Day 321 - Thank Goodness I’m not Like Them

A sermon delivered at First Presbyterian Church Soddy Daisy, TN Oct. 27, 2013

OT reading:  Joel 2: 23-32 

NT Reading: Luke 18: 9-14

As you know, a parable is an oral exercise intended to be heard. Jesus did not pass out paper texts of the parable, like I do on Wednesday evenings. The parable is a challenging mental exercise that tests our spontaneous perception of good an evil. It expect a reaction such as, “What did he just say?” or “He’s got a lot of nerve!” or “Is he talking about me?” It is not meant to be overanalyzed but to cause us to “overthink” and linger in our mind.

I wonder how many of us remember this parable about the praying Pharisee and tax collector by the image of the Pharisee standing on the corner with outstretched arms praying thanks that he is not like the contemptible tax collector?

It is unusual to have Jesus explain a parable to his audience after it is told, not to mention before it is told. But here Luke tells us both the purpose and audience for this parable. It is for “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” He leaves it to the listener to decide who is righteous and who is not.

I find it very cunning that Luke does not tell us who Jesus aims this parable. We can infer from the previous verses (18:1-8) of the persistent widow who kept after the unjust judge until she got justice as an example of persistent prayer, that he is amplifying the teaching on prayer. But is prayer the point?

Jesus presents a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee is by all rights, an exemplary Jew highly regarded as righteous for his meticulous adherence to the Law. As Paul would say, he is a Jew’s Jew. Pharisees were a mishmash of lay religious police, a political movement and a social movement who searched out and punished violations of the Law. They enjoyed good favor with common people of the public because they opposed the priestly leaders who mostly were the elite Jews who returned from Babylonian captivity.  The tax collector is a Jew, as typical, but his job demanded that he abandon almost all Judaic principles. He worked for Rome, a traitorous and sacrilegious act on three accounts. First, the Romans occupied the Promised Land. Second, the Romans were gentile heathens whose emperor claimed the status of god, even having his own gospel, or good news. Third, the tax collector enjoyed wide latitude in collecting taxes. Usually he charged far more than the emperor demanded, keeping the excess for himself, or giving some to the emperor’s cult. Tax collectors had the lowest and most loathed status among the Jews.

And so our parable begins with the honorable and the dishonorable, but which is which? The Pharisee is standing by himself in a public prayer. We might think that is egotistical, but it is a particularly advisable thing to do in the presence of a ritually unclean tax collector. He prays to God with his thanksgiving that he is able to be a justified Jew under the Law. He honors God. He does not steal from others, nor is an adulterer. He is not rouge; apparently he respects the well-being of others and does not take advantage of them. The Law says one should fast once per week on the Sabbath, but he fasts twice. The Law says you should title one tenth of your food and the products of your husbandry, he gives a tenth of all he has. In short, this Pharisee has gone far beyond what the letter of the Law requires, he is truly a righteous man. The other impoverished Jews who have come from all over the countryside to the Temple for worship would think what a great religious man this Pharisee is, and all would agree he is clearly better and more justified under the Law than the loathed tax collector.

The tax collector on the other hand, is not just standing apart from the rest, he is at a remote distance. The way the Temple court fills with religious people, he may have been as far away as the entry gates to the outer courtyard. (walked in last?)

The parable does not say why he has recognized his poor state, but it paints a picture of a very pathetic, broken man totally overwrought with grief and repentance.

He bows his head because he is afraid to raise his eyes to the heavens. He beats his chest with his fists in grief, probably in tears. Pounding of the chest with your fists is a very striking and humiliating display of grief for a man of the time. It is the normal public display of grief-stricken women of the time. This broken and lonely, fearful, grief-stricken, cowering man, far removed from the righteous Pharisee, can only plead, “God be merciful to me!”

The other Jews in the Temple courtyard are probably thinking, “Yes you ought to ask for forgiveness, but you deserve no mercy for being the scum-bag that you are.”

At this point our idea this parable is about prayer still holds.  Given that the preceding verses (1-8) about ceaseless prayer and never giving up hope for justice and the return of the Son of Man; we could conclude, “Ah! Jesus is fine tuning the matter of prayer.”

