Me? Of Course I’m Righteous!

October 26, 2025

Luke 18:9-14

            In today’s story we are given yet another golden opportunity to bash a Pharisee.  Jesus tells a parable about prayer and… surprise!  The bad example in the parable is another Pharisee.  But I think that we should be careful about making generalizations.  Acts 15:5 tells us that, at the First Council of Jerusalem, there were “believers who were of the party of the Pharisees”, and so clearly there were Pharisees who became devout followers of Jesus, and in fact, leaders of the early Christian community.  The Gospels also tell us about a few Pharisees who were secretly followers of Jesus during His ministry.  Those of us who are watching The Chosen have seen this in the characters of Nicodemus, Jairus, and Yuseff.  (And by the way, for my fellow The Chosen fans, the name Yuseff in English is Joseph and there is speculation among the on-line The Chosen community that Yuseff is actually Joseph of Arimathea.)

            One of the commentaries that I read this week stated that, in the Gospels, the Pharisees often come across as the “moustache twirling bad guys”.  And since our understanding of the Pharisees is mostly limited to what we read in the Gospels, it’s not surprising that we WOULD view them as the bad guys, but I think that it is important for us to have a somewhat more charitable view towards the Pharisees, and the reason that I believe that is because, if we dismiss the Pharisees as the unrepentantly self-important, inflexible, and arrogant people that the gospels appear to make them, we lose the ability to see ourselves in them  And we need that ability in order to be able to learn the lessons that Jesus seeks to teach in these parables.

            So, let’s talk about the upside of the Pharisees for just a moment.  The Pharisees were extremely faithful, they were deeply concerned about the purity of their faith, they were committed to teaching the Law and to guarding against false teaching, and they zealously advocated for righteous living.  And these are all good things.  And so, if we look at them in this light, it’s a lot harder to think of them as being the bad guys.  In fact, understanding that they aren’t the bad guys can go a long way towards having us not view them as caricatures, as the perennial poor example in everything, but rather see them as the real people that they were… trying, and sometimes failing, to live their faith.  And that is something that should sound familiar to us all.

            In today’s parable, a Pharisee positions himself prominently and conspicuously in the middle of the temple.  In the traditional Jewish posture for prayer he would have raised his arms and looked to heaven to pray.  And though his prayer began by addressing God, the rest of his prayer was fixed entirely upon himself.  He thanked God that he was not like the robbers or the evildoers, or the adulterers… and then he singled out the tax collector who was also there to pray.  Thank God I’m not like HIM, the Pharisee said.  Then he told God about all of the good things that he does, fasting and tithing more than is required, you know, because he was so holy. 

            Meanwhile, our tax collector friend hides in a corner of the synagogue, beats his chest, a traditional Hebrew sign of sorrow, and begs God for mercy.  And to give us an idea of the depth of the tax collector’s understanding of his sin, he didn’t say he was “a” sinner, he said that he was “the” sinner; a confession of the fact that he identified his sin as the worst of everyone’s.

            There are a couple of things to unpack here, but I think that the first and most important thing that we need to identify is where is the Pharisee’s heart in all of this.  All three synoptic gospels tell us the story about a Pharisee asking Jesus what is the greatest commandment? With Jesus answering that the commandment to love God and love others is the most important commandment, and indeed is the summation of all of the law and the prophets.  And so, our first question this morning is, is there any hint of love at all in the Pharisee’s condemnation of the tax collector?  In fact, the Pharisee’s prayer shows contempt for more than just this poor tax collector.  Chelsey Harmon tells us that, “Even as [the Pharisee] comes to pray to his loving God, he has compared himself to all of the people he’s walked by and rather than finding himself wanting, it’s everyone else who fails to measure up”.  [1]

            The simple truth is, it is not possible for people to compare themselves with others and love them at the same time.  Barclay says that “No [person] who despises [other people] can pray.  In prayer we do not lift ourselves above [others].  We remember that we are one of a great army of sinning, suffering, sorrowing, humanity, all kneeling before the throne of God’s mercy”.  [2]  At its very core, love demands grace.  It demands making allowances for other people’s weaknesses and failures… just as we desperately need for others to make those same allowances for us.  And so, one of the mistakes that our Pharisee friend made this morning is a failure to love others.

