READINGS

Luke 17:1-10
Luke 12:35-38
Jeremiah 1:10
2 Sam 6:12-23

TEXTS

Sin, Faith, Duty

17 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.

2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister[a] sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.

4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’?

8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’?

9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?

10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

HOMILY

Today's Gospel jumps four verses from last time where we had the last of the three Parables that centered around the notion of the steward.

I've put back the missing verses, so in today's Gospel I'm giving you from Luke 17:1 to 10.

If we started at Luke 17:5, where the apostles say to the Lord increase our faith, which is the beginning of today's Gospel officially, in the lectionary, we don't get a sense of why they are asking for this.

Suddenly it makes much more sense to see them asking for something in the wake of what they've just heard, so I've put back the first five verses and I hope that you will allow me to use them to make sense of what comes afterwards.

So we've had the three parables in which the role of Steward and the potential for what a good Steward might be is illustrated in a variety of interesting ways, played around with the three parables, but here we have the disciples being spoken to with view to their future role as Stewards.

So let's see what Jesus says to them.

This comes immediately after the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which we saw yesterday.

Elieza, the rich person not feeding a poor person; the poor person not even having a voice in the matter; and here Jesus says to his disciples occasions for stumbling, occasions for Scandal are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come.

This is going to be absolutely part of the development of the gospel.

The gospel does provoke the scandal in a certain way and blessed are those who are not scandalized by Jesus, because what he's doing is turning upside down the whole order of the world.

There will be people stewards who think they're doing the Lord's work by going against that. We see this frequently enough and they actually cause scandal.

So part of the steward's job is making quite sure we don't cause scandals, that we don't become the occasions of scandals, that we enable the gospel and Grace to be transmitted freely and particularly towards those people whom might not otherwise be able to receive it and that getting in the way of that is a terrible thing.

Here we have our Lord saying it would be better for you if a millstone will hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea then for you to be caused one of these little ones to stumble.

First of all, Millstone is a large piece of stone extremely heavy around which a mule or Ox would have dragged another Stone forever and ever in order to grind whatever grain.

The notion being that a scandal is like constantly going around in circles doing the same thing until you're worn out, but it's still going on.

The notion of having one hung around your neck and thrown into the sea it's exactly the reverse of having your own name inscribed in heaven.

It means basically your whole being is scandalized, so you're being cast into the sea which is the equivalent of definitive Annihilation.

In the Hebrew World, definitive annihilation will be better for you than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Whatever we do, we must not be involved in scandalizing little ones and little ones doesn't only mean children, it means those of small faith, those who might come to understand Grace, but I'll hold back by our bad stewardship of the Gospel.

If another believer sins, you must rebuke the offender.

If there is repentance, you must forgive.

So this is going to be terribly difficult.

If the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times a day and says I repent, you must forgive.

In other words, your principal role is going to be have to make terribly careful as to when you are scandalizing or rebuking is the right thing to do; or when forgiving is the right thing to do, even if it seems like the person who's sinning is going round and round doing the same thing again and again.

It's going to be enormously wearing down to you to constantly to be open to having the patience to see that something good is coming even in the midst of someone getting it wrong again and again and again and making your life difficult again and again and again.

So it's in the light of that for the apostles, who say to the Lord: "increase our faith".

The apostles understand what Jesus is saying to them: this is going to be a hell of a task.

It's easy to be boss if you're following a manual; it's easy to be boss if all you've got to do is to make sure that the franchise of whatever the outfit is follows all the things that are said in the book.

However, constantly to be in this learning process and constantly to be undergoing being forgiven yourself and undergoing being stretched into being forgiven against endlessly tedious and tiresome people: this is going to be a real challenge.

It's going to make you feel like the millstone being driven round and round and round by a Millstone.

In Greek, it's actually a little symbolic, because it's the mule which would take and take it round.

So under these sacrifices you can see why there was a little increase in our faith.

And the Lord replies: "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".

Some commentators said "this is although being terribly cruel and harsh to his disciples".

My guess is that there's more of a hint of humor in this, because he's taking two very common things: the faith the size of the mustard seed and a mulberry tree, which was the poor cousin of the cedar.

In the Hebrew scriptures, you get the cedars, which are the Great Mighty things from Lebanon and you get mulberry trees, which are very sycamines, which are very abundantly, plentiful, in other words, of no real importance, unlike the Cedars, which are usually signs of great things.

