Seventeenth
Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22C)
October
6, 2019
Text: Luke 17:1-10
Jesus 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” (Luke 17:6;
ESV). Have you ever tried this? Go stand in front of a
tree, concentrate really hard on believing in Jesus enough, and then speak the
command: “Be uprooted and planted in the midst of the sea!” What
happens? I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts the tree just stands
there where it always has, roots planted firmly in the ground. What
does this mean? Does it mean you don’t have enough
faith? Do you need to drum up even more faith within
yourself? Does it mean Jesus was lying when He made this promise? Does
it mean God can’t deliver? Where is the deficiency? In
you? In God? In your Bible translation? As is
so often the case with Jesus and His Word, there is more going on here than meets
the eye. First of all, let’s just agree that, as Jesus says, “You
shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matt. 4:7), which is
precisely what you would be doing if you did this little experiment with the
mulberry tree. You must first ask if it is God’s will that the
mulberry tree be so moved. And if not, God is unlikely to give you
the power to move it.
But
what is really the point of what our Lord says here? Is He really
concerned about you moving trees with your faith? Jesus has just
told the disciples to do some impossible things. Never lead your
neighbor into temptation, whether by encouraging or participating with him in
his sin, or tacitly condoning his sin by your silence. When your
neighbor sins, rebuke him, and (and this is the hardest part), if he repents,
forgive him. No matter what he’s done. No matter how many
times he’s done it. If he sins against you seven times in one day,
and seven times repents, you are to forgive him. Or, as our Lord
answers Peter’s question elsewhere, “Lord, how often will my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” … “I
do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matt.
18:21-22). Well, you all know from experience how difficult, nay,
impossible, these commandments are to fulfill. Never lead your
neighbor into temptation? Every child has broken that
one. Rebuke your brother when he sins? No way, that would
hurt our relationship. It’s too hard. And then the really
tough one. Forgive. As Christ has forgiven you, forgive
your brother who sins against you. And how has Christ forgiven
you? He died for you. Forgiving you killed Him,
literally. That’s how you are to forgive. And of course
you must recognize that you sin against Him more than seven times, or even seventy-seven
times in a day, but there He is, holding out His pierced hands to you, ready to
receive you back, covering your sins by His blood.
You
forgive that way. Impossible! And you’re
right. The apostles recognize this, too. They understand
that this is impossible for them to do by their own strength. They
know that they need something from the Lord, from outside of them, to be able
to do this. So they pray to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”
(Luke 17:5). It is a prayer that we also pray,
constantly. This is going to take a lot, this not leading into
temptation, this rebuking, this forgiving. This is going to take
more than we have within ourselves. Lord, increase our
faith!
What is interesting, though, is how Jesus answers this
prayer. He doesn’t answer by giving them an increasing quantity of
faith. He simply says that if they have faith, and they do, then
they can do the impossible, even saying to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and
planted in the sea,” and it would do it. Faith, even as small as a
mustard seed, the tiniest of all seeds, can do the impossible, like forgive the
brother who sins against you. Yes, it can.
Now, I’m not talking about having warm and fuzzy feelings
about that brother. I’m talking about you dying for that brother’s
sin, dying to yourself, taking it on the chin. I’m talking about you
loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you (Matt.
5:44). You understand that when you pray, “Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” you are essentially
saying, “Lord, forgive me all my sins. And I am publicly stating
here in this prayer that I forgive everyone who has sinned against
me.” There is an objective quality about this
forgiveness. Again, I’m not talking about how you feel toward
that brother who has sinned against you. I’m talking about your
objective decision to forgive, even if it kills you, as Christ has forgiven
you.
“Impossible,
Pastor!” Right. Just like the mulberry
tree. What is going on with that tree? A living tree uprooted
and planted where it has no hope of survival, namely, the salty
sea. And there it is to go on living, to thrive
even. Impossible.
There is another tree, the tree of life, the tree of the
cross, which is planted in the most inhospitable environment, in the heart of
the sinner.[1] In
your heart! And there the impossible happens. This tree
that bears the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ takes deep root in you and
produces the fruit of living faith in Christ. This happens as the
Word is preached, as Baptism washes and waters, as by the Supper Jesus’ blood
courses through your veins. And you find that something amazing
happens. You want to do what your Lord commands. You want
to forgive. You want to do your duty of love toward your
brother. Oh, it’s still hard. Very hard. You
can’t do it by your own power. But you can do it in
Christ. You can do it in Christ who forgives your sinful inability
to forgive. You can do it in Christ who died for you that you might
die for your brother. You can do it in Christ, who is risen from the
dead and gives you to walk in newness of life, who here and now dispenses to
you eternal life by His Word and Sacraments.
You can do it by faith. The
righteous, the justified one, shall live by faith (Hab. 2:4).
Now,
I’m not going to lie. You will struggle with this forgiveness
business and love for your neighbor until the day you die. Because
of your sinful nature. Don’t worry about that. Christ
took care of your sinful nature in His death on the cross. Your
sinful nature has been drowned in Baptism and will ultimately be put to death
forever when you go to heaven. But even if you are successful at
forgiving your brother (and when you are, praise be to God!), you haven’t done
anything worthy of boasting. When you have done what your Lord has
commanded, you are simply to say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only
done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10). In fact, you haven’t even
done your duty, as evidenced by your struggle to forgive. But here is
the Good News. You have a Lord who has done more than His
duty. He has done it for you and in your place. It is He
who prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke
23:34), as the Roman soldiers cast lots for His clothing and He hung there on
the tree to pay for your sins. There He won the victory over your
sin and death. He is risen from the dead. And now what
does He do for you? He says to you precisely what He says in our
text a master would NOT say to his servants: “Come at once and recline at
table” (Luke 10:7). Come and let me serve you. I have
prepared a Feast, my Body and Blood, given and shed for you, for the
forgiveness of all your sins. And at this Holy Meal you will be
given faith and strengthened to do the impossible: to forgive as I have
forgiven you.
Now,
you may not be successful in your little mulberry tree experiment, and because
we know we shouldn’t put God to the test, I recommend you don’t even try. But
by faith you can do the impossible. You can forgive your
brother. You can do it because Christ has done it for
you. You can do it because Christ does it in you. Christ
died for you. Christ died for your brother. In His death
on the tree, He has reconciled us to God and to one another. And His
cross has been planted in our hearts for the increase of our faith, to
accomplish what is impossible. In the Name of the Father, and of the
Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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