            A second problem is the Pharisee’s understanding of how grace works.  Our Pharisee friend is of the opinion that his goodness is the key to God’s acceptance, and he evaluates his goodness relative to those around him.  But the question that this Pharisee, and indeed ALL of us need to be asking is not “are we as good as the best of all the others” but “are we as good as God”, and the answer to that question for the Pharisee; and for all of us is a resounding “NO”.   

By now you all are probably tired of hearing me explain that the Greek word in the Bible that is the word most commonly translated into the English word “sin” is ἁμαρτία (ha-mar-teea) which is a word that could appropriately be translated as “imperfection”.  Sin is, in fact, anything and everything in our lives that fails to be completely Christ-like.  It is the prevailing experience of my Christian walk that, the closer I get to God, the farther away from Him I realize I am.  Erdman says, “The nearer one is to God, the more conscious are [they] of [their] own sinfulness.  And the less likely to boast of [their] own moral attainments.”  [3]  Christ-likeness is an impossible standard for humans to achieve, and so, God’s grace is the one and only way to the Father.  We absolutely cannot do it on our own.  It is only by God’s grace, secured in the blood of Jesus, that we are able to enjoy a restored relationship with God and look forward to an eternity in heaven.

Our parable today ends with Jesus telling us that it was the tax collector who went home justified, not the Pharisee.  Justification in the Bible means to be in right standing with God.  This doesn’t mean that any of the tax collector’s actions were justified, it simply means that, in throwing himself on God’s mercy, his sins are no longer counted against him, and he has been restored to a right relationship with God.  The Pharisee, finding no reason within himself to ask for God’s mercy, remains in his sin and is still outside of fellowship with God.

And so, with us intentionally viewing this Pharisee not as the bumbling bad guy who never gets it right.  And instead thinking of him as someone who may be somewhat like us, a faithful person trying, and in this particular instance, failing to understand God’s call for him.  Our Pharisee friend has decided that he is to be a defender of the faith, one who calls others to faithfulness and admonishes those who fall short.  He is zealous in these tasks and thoroughly convinced of the propriety of his actions.  And one would think that all of these things are laudable goals.  But when it comes to the truth of God’s grace he has missed the boat entirely.  Garland tells us that, “[The Pharisee’s] prayer functions to reveal what he assumes it means to honor God and to be ‘upright’.  He has developed a righteousness scale by which he can gauge his and other’s rectitude and reports to God what he has done and what others have not done”.  [4]  His zeal for the purity of the faith fails to take into account the fact that, no matter how “good” he is, no matter how hard he tries, he can never EARN his way into heaven,  because he, just like us, will never, in this lifetime, be fully Christ-like

In the beginning of our reading today, Jesus stated to whom this parable is addressed.  It is addressed “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else.”  The NRSV translates verse 1 in this way: “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”  Have you ever noticed how self-righteousness always seems to go hand in hand with the condemnation of others?  This is what happens when we begin to compare ourselves to others, instituting our own personal standard of what constitutes “good” and “bad”.  Those who don’t measure up to our standards will then be viewed as “bad” or less worthy of our consideration and subsequently, less worthy of our love.  And in the process of doing that we fail to follow the first and most important commandment: To love God and to love others as we love ourselves. 

And so, our Pharisee friend, standing prominently in the center of the temple, hands outstretched to heaven and informing all who will listen about how good he is, in the process publicly violates a central commandment of his faith.  He looks with disdain upon the tax collector, failing to love him. 

