Luke 17:5-10
Jesus in the gospel just before this told his disciples to forgive “seventy times seven” which was way more than Mosaic law required. Peter knew that law -- you were required to forgive someone who asked for forgiveness, seven times. Peter and the others had witnessed a lot of Jesus’ sayings and teachings that seemed to turn their whole world view upside down. And I think that’s why they said, “Increase our faith”.
I pray that prayer a lot, and also the one that the father of the demon possessed boy prayed: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief”. We all have had times when we wish we had a little more faith, when it seems as though everything is trying to tell us that there is no God, that the universe is uncaring. And of course there are plenty of people out there who have based their lives on those propositions. We see people who outright deny anything outside the material world to those who might label themselves as members of a religion, but live lives that are very poor advertisements for being religious.
But can you “increase” your faith? I’m not even sure what that means. If I decide that you have more faith than I do, it’s not because I can measure faith or even the consequences of faith. I can only observe your behavior and then try to figure out why you behave that way. And if you pray a lot and do good works and treat everybody with kindness I might conclude that you have a lot of faith. But if you do good works and treat everybody with kindness and deny that there is a God or that you belong to any religion, I wouldn’t conclude that you have faith. I think that’s what Jesus is talking about. He joins right in with the notion that faith is something that you can measure, that can be increased or decreased. “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” he says, and then he gives an image that would probably make his observers laugh.Because a mature mulberry tree looks like it hugs the ground -- roots all over the place -- and Jesus pictures the tree in the sea, taking root there. Kind of like imagining a whale crossing the desert.
And then Jesus seems to sidestep the whole controversy. He talks about the relationship between a servant, or as the original Greek said, a slave, and his master. Slavery in Jesus’ time was not quite what happened in the deep south to people imported from Africa. Sometimes it was voluntary, sometimes it was for a limited time. Most slaves had nowhere else to go, and if reasonably well behaved, could come and go as they pleased as long as their work got done. But the bottom line was that they lived to fulfill the expectations of their masters, not themselves. That was the condition of slavery -- and in return they got board and room. In those days it was not too difficult to escape if you really wanted to. But again, where would you go? Probably you’d find another master and hope things would be easier.
Jesus is sort of saying, let’s not even talk about more faith and less faith. Let’s talk about what faith is all about. Faith is knowing what you are supposed to do, and then doing it. And Jesus is saying, there is no merit in that. If you do that, it’s the bare minimum, you are not entitled to a reward for doing what you are supposed to do. People who go above and beyond that are the ones you are profitable slaves.
IT makes you think of that other story Jesus told, about the master who gave his slaves money to take care of while he went away. They could have run off with the money -- after all, Jesus wasn’t talking about a few bucks, but one of those coins was enough to take care of for six months or so. The guy who got ten could have gone five years without working. But the one who got one coin did the bare minimum; he took the care of the coin and gave it back to his master and got punished for not going over and above what was expected. Those who did received rewards.
Faith either exists or doesn’t. Jesus frequently calls people to believe in him. If you believe in Jesus, he promises a lot of things -- eternal life, for one. Some of our protestant brothers believe that once you declare that you have faith, the rest is history. Once saved, always saved. But I think Jesus is telling us that having faith is sort of the bottom line and if it gets us anywhere, it’s the bare minimum. If we are going to become slaves of God, which is sort of what faith means, that’s all well and good, but it’s what we do after that that determines what kind of servants we are -- do we do more than we are obliged to do? Are we profitable? Are we “good and faithful?”
