17th Sunday after Pentecost

 

Luke 17:5-10

I mean Luke, why are you doing this to us?  The last couple weeks were hard and this text certainly isn’t getting any better.  I am going to have grey hair by the end of this if he keeps it up.  So, our gospel lesson for the day comes in 2 parts, and nice normal little parable about faith and then this super dicey one about working slaves. 

And the first little bit is great.  Jesus tells us that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we would be able to say to the mulberry tree be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey.   I like this parable, it is what I like to call children’s sermon material.  It simple and straightforward and easy enough that even a child can understand it.  It even lends itself to handy visual aids and I indeed have whole grain mustard seeds in my spice cabinet for this exact reason.  They are at least 10 years old and I have no earthly idea what one would actually cook with them but they come out every time I need to do a children’s message on the power of faith.  Because this nice little parable serves as an excellent reminder that even the tiniest bit of faith empowers us to do great things.

And if the Gospel lesson ended there I would be much happier.  But it doesn’t.  And the second parable on the other hand is a disaster.  Jesus asks a question about whether or not, when a slave comes in from working, you should invite him to rest and eat or have him serve you first and whether that slave then deserves your thanks for doing his job.  And I think for you and I here today we really think the answer to this question should be yes of course, even though it was clearly meant to be no.

Because we live in a world that is very different than the world that Jesus and his disciples inhabited.  They lived in a world where slavery was an accepted and largely unquestioned practice.  Where owning unfettered access to someone else’s labor was as common as owning a house or a farm.  Where basic concepts of human rights and equality had yet to be invented.  It stands in stark contrast the principles we learned in last week’s Gospel about how all humans are fundamentally created equal and are worthy of dignity and beloved before God.  And to the fundamental principles that our country was founded on that every human has intrinsic rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, self-determination and some control over their life and labor.  Even if we aren’t actually always very good at living up to these ideals.

And so, it makes it very difficult for us today to understand this passage because this passage has nothing to do with how we maintain relationships among equals.  It instead asks a question about whether or not your actions can ever earn the favor of someone who is fundamentally not your equal.  There is a fundamental and unbreachable inequality between the master and the slave in this parable.  The master has power over the slave and the slave has an obligation to the master.  If the master ultimately owns the slave’s time and effort, than anything he does already belongs to the master.  Doing it doesn’t earn him any extra points, just as not doing it doesn’t make the slave belong to the master any less. 

And while we, for very good reason, no longer accept that this power dynamic should ever exist between human beings, it still does very much exist between us and God.  God is still the master, he created and sustains not only us but the entire universe.  It reminds us of how hopeless and fruitless any attempts to earn our way into God’s good graces really are.  If we take it seriously when we say that everything is a gift from God and all that we have belongs first to God, then nothing we can do can earn us special favor with God.

And so perhaps it is good that you brought a Lutheran today because we are reminded today in this difficult gospel passage that it is all about faith and not about works.  And it is definitely never about anything we can earn.  We so often get caught in the trap of thinking that if I’m good enough, go to church enough, give enough, be kind enough, I can earn God’s favor and protection.  But it doesn’t work that way.  Because it’s about faith not works.  Faith is what’s important.  And as Jesus tells us, if you have even the tiniest seed of faith, you can do anything, you can command the very power of God.  And without it, everything you do means absolutely nothing. Success or failure in religious life is not about visible achievements but about faith. 

But even saying this can provoke anxiety in many a believer.  Well what if I don’t have enough faith, if all these good things I do don’t count, what if my faith doesn’t measure up?  And it seems that the disciples were having some of the same issues.  After a particularly difficult teaching about caring for the vulnerable and forgiving those who wrong you, they come to Jesus and they plead with him “Increase our Faith!”  Were they worried about their future?  Were they afraid that they would not have enough faith to fulfill his teachings?  Were they unhappy about making sacrifices and forgiving their enemies and hoping Jesus would make them feel better about it?  Were they asking Jesus to increase their stature in the community so others would look to them as examples?  We are not sure.

Because instead Jesus essentially tells them there is no need, faith doesn’t work that way.  It’s not a sliding scale, it’s not an achievement or a ladder you can climb.  It’s more of an all or nothing proposition, if you have even the tiniest speck of faith, littlest seed, it is sufficient to do even seemingly impossible things.  And even that little seed is not something you earn.  God gives it to you as a free gift, he is the one that plants and cultivates that seed of faith in your heart.

And what’s more, Jesus tells us our faith is like a mustard seed, for if you remember, mustard was a particularly pernicious, tenacious weed.  Once it had become established in a field it was almost impossible to root out and in fact it was illegal to plant it in many areas because it would inevitably spread and contaminate everyone else’s fields as well.  That is the kind of faith that God gives to us.  Faith that starts small, but lasts forever, that spreads out of control to everyone that comes into contact with it.  That cannot be extinguished even in the hardest of times.

We heard this also from 2 Timothy today where Paul says “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and now I am sure, lives in you.  For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God through the laying on of my hands.”  This is exactly the kind of faith that Jesus is talking about.  The kind of faith that starts in one person and spreads down across the generations through the love and care of faithful people.  The kind of faith that might ebb and flow but can always be rekindled from that original spark even if it seems to have died away.  The kind of faith that makes us brave and fierce even in the most trying of circumstances because we serve the true master who conquers all.  This is the faith that we are talking about and this is the kind of faith that lives in each one of you.   And this is the kind of faith I see lived out all the time in this small but mighty congregation.  Tiny, tenacious seeds of faith that have the power to move mountains.  Amen.