October 3, 2010 Lamentations 1:1-6 Luke

17:5-10 “Doing What We

Ought to Do”
Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

Jesus said to his disciples in the first verses of this 17 th chapter of Luke, “Occasions for stumbling are
bound to come, 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
[meaning immature followers] 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.”
Upon hearing these teachings from Jesus, the disciples said, “Oh, Jesus! We’re not sure we can do
that. “Increase our faith,” [“or we’ll never be able to be your followers. You’re asking too much of
us!”] Jesus, however, said to his disciples, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say
to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” “But don’t be
afraid. You already have that much faith!”
When I was growing up, I used to see zippered Bibles that had a mustard seed inside a solid glass ball
for a zipper pull. The mustard seed was to remind the owner that if they only had that little amount of
faith, they’d be able to do magical things – plant a mulberry tree in the sea according to Luke, throw a
mountain into the sea according to Mark. If we Christians only had that tiny amount of faith, we
could do anything. The implication was though that we don’t have even that tiny amount of faith.
I’ve learned since that time that I – and those around me – interpreted the verse incorrectly. The
Greek language has basically two types of “if” clauses: those which express a condition contrary to the
fact (“if I were you”) and those which express a condition according to the fact (“if Jesus is our
Lord”). The conditional clause in verse 6 is of this second type; one could translate it “If you had faith
[and you do].” Jesus’ response, here, isn’t a reprimand for an absence of faith but an affirmation of
the faith all his disciples have, and an invitation to live out the full possibilities of that faith. Even the
small faith we already have cancels out words such as “impossible” (a tree being uprooted) and
“absurd” (planting a tree in the sea) and puts us in touch with the power of God.1
This means that all those “if only” put downs we tend to say about ourselves are groundless. “If only
our church was bigger ....” But we’re not limited by size because God’s power makes all things
possible. “If only we were a younger congregation....” But we’re not limited by age, because God’s
Spirit makes anything possible. “If only we had....” But we’re not limited by program, because God
is with us, and when God is with us we can do anything if we stop limiting ourselves. As Jesus says
in Matthew: “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” As Fred Craddock in
his commentary puts it, “Faith lays hold of God with whom nothing is impossible, and it is God who
empowers the life of discipleship.”2
However, warns Jesus, we will never, even with all God’s power on our side, rise above the role of
slave. God is always the master. We’re always the slave, not the servant but the slave. There’s no
such thing as “above and beyond” service and duty.
1 1. Craddock, Fred B., Luke: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and
Preaching, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1990, p. 200.

2 2. Craddock, p. 200.
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I confess that I don’t particularly like this idea of slave, in part because I don’t like anyone to tell me
what to do. I’d never have made a good soldier because there’s a part of me that rebels when ever
someone gives me an order. If a person asks me to do most anything, I’ll do my best to do it. But if
the person tells me to do it, even if I do the task, I’m rebelling inside. Maybe you’re like me in this
regard.
This is one of the reasons I seldom use the words “should” or “must” in my sermons as in “You must
obey God.” When I’d written something like “You must practice your faith,” in one of my required
sermons in seminary, my preaching professor wrote “No, they don’t have to practice their faith. It’s
their choice.” To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing is required but death and
taxes.”
Jesus, however, reminds me here that when it comes to my relationship with God, I am not in charge.
My task is always to be the slave, to be the follower. Yes, I decide whether or not to obey, but as
Craddock again puts it, “There is no place or time . . . at which the disciple can say, ‘I have completed
my service; now I want to be served.’”3
I’m not sure how well we can get into the 1st century mind set, how well we can picture ourselves as
either slave or master. While we understand the employer/employee relationship, and while there are
similarities to the master/slave relationship, there’s also a large gap between the two for most of us,
especially as we move up the economic ladder. Even in these tight economic times, when jobs are
scarce, even as people move closer to 57 or 60 when many companies begin to discriminate against
older workers, even then, the employer/employee relationship doesn’t truly approach the master/slave
relationship. Employees can always quit. While life could become very hard, employees still have
that option. Slaves never had that freedom. They were owned by the master. They weren’t free to
choose, to say “Yes,” or “No.”
Those to whom Jesus spoke probably identified more with the slave in the parable than they did with
the owner, although we don’t know that for sure. There were more poor, more slaves around than
there were owners, so most followers of Jesus would’ve understood things from the point of view of
the poor or the slave. When Jesus said, “who among you would say to your slave,” he was inviting his
listeners to fantasize about being the owner instead of the slave, the master instead of the poor worker.
No, they wouldn’t invite the worker to sit and eat after coming in from the field. They didn’t get to
eat with the Master. They had to prepare and then serve the meal first. They weren’t thanked for
doing what they were commanded to do. “Do it, or else” was the attitude of the master. “Do it, or I’ll
sell you to someone far worse, sell you to a master who will have you doing a job that’s far worse than
being in the field.”
So it is for Christians. “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We
are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” This isn’t to say that God
treats us as slaves. This isn’t to say that God doesn’t thank us or love us. We’re not talking about
God here. We’re talking about our attitude towards God. We’re talking about our human tendency to
pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves how good we are for having done what God has asked us
to do. We’re talking here about our human tendency to think we’ve done our job for God when we’ve
made it to church, or served on the Property Management committee, or volunteered for that
community job. “Well, I’ve done my share,” we’re tempted to say. “Now it’s time for someone else
to do it.” I’ve done all God wants of me. My duty is done.

3 3. Craddock, p. 200.
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A woman in one of the churches I served told me that now that she’d reached whatever age she was –
75 or 80 I think, she didn’t need to do anything in the church any more because she’d done her part.
She also didn’t need to be careful about what she said because after reaching her age she’d earned the
right to do what she wanted and say what she wanted.
Not according to Jesus, however. See the thing is, we’re not earning God’s grace or God’s favor. We
can’t earn God’s grace. God’s grace is freely given to us. And because we can’t earn it, we can never
– no matter how much we’ve done, fulfill our obligation to God. We can never do enough, because
God has done so much through Jesus Christ. There is no “To-Do” list in existence that after we’ve
completed it, we can stop serving God. We can quit school. We can retire from work. But we can’t
quit God and remain a follower of Jesus Christ. Our obedience to Jesus never ends because our love
for God never ends, because finally, we serve, we obey, we follow – not out of duty or compulsion,
but out of love. We seek to obey God’s teachings, because we love God and want to obey – not
because we’re scared we won’t go to heaven. We do for God because we love God, and want to serve
God any way we can whether that means being a pastor or serving on a committee or praying daily for
God’s church. We serve God because we love God and want to give our best to God.
We love God, because even though we are slaves, even though we should never be invited to the
Masters table, Jesus Christ, through his love for us, has invited us to gather around His table. Would
we ever invite our slaves to eat with us? Never. But Jesus Christ, God’s own son, has done just that,
has shown His love for us. As we gather once again at His Table, may we understand anew how
remarkable the invitation is to join at Christ’s table. And may we serve this God who loves us with all
our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. Amen.