Reflection “Lament and the Mustard Seed” 

Texts: Lamentations 1:1–6; Luke 17:5–10 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people.”  The opening words of Lamentations strike us like a funeral dirge. Jerusalem, once bustling, once proud, is described as a widow left desolate, a queen reduced to slave labor, a mother whose children are gone. The poet does not shy away from naming devastation, nor does he try to rush to solutions. He simply says: Look at the ruins. Look at the grief. Look at the loss. 

And then in Luke’s Gospel, the disciples, standing in their own uncertainty, cry out: “Increase our faith!” They want more strength, more certainty, more resilience. Jesus answers with that surprising paradox: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea.” And he follows with a story that unsettles our notions of reward and recognition. 

Today I want to place these two texts together. One is a cry from the ruins of exile. The other is a teaching about mustard-seed faith. Together, they invite us into a spirituality that is honest about grief yet daring about hope; a spirituality that sees the holy in lament and the miraculous in the tiniest acts of faith. 

The book of Lamentations is written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. The Babylonians have come. The temple has been burned. Families have been scattered into exile. Leaders have fled. It is as if everything that anchored life—home, worship, community—has collapsed. 

The poet personifies the city as a woman abandoned, shamed, enslaved. He writes of tears that flow at night, of companions who have betrayed, of children carried away. 

Now, here’s the critical thing: this lament is not weakness. It is not indulgent despair. It is theological truth-telling. It is the community standing in the ruins and saying: This happened. We hurt. We have lost. And we will not pretend otherwise. 

Too often religion tells us to “look on the bright side” or to “move on” before we have truly grieved. But Lamentations says: No. Sit in the ashes. Tell the truth about your pain. Cry out at injustice. Only by naming the devastation can you begin to heal. 

This is not ancient history alone. It echoes through our world. 

• Think of Indigenous peoples lamenting colonization, the loss of language and land. 

• Think of refugees fleeing Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan—lamenting homes destroyed and children uprooted. 

• Think of Pacific island nations, lamenting rising seas that swallow ancestral burial grounds. 

• Think of our own communities, lamenting churches closed, families fractured, relationships broken. 

Lament is not just personal grief; it is communal protest. To lament is to refuse to accept injustice as normal. It is to say, This is not how God intends the world to be. 

Into that atmosphere of despair, Luke gives us another voice. The disciple’s cry: “Increase our faith!” They feel inadequate. They want more spiritual muscle. They want something to shield them from uncertainty. 

But Jesus refuses to hand out faith like extra rations. Instead, he says: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea.” 

Now, the mustard seed is tiny—almost dust in the hand. And the mulberry tree has roots that go deep, lasting for hundreds of years. It is an absurd image. A speck of faith uprooting an immovable tree. Yet Jesus’ point is this: faith is not about quantity. It is not about “how much” you have. Faith is trust, however small, put into action. 

This is not a magic trick imagery but as metaphor for transformation. Small acts of justice, small acts of love, have disproportionate power. 

Mustard-seed faith is not about certainty. It is about courage to act, however fragile, in the face of despair. It is the courage to lament honestly and still plant seeds of hope. 

But Jesus doesn’t stop with the mustard seed. He tells a parable: a servant works in the field all day, then comes in, and instead of being thanked, is told to prepare supper. Jesus ends with the startling line: “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless servants; we have only done what we ought to have done.’” 

At first glance, this sounds harsh, even demeaning. But remember: Jesus often uses the social realities of his day to subvert them. He speaks into a society where slaves and servants had no status. By telling disciples to see themselves in that position, he undercuts entitlement. 

In our context, this is a challenge against privilege. Discipleship is not about reward. It is not about seeking titles, honours, or recognition. It is about radical service, humble participation in God’s justice. 

We might put it this way: we don’t serve God in order to be thanked. We serve because that is the shape of love. 

In today’s world, that  means we resist the temptation to center ourselves. It means we don’t ask, “What’s in it for me?” but instead ask, “How do we serve together for the healing of the world?” 

This is particularly relevant for the church. Too often institutions seek recognition, prestige, or control. Jesus reminds us: even when no one notices, even when no one thanks you, the work of justice and compassion is still the work you are called to do. 

So how do we hold these two scriptures together—Lamentations and Luke? 

On the one hand, Lamentations says: Do not deny the ruins. Cry out. Grieve. Name the injustice.
On the other, Luke says: Even the tiniest seed of faith can grow into transformation. 

Together they give us a theology of resilience: 

• To lament is already an act of faith. Because when we cry out, we are saying our lives matter, our suffering matters, injustice matters. 

• To plant mustard seeds is to insist that despair is not the final word. Even in exile, even in grief, small acts of courage carry holy power. 

Think of Māori and Pasifika communities lamenting the legacy of colonization. Yet out of that lament comes the mustard seed of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, a language week that has sparked revival. 

Think of climate grief. Young people weep at the thought of an unliveable planet. Yet their mustard-seed actions—marches, petitions, community gardens—have shifted the moral compass of entire nations. 

The truth is: lament and mustard seeds are not opposites. They are companions. Lament names the brokenness; mustard seeds embody the hope. 

So, what does this mean for us today? 

On the road to my father’s village is a land filled with hardened molten lava Sale’aula after Mt Matavanu erupted between 1905 and 1911 with its slow moving lava flows destroying the whole village.  Everything was destroyed except for the church, the lava flowed around it.  You can see it still standing today with trees growing in the middle of it.  All around the lava are trees that have grown up through the lava, signs of hope of life in the midst of devastation today.   

Lament is part of life, it is real and we should not be afraid of it. If our hearts are heavy, if our spirits aches for what has been lost—speak it. Pray it. Sing it. Write it. Our lament joins the chorus of those who have been excluded, abused, discriminated against, it joins the chorus of exiled peoples, of all creation groaning for redemption. 

We do not need our faith to be perfect.  We do not need to “increase our faith” as the disciples wanted so we can be superhuman. We only need the courage to plant one small seed: to show kindness, to speak truth, to act justly. 

That’s our challenge to serve with compassion without entitlement. We do not follow Jesus for applause or reward. We follow because the way of love is the only way worth walking. 

In the ruins, lament.
In the ruins, plant mustard seeds.
In the ruins, serve with humility. 

And trust that this mystery whom we name God hears our lament, the God who blesses our small seeds, is already at work bringing life out of death, hope out of despair, justice out of our lament. 

Amen. 

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