If love is to be the standard of our lives… if we are to be faithful to live in ways that exhibit Christ-likeness… then our faith cannot; MUST not be a faith that compares ourselves to others.  Yes, there are times when it is appropriate to admonish a brother or sister in the faith when they have strayed from faithful living, but it is of the utmost importance that this is done in love, without the slightest hint of superiority or self-righteousness on our parts.  If we can’t admonish in love then we have no business admonishing at all.  Garland says, “No one can expect justification before God without also accepting God’s justification of others and showing love, not contempt for neighbors.”  [5] 

My dear brothers and sisters, the song says that they will know that we are Christians by our love, and that is the way things should be in the church of Jesus Christ. But that is not always the way that things are today.  Today’s church has, in some circles, become known more for what we are against than for what we are for.  And if we dismiss the Pharisee in our story today… if we fail to identify with him; to see ourselves in him, then we run the risk of repeating his mistakes.  And if we fail to learn from his mistakes in this lesson that Jesus has put before us today, then we run the risk of failing to be the loving, inclusive, accepting, and affirming believers that we are called to be.

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[1] Chelsey Harmon, CEPreaching.org, Commentary on Luke 18:9-14

[2] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, Pg. 224

[3] Charles R. Erdman, The Gospel of Luke, Pg. 182

[4] David E. Garland, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 718

[5] David E. Garland, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg.722

When Prayer Seems Not to Work

October 19, 2025

Luke 18:1-8

            The ancient Israelites used the priesthood to resolve disputes.  When there was a disagreement or issue between two people or two parties the matter would be brought before the priests and the priests would mediate a solution.  But in Roman occupied Palestine there were certain types of disputes, most notably, those involving property, which were required to be resolved by the Roman court system and not by the priesthood.  The judges in the Roman court system were Roman employees, and the corruption of these judges was legendary.  William Barclay tells us that, “Unless a plaintiff had influence and money to bribe his way to a verdict, he had no hope of ever getting his case settled.  These [judges] were said to pervert justice for a dish of meat.”  [1] The official Roman title for these judges translates into English as “Prohibitions Judge” but by changing just one letter in that original Greek word for prohibitions, you changed “prohibitions” to “robber” and “Robber Judge” is what the Israelites called them.

            The widow in our story today had no power.  She had no money to bribe the judge and as a woman, she wasn’t permitted to even stand before the court, and so, with no one to advocate for her, she had absolutely no hope of obtaining justice from her adversary, who was, more than most likely, trying to steal her land.   But our widow friend had one thing going for her… persistence.  These judges were itenerant, and so they would conduct their trials from within a tent that was moved from place to place.  Our widow friend apparently stood outside of the tent and shouted at the judge, she very possibly accosted him on his way to and from work, in the marketplace, and anywhere else where she could create a disruption.  Finally, the judge gives in, not because he cares about her, or about her issue, or even because he cares about justice, but just because she was making his life miserable and he just wanted to be rid of her.

            Now, we might look at this parable and think that the message is that persistence in prayer is necessary to wear God down until He gives in and grants our request, but that is not at all what Jesus is teaching here.  What Jesus is really doing is that he is making a contrast.  Anyabwile tells us that, “If an unrighteous judge who fears no one is eventually moved by persistent pleading, how much more does a righteous God, moved by compassion, goodness, mercy, and faith, hear the prayers of His people who pray night and day?” [2]

            No, in this parable Jesus is not asking us to try to influence God with incessant prayers.  So, the question becomes, what IS He asking?  Well, how often do we pray prayers that appear not to be answered?  How often are we discouraged when we ask, and ask, and ask, and no answer appears to be forthcoming?  What persistence in prayer DOES is, that through all of this, it keeps us connected to God.  At the times that we feel that our prayers are hopeless, continuing to pray is an important part of reminding us that we do serve a loving and caring God who does answer prayer.  It’s just that sometimes the answer to those prayers comes in most unexpected ways.

            Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  While we like to think that WE know what is good for us… God actually DOES know what is good for us, and His answers to our prayers are the answers of a deeply loving God, intimately involved in the details of our lives, and truly seeking our happiness.  But it is a kingdom happiness that our God seeks for us.  It’s not that God does not want our lives on earth to be happy, He does, but God looks at us with a view towards eternity and answers our prayers in light of THAT perspective.  And so, we are called to pray persistently, unceasingly, that our relationship with the Father may be strengthened through our prayers.

            Warren Wiersbe tells us that, “Prayer is much more than the words of our lips; it is the desires of our hearts, and our hearts are constantly ‘desiring’ before Him, even if we never speak a word.  So, to ‘pray without ceasing’ means to have such holy desires in our hearts, IN the will of God, that we are constantly in loving communion with the Father, petitioning Him for His blessing.” [3]  In a nutshell, we are called to pray persistently not for God’s benefit but for ours.  We are called to pray persistently so that our faith is not hampered when prayers appear to go unanswered.  We pray persistently so that we may learn to share the mind of God, and in so doing, trust that He loves us and cares for us; that He protects us and that the first thing in His mind always is our eternal well-being.

            In the end of today’s reading, Jesus asks the question, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  It’s an interesting question that, while it at first glance, doesn’t exactly seem to fit the rest of the narrative, it actually does tie directly in to what Jesus is talking about.  Jesus spent the first part of this parable telling us why persistence in prayer is so important, not because we need to remind God of our needs or to persuade Him to act in our behalf, He already does all of these things… and delights in doing them.  Persistence in prayer actually reflects a rock-solid belief on our part that God ALWAYS acts in our behalf, even when every shred of current evidence seems to belie that truth.  When one is not persistent in prayer, then God’s seeming silence, or God’s failure to answer those prayers in the way that one wishes, can create distrust and can cause some to doubt God’s goodness.  This is why Jesus is asking if He will find faith.  Are His followers persistent enough in their prayers and in their faith to believe even when belief becomes difficult?

            When I first moved to New Jersey from Boston in the late 70’s I lived in Eatontown but worked in Cherry Hill.  At this point in time they had not yet built Interstate 195 so a good bit of any route that I took to Cherry Hill was two lanes, and I needed an hour and forty-five minutes to get there and an hour and forty-five minutes to get home.  And I was driving a ten-year-old Volvo station wagon that basically worked when it felt like it.

            One morning my old Volvo decided that it didn’t feel like working that day and my prayers that it would start so that I could get to work were not answered, at least not in the affirmative.  And with the anger born of a frustration with a car that was unreliable and a bank account that was unlikely to be able to remedy that situation anytime soon, I directed my anger squarely to where I thought it belonged… at God.  It was His fault that He didn’t choose to keep my car running when I really needed it, and it was His fault that my finances were not sufficient to cover my needs.  I had grown up in the church, and as many of you well know, starting in 7^th grade, I wanted to be a pastor.  But in that moment, and in my deep frustration, I came to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t a God, and that if there was, He didn’t care about me or about my needs.

            And this was the attitude in which I remained stuck for just about two years.  How I eventually was able to escape this place of anger at God is too long of a story for this sermon, but I did end up finding my faith again.  And in the process, I learned one of the most valuable lessons that I have ever learned.  And if we read between the lines, today’s lesson teaches US exactly what my little spat with God taught me… And that is the fact that prayer isn’t all about me.  My dear friend, Army Chaplain Major Greg Monroe once said to me that “Prayer is not us bidding God to do our will, prayer is us asking God to incorporate us into His will”. 

            In Mark Twain’s book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Miss Watson tells Huck that whatever he prays for he will get.  Well, Huck had gotten ahold of some fishing line, but he had no hooks, so he prayed that he would get some hooks, but he didn’t.  Huck ends up wondering why God doesn’t supply a whole bunch of things that he knew folks were praying for, and so he decided that, when it came to prayer, “there ain’t nothing in it”.  Now the thing is, whether it’s a need for fish hooks or a need for a recalcitrant car to start, or the need to address any of the myriad of things, little or big, that draw us to God in prayer, it’s not hard to see that sometimes, some of these prayers might be a little self-serving. 

