As Worthless Slaves

Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
18th after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 17:1-10

(From “The Message”)

1 He said to his disciples, "Hard trials and temptations are bound to come, but too bad for whoever brings them on! 2 Better to wear a millstone necklace and take a swim in the deep blue sea than give even one of these dear little ones a hard time! 3 "Be alert. If you see your friend going wrong, correct him. If he responds, forgive him. 4 Even if it's personal against you and repeated seven times through the day, and seven times he says, 'I'm sorry, I won't do it again,' forgive him." 5 The apostles came up and said to the Master, "Give us more faith." 6 But the Master said, "You don't need more faith. There is no 'more' or 'less' in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, 'Go jump in the lake,' and it would do it. 7 "Suppose one of you has a servant who comes in from plowing the field or tending the sheep. Would you take his coat, set the table, and say, 'Sit down and eat'? 8 Wouldn't you be more likely to say, 'Prepare dinner; change your clothes and wait table for me until I've finished my coffee; then go to the kitchen and have your supper'? 9 Does the servant get special thanks for doing what's expected of him? 10 It's the same with you. When you've done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact and say, 'The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.'"

(New Revised Standard Version)

Jesus said to his disciples, "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. 3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke 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." 5The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 The Lord replied, "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. 7 "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? 8 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'? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "

Quick pop-quiz for you: subject is math. Don’t yell out the answer; just get it in your heads. The question: How much is too much forgiveness? …

Okay. Remember that answer. Keep it in the back of your heads. We’ll come back to it later.

Let’s get right to the text. We find Jesus still talking to the crowds around him … including Pharisees, and his disciples. And in this instance, we find a little clue as to who ELSE was around. Sometimes you find snippets, snapshots, if you will, of what the actual scene was when Jesus was talking. We find that here, when Jesus starts off talking directly to his disciples.

He’s not so much warning them as he is stating what was probably the obvious. None of them were strangers to hardship and violence and troubles, not with the Roman occupation of Palestine going on, and none of them would end up immune to any further hardships. Where is the place we most often hear of the apostles being after the resurrection and the birth of the church? Prison. Or at least, it SEEMS like the place we most often find them.

But back to the text: Jesus now DOES warn the disciples: if you are the SOURCE of the troubles, for stumbling, as the NRSV puts it, well … that’s not a good thing. In fact, you’d be better off dead than being the source of the problem. Like we’ve seen before, Jesus is not one to mince words.

The first time it was really made plain to me that what we read in the New Testament as being the conversations of people, or sayings of Jesus, or proclamations of the apostle Paul on his missionary trips, and not just words spoken stiffly, solemnly, as though … well … from behind a pulpit, I suppose you could say, was pretty recently. I was sitting in on a youth Sunday school class, and the teacher was quoting Matthew 16:18:

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church,

The teacher made the comment that that was the verse that our Catholic brothers and sisters hold as a key moment in the history of the church, as being the point at which Jesus named Peter to be the foundational leader of the church. Her point was this: She said ‘I imagine if I were there, Jesus would be sitting next to Peter, or standing across from him, and would place his hands on Peter’s chest for the beginning of the verse (and I tell you, you are Peter) and for the second part of the verse (and on this rock …) he’d be gesturing to himself.” “You are Peter, and on THIS rock I will build my church.” It was intriguing to me that I’d never really spent any time thinking about what emphasis was being placed on which words in the sentences in the Bible. I’d seen the italicized words in the King James growing up, but that’s done for another reason.

We have another instance here of a gesture being ‘worded out’.

Picture it: Jesus is talking about facing hardship, and warning against BRINGING hardships. He looks around and there were probably kids running around playing. Their Nintendos had run out of batteries, they were bored. They saw a crowd and decided to investigate. One is running in front of Jesus just then, and as they go by, Jesus grabs the boy and says ‘Be careful! If you crush the spirit of even one of these dear little ones’ There’s no previous reference in the text as to whom Jesus was talking about, so we can only assume that he was talking about someone who was right there, standing next to him or running past him.

That might be an interesting exercise to do sometime: read passages and try to imagine what motions were going along with the words. (Just a thought.)

But now Jesus is coming to the meat of what he wanted to say. He presents the disciples with the real-life example that makes them sit up and take notice: if one of them sins, then the others must rebuke him. And if the offender repents, then there must be forgiveness.

Please note: he didn’t say “if there is repentance, then you can consider one of your options to be to forgive him”, or “you might want to think about forgiving him if there is repentance.”

In the NRSV, the word used is ‘MUST’. In both cases, for both things, they are not optional.

