When Jesus told his disciples that if a brother or sister in Christ were to sin against them, they were to confront them about it, and if they repented, forgive them, the disciples were like deer staring into an oncoming truck’s headlights (3). Most stunning is that Jesus said they should repeat this seven times a day if need be. SEVEN!
Believing they were incapable of obeying this once, let alone seven times a day, they exclaimed, “Increase our faith!” (5) The disciples believed they had a faith problem, for this seemed too hard a teaching for a normal human being to obey.
On the one hand, this is good because they were hearing Jesus continually praising faith and saying, “Your faith has made you well.” (7:50, 8:38, 17:19, 18:42, etc.) They were getting the message that faith in Jesus has the power to heal, and this certainly involved being hurt.
On the other hand, this is not good because faith was not their problem in this matter. Jesus told them that faith as small as a mustard seed can uproot a mulberry tree and plant it into the sea (a silly mental picture, a mulberry tree growing in a sea). Small faith is not the problem to forgiving a repentive brother or sister in Christ. Usually, the problem is my stubborn human ego. I can forgive because the one who forgave my horrendous sins lives in me. It is time to teach a mulberry tree to swim.