So we've noticed several things:

The sea has come back, whereas before it was the Millstone that was being cast into the sea.

Here we have something utterly bizarre: someone trying to plant something in the sea.

Well you've got to be really dumb to want to plant something in the sea.

If they have faith the size of a mustard seed, which is the size of a nothing, it could say to something as boring as a tree to go and be planted in the sea.

However, it's more than that. It's not just saying something bizarre and impossible be uprooted and planted in the sea.

By saying "be uprooted and planted into the sea", Jesus is hinting at Jeremiah.

At the very beginning of the book of The Prophet, Jeremiah says:

I point to over the Nations to uproot and to plant.

So Jesus is saying to them: you are going to be living out Jeremiah's vocation.

What you're going to be doing as stewards is actually what Jeremiah was doing.

It only need to be a little bit of it and you will be acting as great as Jeremiah, who was the great prophet who was appointed for the planting and uprooting of nations, foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and got himself into endless troubles, constantly treated badly by the patricarchs of the of the time.

Jeremiah turned out to be right all along and his book ends with (guess what) him telling the people to take this book tied to a stone and cast it into the river Euphrates.

He says river rather than sea, but the tying to a stone and casting to the sea is very much a Jeremiah thing to do.

What he's saying to the disciples here is "the person who had real faith, the person who could put up with mammoth scandal was Jeremiah".

Literally everything went wrong the whole of his life, while he was being faithful in the midst of everything going wrong.

So hence the importance of our first reading from Habacuc this week, in which he talks about what righteousness looks like.

It's someone who lives by faith; it's someone who keeps on trying to tell the truth in the midst of everything going wrong, everything collapsing around them; whereas those who don't have faith, whose righteousness depends on the winds of who's in charge, they're going to blow away like sand.

So standing and listening to the word of the Lord, having faith, that's what Jeremiah did and that's what being able to put up with a scandal and not be run by it, even though you are held to be scandalous in the first place and to others for doing this.

Jesus is giving them a strong Jeremiah picture of what a good Steward looks like and then he shifts from Jeremiah to King David.

Who among you would say to your slave who's just come in from plying or tending sheep in the field: come here at once and take your place at the table.

Would you not rather say to him: prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink. 

Later you may eat and drink. 

Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 

So you also, when you've done all that you were ordered to do, say we are worthless slaves: we have done only what we ought to have done.

Again, this sounds very mortalistic and moralizing (you're going to be humble and all of that, be humble and hard-working, etc).

I think there is much more going on here.

Remember that only a few verses and a few chapters before (and certainly this would have been remembered by the disciples), Jesus had told his little flock:

be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 

be like those who are waiting for their Master to return from The Wedding Banquet; 

blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; 

truly I tell you: he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat and he will come and serve them.

Now you can't confuse the fact that in one you have the story of the servant feeding the master and the other the story of the master feeding the servants.

There's no accident here. It's supposed to cause us to think.

They're being asked by this Parable to identify with the master.

And of course servants would come in and they would be expected not merely to have done their work, but actually to do more for him before getting their food and drink.

In other words, these stewards are not only just going to be doing their ordinary job, but are also going to have to serve the people of the Lord.

They're going to have to serve the crowd before themselves.

It's not a question of "well we've done our job, but now our job is for us to get served", which of course is the great temptation for any of us who claim or pretend to be stewards in the household of the Lord.

And here's where the image gets funny:

So you also, when you've done all that you were ordered to, say we are worthless slaves: we've only done what we ought to have done.

Well here's a weird little story. This is I think where things get interesting.

That worthless, profitless, the notion of girding your lines and being profitless comes in a rather well-known story, because you see when David decides to bring the ark into the city and what does David do?

David strips down into what would have seemed like his underwear and he dances in front of it happily with all the Levites making great noise.

When they come to the city of David; Michal, daughter of Saul, looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord and she despised him in her heart.

Well Michal was actually David's first wife and she had fallen for him rather at the same time as her brother, Jonathan, had.

However, it was only Jonathan's falling in love with him that David reciprocated.

King David was courteous and correct with Michal; he even went as far as to follow the requisite jumping through of Hoops by King Saul to get married to her, cutting off a hundred foreskins of Philistines to pay the proper marriage price, but in fact he did that so as to get into the royal family in the proper way and he never showed any real interest until afterwards.