            And, as I said, prayer is NOT about us bidding God to do our will.  It’s not that God isn’t concerned about our day to day lives; He is… profoundly.  And it’s perfectly OK for us to ask God to please let my car start.  But the persistent prayer about which Jesus is teaching today is prayer that brings us closer to God, prayer that helps us to grow in our faith, prayer that helps us to trust in God’s goodness, prayer that is geared towards growing our hearts to become more like God’s heart.

            It was my little spat with God that led me to ask questions that I had never asked before.  It was those questions that I had never asked before that led me to open my Bible and actually begin to read it and to study it.  And it was the reading and studying of my Bible that led me to make the choice to become a follower of Jesus; something that, in spite of my years of church attendance and even my desire to become a pastor, I had never done.

            And so, the question that I would like to ask you all today is, do you think that God answered my prayer?  Well, my car didn’t start, I missed work that day, and I spent the day finding a junk yard part, putting it in, and getting my car running again.  But in the process of praying for my car to start, God gave me something infinitely more valuable, something of eternal significance.  God forgave my misplaced anger at Him and restored my relationship with Him to the place where He had always intended for it to be.  He called me to His side, He led me into discipleship, and He saved me.  So, you be the judge.  Do you think that God answered my prayer?

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[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, Pg. 222

[2] Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in Luke, Pg. 265

[3] Warren Wiersbe, Be Courageous, Pg. 63

Why Did You Heal HIM?

October 12, 2025

Luke 17:11-19

            Five different times in the New Testament Jesus said to someone, “Your faith has made you well”.  He said it to the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years after she had touched the fringe of His garment and was instantly healed.  He said it to Bartimaeus, the blind beggar whose sight He restored.  He said it to the woman who anointed His feet with perfume and wiped it with her hair.  He said it to a blind man who he healed on the road to Jericho, you know, the guy who refused to be quiet when they told him to shut up.  And then He said it in today’s lesson to the one leper out of the ten who was cured and returned to give Jesus thanks.

            The medical name for leprosy is “Hansen’s Disease” and it is a condition characterized by a loss of sensation in body parts, especially the extremities.  The inability to feel pain can lead to injuries caused by not responding to things that can hurt you.  If you can’t feel a pin prick you won’t pull away from the pin.  Hansen’s Disease is contagious and is transmitted through water droplets in the air spread by an infected person sneezing or coughing.

            Now, when the Bible speaks of leprosy it is not necessarily speaking of Hansen’s Disease, Biblical leprosy can be any rash or discoloration of the skin that doesn’t go away in the prescribed 14 days.  Two entire chapters of Leviticus, the 13^th and 14^th, are devoted to describing the various skin conditions that qualify as Biblical “leprosy”.  The Hebrew word that is used is צָרַ֖עַת (tsahl-ah) and in Leviticus the NIV does of good job of translating this word, not as “leprosy” but as a “defiling skin disease”. 

            Due to the extremely contagious nature of Hansen’s Disease, isolation of people with the disease was essential.  However, non-contagious diseases such as psoriasis or even a simple, persistent rash could still have rendered a person unclean, and banished them from the Jewish community. 

            I think it’s important for us to understand just how horrific the isolation was for those who had been declared “unclean” due to צָרַ֖עַת.  Probably the first thing to know is the fact that these skin diseases were believed to be a direct result of personal sin, so there was a stigma attached to the disease that not only were you sick and probably contagious, but that you were an evil person as well. 

So stringent was this isolation that if an unaffected person came within 50 paces, or about 125 feet, of a person with צָרַ֖עַת, the unaffected person would be rendered unclean themselves.  And so, the first thing that one would lose if they were declared unclean would be personal contact; personal contact with friends, with families, with spouses, and even with your children.  And of course, you would be excluded from worship and barred from the temple, which was the center of Jewish community.  Lepers were not permitted to bathe, probably because of fears of contaminating the water supply.  Lepers were required to wear clothing that had been torn, a sign of grief.  Lepers always had to have their nose and mouth covered, they were not permitted to cover their hair, which would have been shameful for women.  They were required to wear or carry noise makers; bells, shakers, or things that they could clang together and whenever other people approached at a distance, they were required to make noise with these noise makers and shout continually, “unclean, unclean, unclean”.  And you thought that “social distancing” was a Covid invention!