The two men certainly pray differently. Recall that Jesus instructs us to model our prayer according to the Lord’s Prayer (LP, Matt 6:7-15; Luke 11:1-4).  We should focus on the large issue of God’s plan for the Kingdom of God on earth, not our mundane day-to-day matters. We pray that our faith will preserve us in times of trial with sustenance so we may work for the kingdom of God to be realized on Earth when we will live with all the saints and be blessed with grace, validating our faith by forgiving others as God has forgiven, and enjoying that grace forever.

When we pray this way we have our eyes on this great unfolding redemptive, Kingdom of God and the return of the Son of Man as described in the Gospel narrative itself (a few verses earlier, 17:22-36). Such prayer focused on the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom on Earth sharpens our desire for its completion and our conscious, every-day discipleship. Such prayer is really all about God, not us.

In light of this model of prayer, what should we conclude by the behavior of the Pharisee and tax collector? We could say they both are praying properly. The tax collector is seeking atonement for his sin because he understands the depravity of his life and how antithetical it is to the Kingdom of God.

At first glance we concluded the Pharisee really is the Jew’s Jew by the content of his prayer. He maintains his purity at all costs. He thanks God for his blessings and strength to live by the Law feeling he is justified under it. He has fulfilled every work of the Law… except the one that Jesus constantly repeats - love your neighbor as yourself. We can sense the prideful contempt in his words when he says, “I am not like other people, especially not like that tax collector.” As we rethink his prayer, we see his focus is on himself, he is praying to himself, not God: Thank you God I’m not like them…” He is almost more Roman than Jew. Prideful contempt is honored by Rome as the virtue of honorable citizens.

We do not find pride in the tax collector only the same contempt for him self the Pharisee has. He prays, “Have mercy on me” as he humiliates himself beating his chest. The tax collector comes in absolute humility, the virtue of the slave. He validates the assessment of the Jews and Romans, he is a scorned person and is the opposite of Roman honor.

As he has done throughout Luke, Jesus is about to turn the tables on every listener with a reversal that insults both Roman and Jewish minds.  Up to now, everyone listening to this parable nods their heads at how justified is the Pharisee and sorry is the tax collector; until Jesus gets to the last sentence about grace.  

Jesus says the tax collector is the one to praise because he has humbled himself in an embarrassed way with womanly, subservient and penitent behavior before God confessing his sins. He knows he has no control over his life beyond loyalty to God. He begs for mercy and his loyalty revealed in prayer justifies him.

By praising the tax collector, Jesus simultaneously indicts the Pharisee for his prideful, contemptuous Roman behavior that exalts his own righteousness.

Jesus has pulled the rug out from under us all. He calls out the pride of righteous and praises the self-humiliated who plead for God’s forgiveness.  This is the kind of subversive talk gets people crucified, as we know already, because we remember we are almost at the gates of Jerusalem and the foot of the cross on this journey from Galilee.

And so, yes, this parable deal with the nature of true, wholehearted prayer and atonement. There is an old Jewish story about the nature of true prayer that really fits this idea. I borrow it from Brian Stoffregen¹

Once there was a rabbi who was ill and at the point of death, so the Jewish community proclaimed a day of fasting in the town in order to induce the Heavenly Judge to commute the sentence of death.

On that very day, when the entire congregation was gathered in the synagogue for penance and prayer, the town drunkard went to the village tavern for some schnapps. When another Jew saw him do this he rebuked him, saying, "Don't you know this is a fast-day and you're not allowed to drink? Why, everybody's at the synagogue praying for the rabbi!"

So the drunkard went to the synagogue and prayed, "Dear God! Please restore our rabbi to good health so that I can have my schnapps!"

The rabbi recovered, and it was considered a miracle. He explained it in the following way: "May God preserve our village drunkard until he is a hundred and twenty years! Know that his prayer was heard by God when yours were not. He put his whole heart and soul into his prayer!"

If we put this little story into a Christian perspective, Jesus says the person who puts one’s whole heart and soul into humble prayer for their sinful state, who admits who he is and asks for God’s mercy is justified before God.

But these words, “being justified by God” should give us pause. Have you ever thought, even if only a little, “Wow ! I’m glad I’m not like that Pharisee?”  How many times in our life do we react exactly as the Pharisee when we see something, or some one that we think is evil or sinful, or at least quite the opposite of or less than what we think is good? “Oh, I am so glad I am not like them.” (for example, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Tea partiers)

That is where Jesus has completely upset our apple cart. He intends for us to identify with the Pharisee, not the tax collector. We can’t get to the justice of the tax collector until we know we are the Pharisee. We may think, “I have a job and worked hard to find and earn it, why does the person who can’t find or keep a job do the same?” The Pharisee forsook humility for pride, “Thank God I am not like that tax collector.” He failed the one critical test of the Law, to love his neighbor as he loves himself, or to put it in another way, to love your neighbor as God loves you.

