{"id":466,"date":"2013-07-19T13:07:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T13:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourbestlifenow\/?p=466"},"modified":"2013-07-19T16:19:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T16:19:26","slug":"faith-so-simple-as-a-mustard-seed-so-why-does-religion-complicate-faith-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourbestlifenow\/2013\/07\/faith-so-simple-as-a-mustard-seed-so-why-does-religion-complicate-faith-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Faith So Simple…As a Mustard Seed…So Why Does Religion Complicate Faith?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MustardSeed\"<\/a>Faith is so simple. So very simple. It is religion that complicates it.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Control, perhaps. Distinction from other religions, maybe. I\u2019m not quite sure.<\/p>\n

What I do know is that faith is not about either control or distinction. Instead, it is about release, the turning loose of all attachments.<\/p>\n

When Jesus said, \u201cIf you have faith no bigger than a mustard seed\u2026\u201d (Lk 17:6) he was not saying faith comes in varying quantities, as in 16 oz. sized faith, or 32 oz. or super-sized. Yet, this is how\u00a0so many religious people have mistakenly understood his words.<\/p>\n

It is a mistake easily made.<\/p>\n

I have a friend, for example, who joined the ranks of the\u00a0\u201cnones\u201d<\/a>\u00a0some years ago, even before the press began designating this rapidly-growing segment of our American population \u2013 the formerly religious who\u2019ve given up on organized church or religion. \u00a0He, like many of us, was raised in a\u00a0fundamentalist Christian church<\/a>\u00a0where they believed in degrees, or sizes, of faith. To be sure, faith the size of a mustard seed was better than no faith at all. And, they reasoned, according to Jesus, even this size faith could accomplish much. The really faithful Christians, however, or believers, were those who possessed a bigger faith than this. As a consequence, they were also the more favored by God and, without question, more spiritual than others, too.<\/p>\n

Which is why, when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, the members of his fundamentalist church gathered around her and prayed for her healing. They had big faith. They were certain, if they prayed, believing the cancer will be removed, it would be removed. She would get better. So, they prayed. They believed.<\/p>\n

But she got worse.<\/p>\n

So, they prayed more and harder. They pleaded God for bigger faith. They believed that some among them may not have had faith even the size of a mustard seed, otherwise her healing would have come sooner. Some pointed fingers. Others continued to pray. All of them kept pleading for God to grant them more faith\u2026greater faith\u2026faith enough to be big enough to result in her healing.<\/p>\n

She grew worse instead.<\/p>\n

On the night before she died, my friend described the scene this way: \u201cIt was as if the whole church family was gathered outside her hospital room in prayer. Some on their knees. Others with raised hands. Everyone was wailing and believing and seeking to turn their mustard seed-sized faith into something bigger\u2026something more deserving of God\u2019s attention\u2026something that would finally get results and \u00a0heal Mom of her cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to have more faith!\u201d our fundamentalist preacher insisted. \u00a0\u201dEveryone join hands,\u201d he directed, \u201cand let\u2019s pray for more faith\u2026let\u2019s pray her through to healing!\u201d<\/p>\n

She died at 8AM the following morning.<\/p>\n

My friend quit going to church altogether after that religious fiasco. And, only recently, has he begun talking about God at all. For many years, he just lived with his resentment toward the whole matter, offended as he has been toward the minister and church family who regarded him as the culprit\u2026the one not having enough faith or adequate faith to be deserving of God\u2019s compassion and healing for his mother. It is understandable why he has lived with much guilt over this regrettable experience.<\/p>\n

In time, however, he realized the futility of their thinking\u2026or believing. His guilt turned him against this church, and every other church, too. I have my doubts that he\u2019ll ever return.\u00a0Why? Because he had been misled to believe that, if he just had enough faith, she would have been healed. When she died instead, he was left with no other conclusion but that his mother\u2019s death was his fault, the consequence of his little faith.<\/p>\n

This is such a perversion of what Jesus was saying through this beautiful mustard seed metaphor of faith.<\/p>\n

So, what was Jesus saying? He was saying that\u2026<\/p>\n