Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22C)

October 2, 2022

Text: Luke 17:1-10

            “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5; ESV).  It is the anxious prayer of the Apostles.  And what brings this prayer to their lips?  It is what Jesus has said just before.  “Temptations to sin”… the Greek word is σκάνδαλα, scandals, literally “stumbling blocks,” the things that trip up your neighbor so that he may fall into apostasy, so that he may fall away from the faith… “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!” (v. 1).  Watch out that it not be you!  For if it is you, it would have been better if you had died a tragic and horrendous death before you had the opportunity (it reminds us of something our Lord said about Judas, doesn’t it?  It would be better for that man if he had never been born!).  It would be better to have a great millstone, a stone wheel for grinding grain, hung about your neck, and be cast into the sea, than that you should cause one of these little ones, be it a child, or simply another child of God, to sin.  This is the Law in all its fulness, isn’t it?  You have to watch out, always, for this danger, Jesus says.  Pay attention to yourselves.  That is, to your own person, yes, but also to one another.  If you see a brother or sister in Christ sinning, heading toward mortal danger, in peril of falling away from the faith, or causing one of these little ones to fall from the faith, you have to come to the rescue.  Rebuke him.  As hard as it is.  As politically incorrect as it may be.  And, of course, that doesn’t mean saying mean things to him.  It means coming to him in love, and with God’s clear Word, to show him his sin, to show him the danger, so that he repents.  And when he repents, forgive him.  In the Name of Jesus.  With Christ’s own forgiveness.  Forgive him, and restore him. 

            Ah, but there is more!  His sin may be against you, personally.  And his sin may be habitual.  He may sin against you seven times in a day, and come to you seven times in repentance, “Again, so sorry for that!” (and here we have the Shu Ke illustration, don’t we?...)  Who can imagine putting up with that?  Do you put up with that kind of thing?  But your forgiveness must be inexhaustible.  As Jesus’ forgiveness is inexhaustible for you.  Because your brother or sister Christian is counting on it.  And your refusal to forgive may be a stumbling block to them (not to mention you!).  And if it is… woe!

            So… “Increase our faith.”  The Apostles recognize the impossibility of the order.  They want to do it.  Because they love Jesus, and they know He is right.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is oh so weak.  This is a rare pre-Pentecost moment of clarity for the Twelve.  “If we’re gonna even begin to do this, Lord, we’re gonna need more spirit, more faith.”  Even cocksure Peter sees the problem. 

            What is Jesus’ answer to the prayer?  Well, first of all, He shows us that faith is not measured by quantity or size.  See, “If you had faith”… and actually, the Greek says “If you have faith,” and the implication is, “you do!”… If you have faith “like a grain of mustard seed,” one of the tiniest things of which the disciples could conceive (Jesus could probably say to us, “like an atom”), “you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (v. 6).  Well, big help, Jesus!  I mean, have you tried this lately?  Have you tested this promise?  My wife is re-planting bulbs right now.  It’d be a lot easier if she could just… Maybe she doesn’t have mustard-seed-sized faith?  But Jesus actually says you do have it, so that can’t be it. 

            This is the problem with the whole “You-must-not-have-enough-faith-if-God-doesn’t-do-what-you-want” crowd.  They are false teachers!  Don’t believe them!  It’s a scandal.  They cause you to stumble, as all false teachers do.  Jesus says you do have faith like a mustard seed.  The issue is, you shouldn’t be trying to size it up, and the point is precisely that you should not think that your faith is insufficient. 

            But, with regard to the promise, a couple of things.  First, you have to ask if it is God’s will for the mulberry to be transplanted in the sea, or if a miraculous bulb relocation (as opposed to the normal order of things) will really benefit His Kingdom. 

            Second, you have to remember that this promise about the mulberry is given specifically to the Apostles, and not to you.  The Apostles were given to do a lot of things you and I aren’t given to do, so that their preaching would be confirmed by God’s signs and wonders.  And anyway, though they had the promise, as far as I know there are no examples of apostolic mulberry removal in the Scriptures.  So they get that there is something greater going on here.  And that is the overarching promise that their faith… and yes, yours, too… regardless of quantity or size, is sufficient to do even greater things than move mulberry trees.  It is sufficient to do such humanly impossible things as guard against temptations, rescue neighbors from apostasy, and forgive sins, even when those sins are personal and habitual.  And the reason that faith is sufficient is not because you are such a strong and steadfast believer in Christ, as though your faith were your own work.  The reason for that sufficiency is that such faith is the gift of God to you in Christ Jesus.  To say that faith is sufficient, is to say that Christ is sufficient.  If you have faith, you have Christ.  If you have big faith, or little faith, you have all of Christ.  And you do have faith, because Christ has given it to you.  Because Christ gives you Himself. 