The true heart of this parable is the self-made man. It is easy to fall into the trap of the Pharisee’s “salvation of works.” As a self-made man I work hard, follow the Law and it pays off. If you do the same it will pay off for you too. God is good.

But we know we cannot work hard enough to earn our way right into heaven. Jesus told us for his entire time on Earth that is dead-end thinking. The question is not am I better than another, or “why isn’t that person as good as me?” It is why has God graced a sinner like me who does not deserve it?

This parable involves humble prayer, but at its deepest level it is about the absolute power of God in our life and the heresy of the self-made person. The parable is timeless.

When it was told, the crowd saw only the hypocrisy of the tax collector asking for forgiveness after his abominable behavior of stealing from other Jews to pad his pocketbook and support the Roman God-Man emperor. Today, we are more likely to see the hypocrisy of the Rabbi/Pharisee praying about himself and his self-righteousness. In both cases, the parable points at the listener.

It leads us down a rosy path today like it did then.  Everyone of us are prone, even unconsciously; to thank God we are not like the Pharisee when we see someone pretentious about his or her faith, or are hypocritical with it, when we do something better than another person. We fall victim to that “works” and “judgment” thinking, the Pharisee is a hypocrite but I am religious, I earn my salvation. 

Jesus expects us to wonder do we rely on God or ourselves? Are we the person “who trusts in themselves that they are righteous and regards the other with contempt?”

It is also an important question for today because today is Reformation Day, the day we acknowledge our Protestant roots. If Martin Luther did one thing he showed through the Word that there is nothing of value on God’s green earth that we can do to earn our way into God’s good favor. Jesus Christ alone is responsible for that grace. Pride in self-sufficiency mortally wounds our relationship with God by keeping us from His grace. We can only find that freely given grace when we have adopted the humility of the tax collector and become open to those two great commandments, Love the Lord with all your body, soul and mind; and love your neighbor as you love yourself. That is where you will find that freely given grace. When you leave these doors, don’t think, “I’m glad I’m not like that Pharisee,” rather pray  “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven and may I only tend your footstool.”

1. (http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke18x9.htm) A Treasury of Jewish Folklore: Stories, Traditions, Legends, Humor, Wisdom and Folk Songs of the Jewish People, Edited by Nathan Ausubel, Copyright, 1948, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York.

note: All links to scripture are from oremun bible Browser (http://bible.oremus.org)

Day 307 - And He Was a Samaritan

A Sermon presented at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN Oct. 13, 2013
OT reading: 2 Kings 5:1-16
NT Reading: Luke 17:11-19

What are we to make of the connection between these two stories of lepers who have been healed?

Let’s begin with Luke and ask, "What is Luke telling us with his Gospel?"  If we read Luke carefully looking for the thematic focus of his Gospel, starting with its prologue we realize Luke is explaining the story of Jesus as the prophetic fulfillment of scripture.

Luke shows how Jesus used children; the dregs of society (the outcasts, the poor and aggrieved) to tell us something about the obligation of faith and entering the kingdom of God; and to call out those who have failed the Law or hide behind it.

Luke begins telling this prophetic fulfillment of Israel’s hope in the first sermon of Jesus. Luke tells us Jesus read the proclamation of Isaiah 40 (found in Luke 4:16-19):

(16) “When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, (17) and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: (18) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,  (19) to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus has come to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke shows this prophetic image of Jesus in various ways. He compares Jesus with Elijah and Elisha several times. In that very first sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus continued (Luke 4:20-30), and chastised the response of the religious leaders and members to his proclamation saying they will say,

 (23)…Doctor cure yourself! (25) “But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; (26) yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

Now I am going to stop here in Jesus comments because the story of the widow is important. (1 Kings 17:1-25) Elijah befriended a starving widow and gave her a jar of grain and a jar of olive oil that will never empty until the famine lifts, but while he was there her son died. Both the widow and Elijah blamed Elijah for his death. Elijah prayed to God to bring the child back and the Lord did it. This resurrection caused the woman to understand and say that Elijah speaks with the voice of the Lord.