That is hard, but not unexpected. The capper, the demand that Jesus makes of his disciples then and us here today is the next line: Even if it’s personal against you and the offender commits the same act 7 times in a day and comes back to us after each time to ask forgiveness.

WHAT!?!?!?

Oh MAN! I was getting it fine up until that point. Treasure children, don’t be the source of evil, yeah, yeah, I got that part. I can DO that! I really can! Or I’m pretty sure I can!

Now you come out with WHAT??!!

That is nonsense! There’s no point in forgiving if the offender is not going to STOP doing what he’s doing!!! If he can’t stop, he’s sick. Stick him in a magazine rack and call him NEWSWEEK, ‘cause he’s got ISSUES!

A question you’ve heard a couple of times over the lasts few weeks, or something like it: what are we supposed to DO with that, Jesus??!! What did you mean??!!

The disciples come back to Jesus after he tells them to do this incredible thing – this continuous forgiveness in the face of seemingly remorseless sinning, and ask him to increase their faith, assuming that if they have more faith, they will be able to accomplish the task.

It’s a very human way of interpreting the example, a very natural one. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If we are going to do what you just asked us to do, which is OBVIOUSLY something only YOU, Jesus, can currently do, then we must be lacking something in order to accomplish it. That’s got to be faith. So Jesus, grow our faith, makes us spiritual giants like you so we can do this thing again and again and again.

It wasn’t until I read Peterson’s translation that it hit me what Jesus was saying. It’s NOT about having MORE or LESS faith. Faith is faith. You either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you’re my disciples. If you don’t, you’re not. This is not about faith. It’s about obedience.

Then he makes another motion, another gesture at another person in the crowd. Actually, he makes it to two people.

There is no mention of ‘worthless slave’ in the Peterson version of the text, most likely because, as a modern translation, there is no common cultural point of reference with slavery. The reference in Peterson is to a servant, which in our current society is not unheard of, though it IS somewhat rare. In most other ‘standard’ translations, we find some reference to the ‘worthless’ servant or slave in some form or another.

‘Not worthy to serve you’ (NIV), ‘unworthy slaves’ (NASB), ‘unprofitable servants’ (ASV, KJV), ‘unworthy servants’ (AB), the point does come across. If it comes across now, 2000 years after having been written in a culture that is radically different from the one in which it was originally spoken, can you imagine how much more it got across to those who were hearing the words for the first time? I can picture Jesus looking around at the crowd, spotting a wealthy merchant who has a slave standing beside him (or her), and launching into this part of the lesson, gesturing directly to the merchant and the slave. They’ve been following the argument from the beginning, but they weren’t quite getting it either.

I think Jesus was trying to tell them, and us, not only more about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, but also more about God. To show us what kind of God his Abba, his daddy, was and is. Set aside the question of the disconnect between what we (the offenders) say we are (repentant), and what we in fact ACT like (something less than that). Set aside the task of trying to figure out why the actions (repeated offenses of the same kind if not identical ones) are not in line with the words spoken (I’m sorry, please forgive me), and focus on the message.

This isn’t ONLY about what we are supposed to do – directly. It’s about what God does on a routine basis.

We say we’re sorry. We say we won’t sin again. And we try. We really do try. And we fail. Hard as we try, disciplined as we might become, righteous as we work toward being, we ultimately fall short. We may get close, but we ultimately don’t reach perfection in this life. Forgiveness is what God does. Borne out of God’s love, we come to him much more often than 7 times a day, repentant.

If we were to walk up to an apple tree, what kind of fruit would we expect to pull off it? grapes? Of course not. We would expect apples. Jesus is telling us that we as disciples of his must do what comes as part of the normal Christian life.

This is the example we have from God in Christ. Anything else would not be normal.

What does this mean for us here today?

As we read in Philippians Sunday before last, Jesus made himself nothing, a servant, obedient, even to death on a cross.

Likewise, we are to follow in his steps. Take on the mind of Christ, as Paul said, and become obedient. Obeying means, very simply: doing what we are told to do. If Jesus has told us to be bold and rebuke, we are to do so. If Jesus has told us to be gracious and forgive in the face of repentance, we are to do that as well. But we shouldn’t expect any special notice, any unusual recognition for it.

That’s what we’re SUPPOSED to be doing all along. That’s just part of being a little Christ.

Following Christ is not a matter of living our lives like WE want to live them and occasionally rising above that and glimmering with the light of Christ in us for a few minutes. It’s about learning to change our ways and conform them to his. Conform. Like form. Form WITH. BE LIKE.

So, the question again, from the beginning of the message: how much is too much forgiveness? You tell me. Christ tells us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us. Can we imagine the situation if God were to run out of forgiveness?

Let’s pray.