            The isolation must have led these poor people to despair, and so, it is no wonder that lepers tended to live in community with other lepers.  That community would have provided them with the only social interactions and support that they could possibly have.

            In today’s story Jesus is approached by a group of ten lepers.  We are not told how the lepers knew that Jesus was able to heal them, but we do know that word of His healing powers was widespread and given the fact that one of His earlier miracles was the healing of a leper, one would expect that that news would spread quickly through the leper community.  And so, this group of lepers stood at a distance and shouted “Jesus, master, have pity on us”.  When Jesus saw them, He instructed them to go and show themselves to the priest to be declared clean, as required by Jewish law.  But when Jesus commanded this, they had not yet been healed, and so, it required some faith on the part of each of the ten lepers to turn and begin the journey to the nearest synagogue.  Our text tells us that they were healed “along the way”. 

            One of the ten lepers, realizing that he had been healed, returned to Jesus to thank Him.  And not only just to thank Him.  Our text tells us that the man “Threw himself at Jesus’ feet”.   My interlinear Greek Bible translates this passage as “He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving thanks”.  This one leper, overwhelmed with gratitude at his healing was the only one who returned to thank Jesus for healing him.  And then… our text tells us that he was a Samaritan.

            And before I go on, I would like to make a little observation.  We have often discussed the Samaritans and the animosity that existed between Samaritans and Jews.  We’ve learned a little about the origins of that animosity, how the Jews viewed the Samaritans as half-breeds and blasphemers and how the Samaritans viewed the Jews as hostile, inflexible, and arrogant when it came to their faith.  Since the other nine lepers  are all quickly making their way to the closest synagogue to have themselves declared clean, it is probably a safe assumption that they are all Jews.  And yet this Samaritan was living among these Jews as a part of their community.  The difficulties that these lepers faced, the fact that they were ostracized and excluded from the life and worship of the general community resulted in their being banded together for their mutual support and acceptance, and the racial aspect of their relationship, this hatred of the Jews and the Samaritans towards each other had been set aside in the interest of that support and acceptance that they all so desperately needed.  Isn’t it a shame that sometimes it takes personal adversity to lead people to become more human.

            And so, our nine Jewish lepers hurry to the synagogue, undoubtedly grateful… undoubtedly.  But their eagerness to be declared clean, to be restored to all of that which they had lost when they became sick, friends, family, spouses, and children.  To be able to worship again, to work again, to live normal lives without the stigma of being both contagious and sinful, all of this compelled them to haste.  The sooner they were declared clean, the sooner they could return to normalcy.  And so, it’s not at all hard to understand their enthusiasm.  And even though, thankfully, WE don’t have to deal with the difficulties that they faced.  Even though we are not isolated from community or worship, even though we are not looked down upon as sinners bearing the punishment for our sin, there is still a lot for us to learn here.

            Because this human tendency to rush into our responsibilities and into our favorite distractions and into our dreams, can occupy us to the point that we can also forget to show OUR gratitude for what God has so graciously done for us.

            Only the Samaritan, the foreigner, that despised “other” returned to give thanks.  And what happened next to our Samaritan friend was life changing for him.  Our text tells us that Jesus said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”  But the NIV translation doesn’t quite give this statement the impact that it deserves.  I started my remarks today with a list of the five people in the New Testament to whom Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well”.  And in each of those five instances, Jesus used the Greek word, “σέσωκέν” (say-so-kyen) and σέσωκέν actually means to save.  According to Helps Word Studies it means, “to deliver out of danger and into safety, used principally of God rescuing believers from the penalty and power of sin”.  There is actually one other use of σέσωκέν in the New Testament that will help us to understand its impact.  When the angel spoke to Joseph, telling him that Mary was pregnant, he told Joseph that this baby that would be born “will save his people from their sins” and the word that we translate here as “save” is σέσωκέν.