The Jesus continues to the story of Naaman in the next verse (Luke 4:27-30):

(27)There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Luke tells us (28) “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.”

Naaman was an Aramaean, a Syrian like Abraham; but also he was the general of the Syrian army the Lord used to defeat Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha (who lived in Samaria).  Naaman had taken a young Israeli girl as a spoil of war to be his wife’s servant.  
Naaman had a problem, he suffered from leprosy. The  Hebrew girl knew Elisha lived in Samaria and could heal Naaman. She convinced Naaman’s wife to talk him into going there to be healed. Naaman followed protocol and went straight to the King of Israel with a great fortune and ask to be healed.  The king panicked. He knew he couldn’t cure anybody and accused Naaman of trying to start a fight that would lead to a Syrian reprisal.

Elisha hears of this visit and sends for Naaman. When he arrived Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed.  Now The Jordan River was more a muddy creek than a river compared to the “great” rivers of Syria.

This instruction angered Naaman and he stormed off because he was expecting Elisha to command him to do some difficult task. But Naaman’s servants persisted telling him, “you were prepared to do something difficult if you were commanded to do it, if you don’t have to do anything more than just go wash in the river, why not just go do it?”

Naaman did as Elisha commanded and was healed. He then returned to Elisha with his large sum of money insisting on paying Elisha. Elisha refused and Naaman vowed never to worship any god but the Lord. Naaman experienced a conversion to Judaism through his faith that God has healed him. Not Elisha.

With Naaman in mind, Luke begins this story of the ten lepers. True to form the first thing Luke does is remind us where we are, “On the way to Jerusalem” heading to the cross.

The ten lepers knew of Jesus because they call him “master.” Like Naaman, they are probably expecting a command to perform some task to bring about divine action and the power of healing. But Jesus  says and does nothing to the lepers except, “Go show yourselves to the priests so they can verify you are healed.” At this point we only know they are ten lepers. The command. "go to the priests," suggests they are all are Jews. 

One interpretation of the story leads us to conclude they were not healed before they left Jesus but on the way because they obeyed the command of Jesus to go see the priest. They were healed as a result of their obedience.

In such a case, Luke is giving us a lesson about the gratitude of the only one who realized Jesus healed him and gratefully came back to praise God; in contrast to the ingratitude of the other nine who failed to return to thank Jesus.

However, once we discover the person healed was a Samaritan, the story takes on a more complicated tone making this a Jew vs. Gentile story. The Samaritan, as you know, was despised as a heretic and not allowed in the Temple.  As a leper he is a double outcast and the priest will refuse to examine him. So not only is gratitude involved, it is the gratitude of the infidel, the outcast Samaritan and the ingratitude of the Chosen people. The outcast gets the message but the nine Jews do not. I think there is more to it.

The most important part of this story is the healing and faith revealed in the last verse (19). The story does leave us uncertain whether the nine Jews knew they were healed before they saw the priest.  Did they intend to rely on the priests to tell them they are healed rather than understand, as the Samaritan did, that they were healed when they obeyed the biding of Jesus and left to see the priest? Jesus did tell them to go show the priests and if they felt Jesus had healed them all would be grateful and return to give thanks. In other words, if they have faith that Jesus healed them as an act of grace, kindness or kindness, ingratitude would not stop them from returning to Jesus to acknowledge god's work, as it did not stop Naaman. Perhaps they experienced healing but not salvation?

Since Jesus wonders why did only the Samaritan return, it is pretty safe to conclude the nine never returned to offer gratitude or thanksgiving because they did not have the faith that God’s presence was the critical ingredient.

Faith takes front and center when it is revealed the Samaritan understood (saw) he was healed by God’s presence. Luke tells us, “When he SAW he was healed he turned back to Jesus.” No one told him who healed him, rather he instinctually knew he was healed because of the power of the Lord. This Samaritan knew he was healed in God’s presence. He act is gratitude. Luke’s language leaves nothing to misunderstanding. Luke says the fellow returned to Jesus and threw himself on the ground prostrate at Jesus feet, praising God in a loud voice and thanking Jesus for this act. The Samaritan foreigner understands God is acting in Jesus, perhaps as Naaman understood God was acting in Elisha.  Luke adds his own commentary to the narration to emphasize the point. You can almost feel the bite of irony that not a Jew but a Samaritan returned to praise God as he comments, “And he was a Samaritan.”

Jesus asks, “Where are the other ten?” leaving us to wonder where.

