Gospel: Luke 17:5-10
In September 2015 I delivered my very first sermon at the small parish in rural Fauquier County where I completed my two-year seminary internship. In the 10 years since, I’ve preached 476 sermons and homilies in a variety of locations and liturgies around Virginia. As I began preparing to preach on this passage from Luke, I looked back to see what I’ve said about it in prior years and was stunned by what I found. Over 10 years and 476 preaching opportunities I’ve never talked about this passage. Not once. It’s stunning, yes, but not necessarily surprising. These are six very difficult verses, with language and images that are hard to wrestle with.
The intensity of particular words certainly lands differently based on individual experiences and cultural contexts. Being asked for instance to consider the power of faith by those who struggle with little faith – or even the seeming absence of faith – is hard. The language of slavery used by Jesus was commonly heard in his time but without question is a source of discomfort and dis-ease in today’s world. It’s a language reflecting deeply felt grief and pain, not only for the descendants of those bound in past generations but also for those who today feel bound by economic forces that offer no relief or advancement regardless of how long or hard they work.
And there are other bonds. There are those who try to find great faith within them because no matter how hard they fight, they can’t seem to escape the illness, addiction, or depression binding them. There are those who try to find great faith within them because no matter how loudly they try to speak, they can’t escape the anonymity, isolation, or alienation by which they feel bound. There are those who try to find great faith within them because as life continues to pile stones on their backs, they feel bound by a weighty and painful question, “Aren’t I worthy of something better than this?”
All these things crossed my mind as I wrestled with this passage. I of course had the option of preaching on one of the other readings or even splitting this one apart and focusing on a section where hope might more obviously be found. But there was a thought that kept poking at me: Jesus didn’t allow the disciples to take the easy path on anything, especially as they wrestled with his words; why should I feel any more entitled to a journey down the easy path? As I’ve said often, Jesus came both to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Reading these words frankly increased my discomfort; perhaps you have an anxious feeling, shifting in your seat when you read and hear them. The feeling of being afflicted was and is very present, so where’s the comfort?
The first clue on where to look for the comfort is found in the famous quote from the late Swiss theologian Markus Barth: “If you can’t find the Word in the text, it isn’t the text’s fault. Go back and try again. Dig deeper.”[1] With that in mind, we look again and realize there’s a name absent in the passage but whose presence overshadows all taking place. We don’t find God among these words, but God is most definitely there. Then we continue to an understanding highlighted by the Anglican bishop and writer Tom Wright: “It’s not great faith you need; it is faith in a great God.”[2] He continues, “Faith is like a window through which you can see something. What matters is not whether the window is six inches or six feet high; what matters is the God that your faith is looking out on.”[3]
Not a great faith, but a great God.
Over the years I’ve come to recognize that many people are disappointed when they don’t see a sign of the power or presence of God in part because of an incorrect expectation of what God’s appearance will be. People want the God found in Cecil B. DeMille’s “Ten Commandments,” the God of a tornadic pillar of fire or a sea that suddenly and violently separates to open a path for us across dry land. We forget that the presence of God is often revealed in a moment of sheer silence like that experienced by Elijah, or the quiet voice of God calling out to the young Solomon. As much as we may expect to see God in the loudness of fire and earthquake, God often is experienced most vividly in moments of stillness.
God is also there in the moments when even a mustard seed of faith seems beyond what we’re capable of grabbing hold of. But remember that along with God there may even be in those moments faith we don’t realize we have. The loud (and in their words as I hear them, seemingly desperate) request of the disciples, “Increase our faith!”[4], is their response to an earlier scene in this chapter, when Jesus admonished them about the necessity for repeated forgiveness regardless of how often they are sinned against. The preacher Fred Craddock went back and looked at the original Greek of Jesus’ response – specifically the phrase “if you had faith” – and found that based on its structure, you could translate those words as a moment of reassurance: “If you had faith [and you do].”[5]
If you had faith … and you do. The disciples aren’t being admonished; they’re being affirmed. You may think you don’t have faith, but you do – and look at what’s possible with that tiny mustard seed you carry.
Then we come to the final four verses, the mini parable containing the difficult language of slavery and servitude. Following Barth’s instruction of looking again at the text when we don’t see the Word, what we find is that Jesus is in fact referring to each of us as those who serve. In the parable, those who have worked all day want a moment when they can rest and be served. In an outstanding article in a 2014 issue of Christianity Today, Alec Hill couches these few verses this way:
The plot hinges on two questions: One, would the master invite the slave to sit down and eat? And two, would the master thank the slave for his work? At first blush, it seems the response to both questions should be yes. The slave has worked hard all day. He deserves a break. For the sake of manners, the master should express appreciation for his labors. But, biblically speaking, the correct answer to both questions is no.[6]
But as we see Jesus reminds the disciples (and us!), as his followers and ones tasked to serve our neighbors, our work doesn’t end. We’ll never get to a time when we, as Craddock writes, “can say, ‘I have completed my service; now I want to be served.’”[7] When we serve and how we serve will change based on the needs revealed to us, and there will be seasons when our work has times of ebb and flow. But while the timing and manner of our service will change, our call to that service never will.
And here we return to the beginning, to the anxiety-inducing words of the passage from Luke, and hopefully we have a bit more understanding now that rather than feeling anxious we should feel hopeful and affirmed. We’re reminded that it’s not a question of the greatness of our faith, but rather our recognition of the greatness of God despite the size of our faith – a faith that we already have, a mustard seed within us. We’re reminded that yes, service to others is hard and there are times when we’ll want to be served – but despite how we feel, the call to service doesn’t end. No matter how many bonds we break; no matter how much faith we see in ourselves; no matter how much time and effort we put in for others: the call to service – God’s call to us – never ends.
Thanks be to God for that call.
Amen.
[1] John M. Buchanan, “Luke 17:5-10 – Homiletical Perspective.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 4, p. 141.
[2] Tom Wright. Luke for Everyone, p. 204.
[3] Wright, p. 204.
[4] Luke 17:5 (NRSV).
[5] Fred B. Craddock. Luke, p. 200.
[6] Alec Hill, “Inside My Slavery: How Jesus’ most troubling parable finally made sense to me.” Christianity Today, July/August 2014 (online edition). https://www.christianitytoday.com/2014/08/alec-hill-inside-my-slavery/
[7] Craddock, p. 200.