27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 2, 2022
/What is faith and what is our role as servants of God?
Luke 17: 5–10
And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to [this] mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?
Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’?
Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”
Music Meditations
- We Walk by Faith—Marty Haugen
- Servant Song—Richard Gillard & Betty C Pulkingham
- Here I Am Lord—Dan Schutte
Opening Prayer
Dear Lord, it is sometimes hard to know if the faith we have will sustain us in times of difficulty and stress. Give us the wisdom to see that you are always with us, and we are to trust in you and your care for us. You will never leave us orphans. Then we ask that you give us the faith in our own abilities to respond to your call to be your servants in the world. Let your love and your grace be our reward.
Companions for the Journey
Today’s gospel feels disjointed. How do we get from having faith the size of a mustard seed to a story about servants doing what they (we) are supposed to do? The section of Luke from which today’s passage is taken includes the first four verses of chapter 17 (not part of today’s reading). Luke gives four sayings and the theme of discipleship ties the four sections together; two make up today’s passage. It’s a shame that we do not have all four sayings. Just prior to the opening of our passage (verses 3-4), Jesus teaches about the necessity to forgive seven times a day, if “seven times a day your brother or sister turns back to you saying, ‘I am sorry.’” The number seven is one of those biblical numbers that has symbolic meaning and can’t be translated literally. It is not as if, after I forgive seven times, my obligation is complete. Rather, seven is a number that sets no limits. You can imagine how chagrined the apostles must have been! No end to forgiveness!? They realize the difficulty of the question and that they cannot be such extraordinary disciples on their own. They will need faith.
The disciples know what they must do to be followers of Jesus, but knowing it and doing it, as Jesus just described, are two different things. Discipleship isn’t merely a matter of learning the ground rules, keeping them and getting a deserved reward. Rather, the gift of faith comes first and as a result of the gift, our response is the desire and ability to do what Jesus is asking of us. Who among us, already disciples, has not looked at an upcoming challenge to what we believe and realized we could never do it on our own? Nor did it feel that we could do it on the little faith we felt we had. Our prayer replicates that of the apostles—“Increase our faith.” I’m struck by the directness of their request. You can sense the urgency and desperation they must have felt; you can hear the pleading in their voice, as if to say, “We’ll never be able to follow this teaching, give us more faith!” Jesus won’t let them wallow in despair, nor will he let them or us get away with the excuse, “I just don’t have enough faith.” In the original language his response really sounds something like this, “Since you do have faith the size of a mustard seed....” The faith they already have enables them to do great things and as an example, he exaggerates and tells them, “You could pull up the deep rooted mulberry tree and cast it into the sea with the faith you already have.”
Of course he is not suggesting that disciples are to go around doing daily acts of wonder and spectacle—drink this poison, handle that snake, move this mountain, uproot that mulberry tree. But his teaching to them, on their journey to Jerusalem, is that they are to share the cup of suffering with outcasts and the poor; take hold of poisonous and unjust structures and handle them; move mountains of indifference and uproot racism, ageism, and sexism whenever they come upon them. We would protest, “Our faith is weak and small.” He would respond as he did to his apostles, “You already have faith and what I have given you is enough to do the work of discipleship!” Of course, the biggest task we disciples have to face over and over again, the one that pushes us to the limits and unmasks our recalcitrance is the obligation to forgive “seven times a day.” The command to forgive exposes us to the very core of the gospel message: on our own we cannot live this life to which Jesus is calling us. But with the gift of the mustard seed of faith, his life becomes possible in us. In addition, living his mandates, especially the one he just gave them about forgiveness, will be a visible sign to others who observe us that Jesus, the one who prayed from the cross for forgiveness for his killers, still lives in the community of his followers.
Jesus next asks a rhetorical question, “Who among you...?” The expected reply is, “None of us would.” No one expects a servant coming in from the fields to sit down and expect to be served by the master or mistress of the house. That’s not the way such relationships work—servants are expected to do their job. (By the way, in the original Greek, it’s “slave” not servant. Jesus is drawing upon social circumstances of his day to make a point. We know he is not condoning slavery, it’s just that such relationships were the backdrop to his listeners’ world.) The servant/slave in this story is at the disposition of the master. In such a situation, the one serving has no basis to expect special privileges or to boast about how hard he/she has worked for the master. What was done was the servant’s duty, it was supposed to be done–that’s that. Nothing special and no special reward is due.
Parables are about God’s dealings with us. God is gracious to us and each day gives us the faith we need to face whatever the day brings. We respond to the gift and “accomplish” the works of disciples. Sometimes these accomplishments feel like we have done the impossible (like pulling up a mulberry tree). And we have. But there is nothing to boast about, we have responded to a gift and done what we were supposed to do. In the context of today’s section, the work we were supposed to do is to forgive seven times. We have no grounds to say, “I’ve accomplished a great deal, now I can await my reward.” We can’t get puffed up as disciples, the accomplishment was not ours. That’s the way discipleship works, we don’t have a claim on God. Being a faithful disciple is a daily gift and has daily responsibilities. We are not the ones in charge. Thankfully God is, and God will always be there to help us serve another day in the fields and at the table.
