I have visions of one of those drive-through mega-churches.

Our car pulls up to the speaker.

"Good morning. What may I get for you today?"

"I’ll have this morning’s lessons, please. And prayers for healing for Betty…peace and comfort for my son… I dunno - perhaps a sermon – how long is it? And some faith, of course. In fact, would you "super-size" that faith?"

"Thank you. Will that be all?"

"Yes, please."

"I’ll have your total at the window."

"Increase our faith," the disciples ask Jesus this morning.

"Increase our faith" – as though it were an allowance, a commodity, or something external to us to which one might add or subtract.

What exactly are they asking, I wonder? And why?

What do they mean: Increase our faith?

We know that the disciples have already completed a successful mission of preaching and healing – but have returned to be confronted with a child whom they are unable to heal. The child’s father has called upon Jesus to do what the disciples are unable to accomplish, and Jesus has rebuked the disciples, calling them "you of little faith."

And in the pericope just before this morning’s lesson, Jesus has warned the disciples to beware – that "occasions for stumbling are bound to come!"

You of little faith!

Occasions for stumbling are bound to come!

No wonder the disciples have asked for their faith to be increased!

I don’t want to stumble!

I don’t want to embarrass myself again, by failing to heal someone who comes to me!

Lord, increase my faith! Allow me to do more!

Or so it would seem.

My three year old granddaughter had a sleep-over with me this past week, and we spent a pleasant – if rather messy! – time in the kitchen making cupcakes. Her enthusiasm was unbounded, as she cracked eggs and mixed and poured. "This is fantastic!" she’d exclaim. "Or, ‘let’s do it!’" as she ladled the batter into (and onto!) the muffin cups. At one point she paused, looked at me, and said, "When children cook without a grown-up, it’s a catastrophe!"

(She knows her limitations!)

I kind of envision the disciples, on their earlier mission of preaching and healing, caught up in the enthusiasm of their commission, high-fiving one another and saying: "This is fantastic!" and "Let’s do it!"

And then later, having the experience of children trying "to cook without a grown-up."

They have forgotten their own limitations.

Oh, you of little faith!

Occasions for stumbling are bound to occur!

Anthony Bloom, the longtime head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain, said that at one time he was driven by the thought that if he didn’t pray, the world would collapse – that it was his prayers that were keeping the planets in their orbit, the tenuous balance of power in the world. His spiritual director finally confronted him with his inordinate faith in himself and the power of his own prayers – and his lack of faith in God’s love and providence. He challenged him to pray, not obsessing on the state of the world, but to allow prayer to "flow through him," holding creation up to God, offering thanks, but not shouldering the weight of the world and feeling he had to control outcome and make it all happen.

Know your limitations!

Don’t be a child in the kitchen without a grown-up, Anthony!

Increased faith is not about our ability to do more – but about our ability to recognize our limitations.

The faith we, like the disciples, are asking for is the acknowledgement of our radical dependency on God.

This faith is the "yes" of the heart, not to autonomy and self-sufficiency, not to our own powerfulness, but to our powerlessness before God.

Lady Julian of Norwich defines faith this way:

…praying, wanting God’s will, or wanting to want God’s will, for ourselves and others. It is God’s business to take things on from there. We are to fill the water pots with water – and we are to fill them to the brim; the wine-making is God’s. We are to remove the stone; ‘Lazarus come forth’ belongs to God. We are the dry bones; the clothing with flesh, and the breathing upon them is God’s.

Today, we, like the disciples, ask, "Lord, increase our faith."

Give me a greater sense of my own radical dependency on God.

Help me to know what I can do – and to do it; and to trust God to do the rest.

That mustard seed?

Oh, the planting is ours – and the watering; God causes it to take root, break through the soil, grow, bear fruit.

Amen.