The Samaritan leper was not just healed of his infirmity, his gratitude to God for what God had done for Him in Jesus, allowed God to SAVE him.  Our Samaritan friend, in God’s act of grace and in his corresponding act of gratitude was restored to right relationship with God and was made whole not only in body but in Spirit as well.

            The Presbyterian pastor and theologian R. C. Sproul says,” Beloved, it is one thing to be grateful; it is something else altogether to show it, to manifest it, to DO gratitude. Feeling and doing are not the same thing.  If a person is truly grateful, [they] show it, and [they] show it in worship and service to God. That is the part of this passage that is so precious—the response of the man who was healed: “With a loud voice he glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.”

            This morning, as we look at all five of the people in the New Testament to whom Jesus had said “Your faith has made you well”, we find in each instance that same gratitude; that same burning desire to thank and to glorify God for what He has done.  This was not a gratitude that was felt while hurrying along to continue living one’s life.  This was a gratitude that was life changing.  This was a gratitude that caused each of these recipients of God’s extravagant grace to stop in their tracks and to recognize the magnitude of what God had just done for them.  And in that moment of gratitude something happened in each of their lives where their relationship with God moved from the theoretical to the personal.  It was a point at which God suddenly and emphatically touched their lives in such a way that they would never again be the same, because now they KNOW that God is real, they know that God is personally and intimately involved in their lives, and they know, without question, that God loves them!

            My dear friends, have we felt this gratitude?  Has God touched us with the power of His Spirit helping us to understand that He cares about us and is deeply and personally invested in our lives?  Have we experienced His life changing love?  If we have, let us not fail to bring Him our thanks and our praise and our worship.  And let us live our lives in ways that are worthy of the grace and love that He has showered upon us.

An Unworthy Servant?

October 5, 2025

Luke 17:5-10

            There’s a story that I heard once.  It was about a guy who lived on a river in Wisconsin.  It was winter, and he wanted to go ice skating, but he wasn’t entirely sure if the river was sufficiently frozen to hold his weight.  So, very carefully, and right near the edge of the river, he stepped lightly onto the ice and began skating, always staying right near the edge, you know, just in case.  He soon came upon a bend in the river and as he skated around that bend, he saw a man sitting on the ice, ice fishing… with his truck parked next to him… on the ice.

            In our story today, the disciples respond to a comment that Jesus had made just before the beginning of our reading, that the disciples must be prepared to forgive someone over and over and over again.  Recognizing the difficulty of this command, the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, so that they may be better able to do this.  Seems like a reasonable request, doesn’t it?  In light of the fact that I personally have often felt the desire to have my faith increased, I can really identify with the disciples here.  But I think it’s fair to say that Jesus’ answer is a little unexpected.  “If you had faith as big as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Pull yourself up by the roots and plant yourself in the sea!’ and it would obey you.” 

            Now, a couple of things about this.  The mustard seed mentioned here would have been the smallest seed with which the disciples were familiar, and so Jesus appears not to be talking about a whole lot of faith to begin with, just a tiny mustard seed worth.  Further, the tree to which Jesus refers is a black mulberry tree.  And Garland tells us that this particular tree had “a proverbially extensive and deep root system.  Uprooting it completely was deemed to be a hopeless task”.  [1]  So, what Jesus appears to be telling us is that a miniscule amount of faith can basically achieve the impossible.  But I don’t think that that is exactly what Jesus had in mind.  Jesus regularly used hyperbole to make a point, and that is exactly what I think He is doing here.  It’s not so much that we have the power to move trees, it’s that what faith we have is sufficient for the tasks to which God will call us.  I don’t believe that the question here is a question about the quantity of faith, I think it’s a question about the quantity of our faithfulness.  Laurence says, “The apostles ask for more faith. That means they have some faith, right? If they have some faith – if we have some faith – then we have enough faith. Faith the size of a mustard seed is plenty, Jesus says. Why? Because it’s not a question of how much faith we have – it’s a question of who we put our faith in.”  [2]  Our ice skating friend did not have a whole lot of faith in the ice on which he was skating, did he?  But what kept him from falling through the ice wasn’t his faith in the thickness of the ice, it was the fact that the ice was far stronger than he believed it to be.  And as Christians, our faith is in someone who is far stronger than we could ever imagine.

