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17th Sunday after Pentecost, 10/06/2019
Sermon on Luke 17:1-10, by Andrew Smith
Luke 17:1-10 [English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.]
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Not far from where I live on the western rim of the Cumberland Plateau, in the middle of Tennessee, there is a small community called Muddy Pond. They’re Amish-Mennonites, Christians influenced by the teaching of Menno Simons, a contemporary of Luther and other Reformers. Like Luther, Simons was a former Catholic priest. Unlike Luther, he lived in the northern Netherlands. And instead of focusing on God’s external grace in the sacraments, Simons emphasized internal faith, personal piety and rejected infant baptism and the real presence. He’s really a forerunner of what we know as Baptists today. These Mennonites immigrated to the US with many other Germans and Dutch and established communities like Dutch country in Pennsylvania and Muddy Pond up near Monterey, TN.
When you visit, you get the sense that these folks are from another time. They are expert leather workers and cooks. They know animal husbandry and traditional ways of raising crops. And in the case of Muddy Pond, they make sorghum molasses the old fashioned way, the way they have for centuries. There is a mill where a hose walks in a circle as the mill crushes the sorghum cane, similar to sugar cane, and the juice travels down a pipe to a large molasses cooking shed with a large sheet metal pan heated by wood fire where the moisture gets cooked away until there is nothing but sweet syrupy molasses. It’s a hot, sticky endeavor but the result is sweet sorghum molasses. There are faster, more efficient, more sanitary, more modern ways to do this. But this is the way they do it and have done it since they arrived. They are from another time and keep the old ways alive.
There are a number of passages in Scripture that highlight just how different the world of the Bible was compared to the world we live in today. But we certainly have one of those in our Gospel reading from Luke, chapter 17. I would like to focus on the last part of our reading today, verse 7-10, because the rest of this reading comes up in the other Gospels in other years but this part is unique to Luke’s Gospel and we only get it this Sunday every three years.
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Lk 17:7-10)
What do people from our world hear when they hear these words from the lips of Jesus? “Does the master thank the servant because he did what was commanded?” We live in a world where everyone has to be acknowledged for every good thing they do. The world of 20-somethings is as a world of transition from school and university where everything was graded to the world of work where the measure is not necessarily praise from the boss but that you didn’t get fired or laid off when the company downsized. It’s almost as difficult a shift in worldview as visiting a Mennonite sorghum mill. But it’s not just 20 somethings. It’s all of us at different ages. I’ve met 60-yr olds who can’t believe they got sick when they followed all the rules, didn’t smoke, eat red meat, or drink too much. I think it’s part of how we are wired. We are all looking to know we’re doing a good job, making a difference, that our efforts pay off.
But Jesus tells us today that God has turned all of that on its head. The payoff has already come and has become not the reward but the case of all we do. God does not owe us because we have been obedient. That’s the story Jesus tells. Nobody who had slave in Jesus’ day was worried about whether the slave might quit or feel their contribution was overlooked or that their skills were just not being put to best use. We are obedient because God has already rescued us from sin and death through Christ’s death and resurrection. We owe Him everything.
In most versions of the Lone Ranger story, Tonto is the last surviving member of a wandering band of Potawatomi Native Americans. His tribe, in some versions including a sister, is massacred when he is young boy. A white boy named John Reid finds Tonto still alive and cares for him until he heals. Before they part company, Tonto gives Reid a ring, and calls him “Kemosabe,” which means “faithful friend” or “trusty.”
Years later, Tonto is hunting when he comes upon the scene of the ambush in Bryant's Gap, finding five dead Texas Rangers and one barely alive. He recognizes the living Ranger as the boy who helped him long ago, and now cares for him. He buries the other five Rangers, but digs six graves, to make the outlaws believe all six men were killed. When Reid decides to put on a mask and become the Lone Ranger, Tonto vows his loyalty to his friend and joins him in his pursuit of law and order. [1]
The story of the Lone Ranger and Tonto is a story of mutual servanthood to one another. The one who recognizes he owes his life to another, is not merely obedient, he is grateful.
There is a branch of Christianity active today, primarily in North America, that would take these hard sayings of Jesus, these sayings that are just so “other,” from another time and another place, and say these sayings are not essential. They say, “Don’t think of Christianity in terms of obedience or service, and think of it merely in terms of love and God extending his hospitality.” Even our English translations back off from the reality of our relationship to God and give us the word “servant” here instead of the starker “slave” in the Greek. If I start talking about how we are truly slaves of Christ and slaves of God, well, let’s just say the attendance numbers will dwindle. Are you ready to shout with the apostles, “Lord, increase our faith!” I know I am.
And yet, what do we truly know of God in Christ Jesus? God is not a slave master who will forever punish us for our disobedience. He forgives us graciously, repeatedly, and fully to draw us closer to Himself. “The son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:28) And “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (Jn 13:3–5)
I just learned that a dear professor of mine is retiring. One of his many lines goes something like this, “If you think it’s easy to be a Christian, you’re probably not doing it right.” And I would say, just when you think it might be hardest, there is Jesus showing you what He did for you. Liberal Christians are wrong to insist that Christianity is nothing but love. There is a call to obedience but that call is a call from the One who was perfectly obedient in our place and calls us to walk alongside Him. It is a call from a different time and a different world, even. But it is a call from our faithful friend and brother to pursue the order of His Father in this world and the next. And when He returns, we will eat and drink in His kingdom as He has served us. Amen.
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[1] https://loneranger.fandom.com/wiki/Tonto