As I said the last verse captures the core message (17:19). Jesus turns to the Samaritan and says, “You are raised to a new life, go on your way.” Though it is often translated in the vein of  “Get up and go your way;” the Greek clearly reads Jesus on the final leg of his trek to Jerusalem saying, “Arise” or “Be resurrected.” The world can conclude that arise means get up from your prostrate position, but the word, here on the road to Jerusalem, means arise to a new life.  

How do I know this? Because Luke will not let us, or the leper, go without spelling out exactly what has happened here.  Jesus tells the Samaritan to go on his way because his faith has saved him. The word is saved, not healed. (Though it can be translated either way, the context and other usage resists using "healed" except in soteriological terms.)

Where are the other nine? We can only conclude they did not have faith that Jesus is God; they failed to understand that God was present in his prophet Jesus. Only the foreigners, the Samaritan and Naaman understood that God had touched them. Luke might say scripture is being relived in the moment.

There is a three-fold significance to this leper’s conversion in faith. The Samaritan’s conversion itself is important because he understands God has been present in his healing. As I have said before, faith found the Samaritan.

There is another important part (warning?) of the story.  An observant Jew would hear the echo of Naaman’s healing in this story of the alien returning to Jesus.  The uncomfortable reminder to the listening scribes and Pharisees on this road to Jerusalem is that an outcast, a heretic, a despised person can experience God’s grace. 

The third part of the message is response guided by faith. The issue is not having faith in God’s work; but in what we do with our faith. We ought to worship and praise and go our way with renewed lives.

So I can sum up this story of the ten lepers. The first point is that no one can create gratitude where it is absent. Special status, such as being a Jew or a preacher does not confer gratitude. What confers gratitude is an inward disposition towards the understanding of grace. This is the fundamental character of faith: we have faith and are grateful because we understand the source of grace. As the Samaritan leper showed, faith is not found in a rational experience but by grace of God.
For the other nine, perhaps the absence of gratitude, or ingratitude, is a greater burden than leprosy itself.  Are these nine men worse off for their ingratitude after being healed? At the worst they have denied that God healed them and at best failed to SEE Jesus for who he is.

What does gratitude for God’s grace encumber?  Gratitude for God’s grace encumbers the obligation to worship and praise God as the source of grace. Praise in its original sense (note 1) means shouting “Hallelujah” for our gift of grace. And there is some evidence “Hallelujah” originally means a shout “Hurrah for Yahweh.”

And finally we get to the main point of faith. Faith incurs a demand for action, a point James will make directly in his letter. The issue is not having faith but in what we do with that faith in our daily lives.

If I tried to condense Luke’s message from Jesus to a single sentence it would be, “the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are best understood by those who hear the word of God and do it (Luke 8:21).’” (note 2)

note 1: see The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Luke and John, Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1952. p 299.
note 2: See Holladay, C.R., A Critical Introduction to the New Testament,Nashville: Abingdon Press. 2005.  p179-180.

Day - 300 I'm Glad To Oblige

A Sermon given at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN Oct. 6, 2013

OT reading: Lamentations 3:18-26

NT Reading: Luke 17:5-10

How often have we done some good deed and in reply to a thank you said, “I’m glad to oblige?” It is an interesting statement because the word “oblige” has two almost different meanings. “Obliged” can mean “to be required to take an action by moral or legal force.” For example, “Congress is obliged by law to provide a budget for the government.”

“Obliged” can also mean to put someone into debt (an obligation) for some favor or action. For example, “I am obliged to you for your help.” so when we make the statement “I’m glad to oblige” it can mean I’m glad to put you under obligation for my action,” or “My duty requires me to under take an action.”

Today in Luke, Jesus is talking exactly about the connection of faith and obligation.

Let me add a little review. Recall we are following Luke’s account from Luke chapter 9 of Jesus traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem where he will be crucified. The reality of his impending death is real, Luke says his face is set on Jerusalem.  Jesus has spent his time on the journey chastising the Pharisees, cajoling and chastising his disciples and followers and the curious who are following him on this journey. Through out this whole journey he has talked mainly about faith and humility. He told the Pharisees only to invite the people they detest to their banquets and never to sit at the head of the table unless asked. He told his disciples that he would bring conflict between family members because unless they put their loyalty to him over all other worldly considerations they are not fully committed to follow him. He used the treatment of sick and disabled Lazarus, poor and disabled as the song goes, to condemn the Jewish religious leaders for having the law, knowing they could not fulfill it but denying Jesus anyway. As we near the end of his journey Jesus has turned his attention to his disciples again who have asked Jesus for more faith.