So we have this poor woman Michal, who sees David dancing in his underwear, and she despises him in her heart.

Well yeah she had tough competition: she had Jonathan, now she has the Lord and she has this very flamboyant non-participating husband.

So David returns from all this, he takes the Ark of the Lord into it, and after he's offered burnt offerings and offers; then he distributes and feeds the people; then he goes back home to bless his household.

So he's brought the Lord in, he has done all the hard work without feeding the people, then David returns to bless his household.

However, Michal comes and says to him:

How the King of Israel honored himself today uncovering himself before the eyes of his servants, maids, as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself.

David responds as follows:

It was before the Lord who chose me in place of your father and all his household to appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the Lord, that I have danced before the Lord.

I will make myself yet more contemptible (literally yet more worthless, yet more unprofitable than this) and I will be amazed in my own eyes, but by the maids of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.

And Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death.

In other words, what's the image which is being given to the disciples?

Think of yourselves as like King David. What did King David do?

He abased himself. He made himself look contemptible for the people who understood these things, but it was in doing that that he was actually serving the Lord.

Notice that, before he went home, he went and gave food to the Lord, and then gave all the offerings to the Lord and gave food to all the people and then he went home and then he said effectively I am an unprofitable servant, I am a worthless servant.

We've only done what we've ought to.

That's exactly what David's effect response effectively was to Michal.

So Jesus is saying "Yeah be like David. David as servant; David as the one who understood who he was serving."

This means not being David corrupt King, as we see later on.

That's actually how you will find yourselves living the other half of the story that the One will come into your midst and come to table your table and will serve you.

Those two mentions of serving the Lord and what place you are in it, coming together.

I hope that makes it slightly more fun. I think that this is Jesus actually nudging people into having a bit of a bigger imagination about what it looks like to serve and not to be too important, in addition to remember that their work is not over until they have served the Lord.

SUMMARY

17 Jesus said to his disciples: Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.

Blessed are those who are not scandalized by Jesus, because what he's doing is turning upside down the whole order of the world, and there will be people (stewards) who think they're doing the Lord's work by going against that.

2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

The notion here is that a scandal is like constantly going around in circles doing the same thing until you're worn out, but it's still going on.

This is exactly the reverse of having your own name inscribed in heaven.

Your whole being is scandalized, so you're being cast into the sea, which is equivalent of definitive annihilation (for the Hebrew world).

Whatever we do, we must not be involved in scandalizing little ones (those with small faith, who might come to understand Grace, but are hold back by our bad stewardship of the Gospel).

3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 

4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

We have to be very careful of scandalizing when rebuking is the right thing to do and how to forgive, which is going to be the most constant thing we have, even if the person who's sinning is going round and round doing the same thing again and again.

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

This is a hell of a task and requires much patience, so the apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith.

6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

There's a hint of humour here, because Jesus is taking two very common things and playing around with it.

Here you've got to be really dumb to want to plant something in the sea. It's weird.

If you have faith the size of nothing, you could order something as boring as a mulberry tree to go and be planted in the sea.

To be uprooted and planted in the sea is hint in at Jeremiah: you are going to be living out Jeremiah's vocation.

What you are going to be living out as stewards is Jeremiah's vocation, who foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and was very criticized and exiled by the Patriachs of his time.

So, we have to be like Jeremiah, the person who had real faith and could put up with mammoth scandal: be faithful amidst literally everything going wrong.

7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. 

Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’?

These stewards will not only have to do their jobs, but also serve the people of the Lord, the crowd, before eat and drink themselves.

When David decides to bring the ark into the city, he strips down and sits in his underwear (as would've seemed at the time) and dances happily in front of it, then he do the offering, feeds the people and return to bless his household.

When faced with criticism for his behaviour dancing in such a way before the Lord, David responds by saying that: I will make myself yet more contemptible (more worthless, unprofitable) than this and I will be amazed in my own eyes.

So the image that Jesus gives is to think of ourselves as King David, making himself look contemptible for the people who understood these things, because it was doing that that he was actually serving the Lord.

Remember that David made the offerings, fed the people and afterwards said he was a worthless servant and had only done what he ought to.

Our work is not over until we serve the Lord.