            And that is, finally, the answer Jesus gives to His Apostles.  He gives the Apostles, and He gives you, Himself.  Which is to say, He first does for us what He is telling us to do for one another.  And He illustrates this by means of a parable.

            Imagine, He says, if a servant came in from the sheep-pen or the wheatfield, stinking and filthy, and the master said to the servant, “Take a load off!  Recline at my table!  I’ve prepared a scrumptious supper for you, and I myself will serve as your waiter.”  Ridiculous!  We all know it.  That’s not how things work.  Quite the opposite.  The servant waits on the master.  Then the servant gets his supper.  And, for that matter, he can wait on his own table.  He certainly shouldn’t expect the master to do it.  That’s how it should work in the Kingdom of God, as far as we’re concerned.  And we’re right when we say, even if we’ve done all that is commanded, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty” (v. 10).  That is quite true, and, in fact, it’s an optimistic overstatement.  We must confess, we often don’t do our duty. 

            But look at how things work in the Kingdom of God.  In the Kingdom of God, the Master does say to the stinking, filthy servant, “Take a load off!  Recline at My Table!  I’ve prepared a Feast for you!  Not because you are worthy, or have even done your duty, but because I am worthy, and I have done your duty.  And now I Myself will serve as your Waiter, and feed you the Bread of Life that is My Body, and the Wine of Joy that is My Blood.”  In other words, Jesus’ answer to the prayer, “Increase our faith,” is the completely backwards, contrary to all human reason and instinct, unmerited, undeserved, gratuitous, blood-bought, but freely bestowed grace of God in Christ, His Son.  It is the preaching of the Gospel.  It is the giving of Himself in His Sacrament.  And that is His answer to your prayer today.

            The Gospel creates faith.  The Gospel bestows the Holy Spirit.  It is the preaching that all your sins are forgiven in the cross of Christ.  Your scandalous behavior.  Your stumbles and falls.  Your sleepy inability or unwillingness to pay attention to yourself, and to your Christian brothers and sisters, to rebuke, to bring to repentance, to forgive.  The Gospel is the preaching that Christ took all your sins into Himself.  Your sins were hung around His neck like a millstone, and in your place, He was cast into the abyss of death and hell.  The Gospel is the preaching that Christ Jesus is risen from the dead, victorious over death and hell, and He is now your righteousness and your life, so that you will never be cast out, and you will never die.  It is the preaching that Christ is with you, and will never forsake you.  You are baptized into Christ.  And there is a place for you here, in His House, and at His Table.  Gospel-created, divinely bestowed faith grasps that all of this is for you, from a God who is for you, a God who loves you, and who has rescued you from stumbling, from falling away, rebuked you by His good Word of Law, brought you to repentance.  And though you sin against Him daily, and exponentially more than seven times in a day, He forgives you every time, ever and always, on account of Christ, who died for your sins.

            So now, you go do the same.  See, it is what the Lord gives you here, in Word and Sacrament, that you then give to others.  You don’t have to rely on yourself to do the things He tells you at the beginning of our Gospel.  You don’t forgive with your own forgiveness.  You don’t rebuke and rescue your neighbor, bring to repentance and save from stumbling by any aptitude or capacity you inherently possess.  You can only give what you have, what you’ve been given by God.  You have Christ.  And so you give Christ.  It is Christ’s Word that you speak.  It is Christ’s forgiveness you bestow.  This is faith doing what faith does.  Being a Christian, which is to say, a little Christ, to your neighbor.  To have faith is to have Christ.  To do the works of faith is to do the works of Christ.  It is Christ working in you to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

            We know the task is impossible if it depends on us.  It is as impossible as commanding a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea.  But all things are possible with God.  “Increase our faith,” we pray, and the Lord Jesus bids us come at once and recline at His Table, where He gives us to eat and drink Him.  That is His answer.  For in giving us Himself, our faith is sufficient for all things.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.