The lectionary passage leaves out the first 4 verses of this exchange (that I include in the like above) with the disciples and I think they may be useful to understand why the disciples ask for more faith in v5.

Jesus said,  (1)“Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come!  (2) It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble."

Jesus tells us we are always going to be faced with opportunities to do the wrong thing, to stumble. Someone will say something to us that we don’t like and we will get mad. Then we will either say something mean in return or do something we may regret later.  Jesus says woe to us when that happens because if we cause a weaker person to stumble we would be better off if instead we tied a millstone around our neck and leaped into the sea.

These are hard words. They do not give us a lot of comfort or wiggle room. We know those situations will come our way and Jesus says they are bad for us.

And then Jesus gives the disciples the command, “ (3) Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must talk about it to the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive.  (4) And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” 

If you are wronged this way, take the person aside and let them know what they have done. If they repent, forgive them, and if they stumble and do it again and repent keep forgiving, even if it is seven times a day.

I don’t know about you but in my book this is a tall order. I have faith in God. I have faith that Jesus is Lord. I have faith that he defeated the death of sin by his resurrection and the road is open to me to enjoy his grace forever. But this teaching about forgiveness and millstones is really a hard pill to swallow.

Is the reaction of the disciples any wonder, “Increase our faith, PLEASE!” I would have been standing right behind them saying the same thing, “Increase my faith, too!”  In Mark’s parallel story of the father of the epileptic son. He tells the father if he has faith his son will be healed. The father replied, “I believe! Help my unbelief!” Jesus healed the son. The disciples had tried to heal the son but failed and appealed to Jesus. Jesus tells them it requires special power. 

This is our dilemma.  This man of clay, Jesus of Nazareth, Emmanuel, God is with Us, is going to demonstrate on the cross that human clay with absolute faith has this power. Jesus knows already our faith can never match his faith, why else is he here walking towards Jerusalem and the cross? This is the root cause for God’s sacrifice, the steadfast love and forgiveness of human clay. This is also Jeremiah's lament.

We have to appreciate what faith in God's steadfast love and forgiveness means. We’ve talked about it in the Easter story in Mark (16:1-8). Faith isn’t the feeling we have that the sun shall rise tomorrow and every morning hence. We know that by scientific observation. Faith isn’t the hope we might win the lottery. We know that is purely a matter of random probability. Hope and faith has nothing to do with it.

Faith is what came to Mary, Maratha and Salome in the tomb on the third day after the death of Jesus when the found the empty tomb open and a young man dressed in white saying, “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth. He is not here. He is risen. Go tell the others he will meet them in Galilee.” The women struck with terror and amazement fled and told no one.”  I remind you that the Greek words tell us these three women were terrified and amazed because they knew they were in God’s presence receiving this message of resurrection and terrified of being able to fulfill the divine command, “go and tell the others.” They did not discover faith in the resurrection by some objective, scientific analysis. Faith came to them through the presence of the Holy Spirit. We use a messy word to describe the experience, a revelation. They knew they were in God’s presence. Their faith that found them in this empty tomb obliged them to action, and they were petrified.

This is how our faith comes to us human creations of God. We all have the same faith in the resurrection because the Holy Spirit brought it to us.  Faith is an equal thing, we have it or not, there is no degree of faith in the Good News.

So Jesus gives this lesson to the disciples about faith and the mustard seed. Perhaps again he used overstated language colored by his own knowledge of the death that awaits him in Jerusalem, and of his absolute faith in his resurrection.

The mustard plant or shrub is a very hearty plant. Its seeds  sprout readily and are scattered easily by birds. Like Kudzu here, it grows everywhere and is almost impossible to eliminate. There were even Jewish laws that forbid growing mustard plants in gardens for this reason. It is hard to escape the idea that here may be some theological analogy that the disciples will spread the Good News the way the mustard seed spreads the shrub wildly.

Jesus says, “If you had faith, true faith, you would be more powerful that a tiny seed that grows into a plant, you would be able to uproot trees and toss them in the sea, you would be able to move mountains (Matthew17:14-20. This passage in Matthew is his version of the event we discuss here.)

