SERMON FOR OCTOBER 6, 2019 SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST TEXT: LUKE 17:5-10

Jesus has just laid out a pair of challenges that are certain to make the disciples anxious. “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come,” he tells them, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive” (Luke 17:14).

Well, at least Jesus stipulates that the sinner must be repentant, but even repentant repeat offenders can wear you down pretty quickly. I mostly believed my daughter when, as a child, she told me she was sorry for a familiar offense. But, as I repeatedly pointed out, being sorry falls short of repenting. Repentance means that you reverse your direction, you turn around, you change your blasted behavior and you don’t turn back again. But people are doing 180’s all the time, and living with their constant renewals and reversals is difficult, sometimes impossible. No wonder the disciples implore Jesus, “Increase our faith!” Lord, we’ll need a full tank to make it down that road.

The image Jesus uses is distracting. Successfully commanding a mulberry tree to be uprooted and to plant itself in the sea would be a showy piece of magic, not a demonstration of faithful discipleship. It was the kind of thing the devil tempted Jesus to do to prove he was the Son of God: “Command this stone to become a loaf of bread” (Luke 4:3). “Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple and show everybody how the angels will come to your rescue, lest you dash your foot against a stone” (Luke 4:9-11). Jesus has no interest in such razzle-dazzle spectacles. And that kind of performance art is not what he wants from his disciples.

He wants to make a point about faith, not in terms of its quantity but of its sufficiency. This isn’t a matter of deficient knowledge, like a failure to master the catechism. It is a question of relationship, its qualities of trust, commitment and devotion. Scholars looking at the original Greek text of this passage note that the grammar of Jesus’ remark conveys criticism. Luke repeatedly emphasizes the high cost of discipleship. At various points in his narrative Jesus tells his followers that they must hate their families, give up all their possessions, take up their cross and follow him in a life of radical insecurity: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).

The disciples have certainly given up much, and willingly, to follow him, yet they also disappoint him when it comes to the matter of faith. Fear and doubt get the upper hand. “Where is your faith?” Jesus asks them after he calms the storm that terrorized the disciples while he slept in the boat (Luke 8:22-25). On another occasion, clearly sensing their crisis of confidence, he tells them, “. . . do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things and your Father knows that you need them. . . . Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:29-32). Even after his resurrection, when Jesus appears to the disciples, he has to ask, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” (Luke 24:38). Although Jesus finds these reactions to be off the mark, from our perspective, they are wholly understandable.

So the Lord’s criticism that the disciples are coming up way short — “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” implying that they do not have even that much at the moment — hits home for us too. Jesus gets exasperated when they repeatedly falter, just like they will tire of the continuous cycle of forgiving. “And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” “Don’t tell me, it’s you again!” Yup, it’s us with our bouts of uncontrollable desperation crying, like the disciples in that storm-tossed boat, “Master, do you not care that we are perishing?” And yes, it’s that same troublesome person whose repetitive sinning and transitory repentance weighs like a millstone around our neck.

There is another side to Jesus’ statement as well. Several chapters earlier in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is teaching in a synagogue and tells his hearers that the Kingdom of God is “like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches” (Luke 13:18). Who would have guessed that such great things could come from this tiny seed! Mustard seed faith is sufficient. If it could work a wonder like transplanting a mulberry tree from soil to sea, it can certainly keep us on the way and make everyday miracles possible like loving our neighbors, praying for our enemies, calling the unjust to repentance, and forgiving those who trespass against us.

There is the same double-sided quality to Jesus’ remarks concerning slaves and masters. This was a relationship familiar and acceptable to Jesus’ hearers; not so for us. But this is an illustrative story, not a social commentary. Jesus speaks as one who embraces the slave’s position. He tells his disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? But I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:25-27). The One the disciples call “Master,” is wholly obedient to the will of the One he calls Father, even to the giving of his life.

The Greek word rendered here as “worthless” can also be translated as “unworthy,” which I think is the better choice. Jesus seems to be chiding his disciples for reacting as if his expectations of them were above and beyond the call of duty. They demand that he increase their faith, pump them up for his excessive demands. Not so, he responds. Nothing out of the ordinary here. All in a day’s work for a disciple, just like the slave who plows the field and tends the sheep and then comes inside to prepare and serve his master’s dinner. He has done nothing worthy of special attention or reward, nothing requiring extraordinary resources; he has only done what he ought to have done. “Get over yourselves,” Jesus seems to be saying.

Yet at the same time it is a reassuring word. Mustard seed faith is enough. Seeds crack open. They thrust roots into the earth. They sprout and grow and bloom above ground and with time spread their seeds abroad, creating new life. Even as trust vies with doubt and fear gnaws at our confidence, the mustard seed of faith sinks its roots deeper and deeper into the love of God and bears its fruit. Amen.