The Eucharist turns the parable around. We have come in from the fields of our labors and gather in community before God. We have done much to fulfill our vocations as parents, caretakers, volunteers, job-holders, students, ministers, etc. We can grow weary and we need to be waited on and that is what God does for us—has us sit around the banquet table. There God serves us with a special chosen Word to empower us and the bread and wine to renew us with Jesus’ life for the return trip to the fields and serving places of everyday life.
Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session…
The apostles said to the Lord: “Increase our faith.”
Living the Good News
What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?
Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:
Reflection Questions
- Is faith for you a collection of theological principles with which we must agree?
Are some articles of faith more important than others, or are all equally important? - Why is important for any church to have a set of truths about God for which it stands?
- What are the most important Catholic articles of Faith, in your mind?
- When is it hard to have faith?
- Credo, the Latin word for faith, can also be translated trust or belief.
What or whom do you trust in?
What or whom do you believe in? - In what ways do both faith and experience shape us?
Can faith be quantified?
Is it the quality of our faith that matters?
What does that all mean to you? - How hard is it to judge the faith of another?
Should we being doing so?
Do we often do so, in subtle ways? - From “First Impressions” 2022:
Have we ever used the excuse that our faith is weak and done nothing
when we should have done something?
Have we encouraged others in their faith? How? - Are there certain people in a “servant” position whom I treat with distain, as if I were their master?
Do I treat those in the service industry as if they were invisible?
Are “please” and “thank you” in my ordinary vocabulary for those who are in a service job?
Are “please” and “thank you” in my ordinary vocabulary for those in my household? - When I do a favor for someone, what are my expectations of that person?
Do I expect gratitude, or a return favor?
What, for me, is the link between faith in God and service to God? - Do I see myself as servant of Jesus; do I expect some reward for my service?
What would that reward be: (good health, happiness, peace, heaven, etc.)
What if I am disappointed in my reward for service to God? - In what specific incidents in scripture did Jesus act as the servant of others?
Is this an example for me?
Meditations
A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:
Read Luke 23: 33-46:
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left.
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
They divided his garments by casting lots. The people stood by and watched; the rulers, meanwhile, sneered at him and said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Messiah of God.” Even the soldiers jeered at him. As they approached to offer him wine they called out, “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.”
Above him there was an inscription that read, “This is the King of the Jews.”
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle.
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and when he had said this he breathed his last.
Now imagine that you are Jesus, and this is what your mission appears to have come to: an ignominious death on the cross. Do you wonder if you failed, somehow? Do you wonder if you could have spent the last three years with a wife and family in your little carpentry business? How does it feel to have the crowds who followed you so happily now staring at you in stony silence—perhaps afraid of those soldiers? What kind of temptation exists to try to save yourself by renouncing all you did and all you taught? What kind of temptation exists to demand that your Father save you? After all, you were on His mission, doing what He had sent you to do. Did you expect silence from Him? Where did your final words in the Gospel of Luke come from?
The point is this: for all that he was the Son of God, for all that he has a special relationship with his Father, this man too died not with the experience of resurrection, not with unassailable proof that he would rise from the dead; he died with faith in his Father, with hope of life forever. That is why his last words on the cross are so striking, so faith-full: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” In Luke’s gospel, he died trusting—trusting in a Father ever faithful.
—Fr Walter Burghardt, S.J., in Speak the Word With Boldness.
In what ways do I have trust in God? In what ways do I lack trust? Do I think God understands? What are my expectations for being a “faithful servant”? Do I expect more favors and special treatment from God than Jesus received?
A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Relationship:
Poetic Reflection:
In this sonnet attributed to St Francis Xavier we see what moved him to become a servant of the Lord:
It is not your promised heaven That moves me, Lord, to love you. It is not the fear of hell That moves me to fear you. What moves me Lord, is you, Lord, Fixed to a cross and mocked. What moves me is your wounded body, The insults and your death. What moves me really is your love, so that Were there no heaven, I would love you still. For me to love you, you need nothing give, For even if I did not hope as I indeed hope, Even so I would love you as indeed I love.
Closing Prayer
Dear Lord, you didn’t spend your time boasting about all you did and all you suffered. You were like a slave, serving us all, washing our feet, dying for us. Make me a bit more like you in your humility and self-forgetfulness. While I want to be generous, there are some times when I expect to be served rather than to serve. Give me humility to look honestly at what I do and why I do it, and the interior freedom to respond to your call to serve others.
