, when those who have wronged us ask for forgiveness, it isn't up to us to decide if to, or not to, forgive.  Jesus already had the strength of will to do that for us.  All we have to do is live in the joy that comes from knowing that the hard part is out of our hands, and in the hands of our creator and redeemer who can do all things.  So feel free to offer forgiveness and root up that old mulberry tree, it is the hand of God that gives it a toss into the ocean, not ours.