“But my beloved disciples, I know you are men of mortal clay. I have called you by faith to a Christian vocation, to follow me and learn the Good News, to discover how to go out and spread it throughout the countryside. I have called you to be my slaves.  The modern translations use the word “servant” not “slave,” but “servant” papers over the negative connotation of slavery, something Paul and the early church understood and willingly self identified as slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is important about the word “slave” is that it paints the picture of our relationship to the Lord. We do not have any say in our calling.

We are called to be a witness. The Lord isn’t going to let us go easily. We can resist that calling using all manner of excuses, “Let me go and bury my father first,” “let me close up my shop, beach my boat and put up my nets…”.

Jesus says faith is like the obligation of the slave to the master. Our vocation is an obligation to the Lord; thus, we are bound by the imperative of faith to understand our vocation as Christians and to serve the Lord. We cannot indebt ourselves to God by being faithful. This isn’t a “works of faith” game where we strive to be a more righteous to move up a place or two at the big banquet in heaven.

Listen to the last two verses, (17:9) ”Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?” Would you expect your boss to thank you just for doing what you are paid to do? Faithful action does what is expected, does what is the right thing to do, and atones or repents for our errors when we stumble. Yes, we are blessed for our faith but remember who we are, human clay.

Jesus explains his words in verse 10.  "So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves [merely servants]; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”  The translation, “We are worthless slaves” or “merely servants” is another example of the fundamental failure of all translation.  What this Greek says is something like this, “We have no reason to expect further reward than we already have because we did only what faith expected of us.” We are obliged by faith to follow the master’s bidding. Faith is its own reward.

Earlier we thought about the idea of the theological importance of the mustard seed analogy. Jesus says, “If you had faith, (my faith?), you would be more powerful that a tiny seed that grows like a weed and spreads everywhere, you would be able to uproot trees and toss them in the sea, you would be able to move mountains.” You do not need super faith to do what I require; you just need faith. Your faith will empower you to do your job, to spread the good News everywhere. This image dovetails to the mustard seed. The faith of the disciples will spread the Good News the way the mustard shrub spreads wildly.

That does not make our job easy. The bible is full of examples. We can read about Stephen in Acts or Paul in 2 Corinthians to see that. Faith is about doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. The right thing to do is almost always the very, very difficult thing to do. It is easy stumble, or cause someone else to stumble, so be prepared to atone or forgive, even if it requires you to do it seven, or seventy times seven times. It is logging out of Facebook or  the TFP e-version rather than reacting to something you read that you do not like before you say something that will hurt you later. It is really about how we approach people in general.

We real have a pretty good real life example of how this works. My fellow pastor, Stephanie Maddox-Hill reminded me of the comic strip “Peanuts.” The creator of the strip, Charles Schultz, used theological themes, and one exemplary event in the strip every fall football season was the interaction of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick. Every time he runs at the ball swinging his leg to kick it, she pulls the football away and Charlie falls down on his back.

Mr. Schultz to my recollection had Lucy apologize only once on a TV version; but every time Charlie Brown asked her she said she would hold the ball, and good old Charlie Brown forgave her and tried again, and again.

Many of us see Lucy as the stand in for a mean spirited woman. Others see Charlie Brown as a gullible fool. I think Charles Schultz intended show Charlie Brown’s faith was forgiving for someone who said they repented.

We never know if repentance is true, do we? We never know if it is an earnest plea for forgiveness that is too burdened with temptation forcing the other person to pull t he ball away.  I don’t want to carry the analogy too far because we all have to decide when someone is so incorrigible and unable to repent to be a danger to us.

We all have to understand the consequences of error in both cases, forgiveness or condemnation. Jesus and Paul offer advice about separating the fellowship from someone. Scripture says it is the gravest decision because we abandon a person to sin when we separate from them, yet we risk harm to the fellowship if we do not. The millstone always hangs there at the ready.

That is why the Presbyterian Church requires a difficult process for breaking fellowship with a member, a pastor or a congregation to reduce the chance the emotion and anger of a few do not unjustly rule the action of all. That never guarantees the right decision is reached but when we rely on a group of people to agree to who say they are commit to faithful action, it is the best we can get.

The bottom line is faith comes to us from the Holy Spirit. It is an obligation. It is an obligation to our covenant of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord to live as he lives.  To have faith is to be obliged to forgive, to cajole and correct, to help and to use the great power of the slave’s virtue, humility to serve the Lord.