            The desire to have our faith increased seems to us to be a pretty faithful request.  After all, we are, as our Presbyterian denomination is so fond of telling us, reformed and always reforming.  The entire Christian experience is about growing; growing in faith, growing in love, growing in service, growing in faithfulness, and yet, Jesus’ response here almost comes across as a mild rebuke.  And here is why I think that is:  I think that in asking for more faith to help us to accomplish the task of being loving enough to forgive again and again and again, we are asking God to do FOR us, a job which is ours to do… to learn to be more loving by BEING more loving. 

            There’s a movie called “Evan Almighty”.  In the movie Morgan Freeman plays God and Steve Carell is Evan, a modern day Noah, building an arc in New York City.  There’s a great scene in the movie where Morgan Freeman, as God disguised as a server in a diner, is talking to Joan Baxter, who plays Lauren, Carell’s wife.  Lauren is troubled by the fact that her husband is saying that God told him to build the arc and asks how she is supposed to handle that.  Morgan’s God character tells her it sounds like an opportunity.  As she looks at him quizzically, Freeman says, “If someone prays for patience, do you think that God gives them patience?  Or does He give them the opportunity to be patient?  If they prayed for courage does God give them courage or does He give them opportunities to be courageous?  If someone prayed for their family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does He give them opportunities to love each other.  [3]

            When God calls us to be forgiving, the opportunities that we HAVE to forgive become the lessons that teach us to BE forgiving.  If we bypass the lesson, how are we supposed to learn?  What we really need isn’t more faith; what we need is more faithfulness.  What we need is to do that hard, hard work that God gives us to do, that is designed to shape our hearts into hearts that look like His heart. 

            These difficulties that we sometimes face, these obnoxious people that are sometimes put in our path, these challenges and detours and roadblocks that sometimes stand in the way of what we THINK is the task at hand are designed to teach us, to make us more mature, to make us more patient, to make us more loving.  We sometimes forget that we are not here for ourselves, but that we are here for a higher purpose.  Those challenges and roadblocks may very well be detouring us into a task to which we actually ARE called, a task with kingdom implications and kingdom significance.  Matthew Root tells us that, “Expecting God to do our faithfulness for us is like a slave expecting to be waited on by his master.”  [4]

            And this idea ties directly into the next part of our reading, but the next part of our reading can be a little difficult for us to hear.  Difficult, for the simple reason that we find slavery to be abhorrent.  But stick with me just for a minute here, because there are a few things that we need to know.  The first thing that we need to understand is that slavery in ancient times, particularly among the Jews, was very different from the chattel slavery that plagued the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Our experience with that tells us that slavery was a thing where slaves were not considered to be human, where abuse and violence were commonplace, and where slavery was a lifetime sentence not only for you, but for your children and for their children.  In ancient times though slavery, while sometimes the result of your country losing a war, was more often just a way to get out of debt.  A person in debt could sell themself into slavery for a certain period of time, discharge their debt and then be free.  And even those who were conquered people would often have the option of purchasing their freedom.  While it would be naive for us to think that violence and abuse of slaves didn’t exist in ancient times, and that was certainly an issue in the Roman world, but for the most part the Jews had laws that protected slaves from mistreatment. 

            And so, as we look at this next section, what we are seeing is a parable where Jesus used an example that was contemporary to His time.  He wasn’t endorsing or approving of slavery, He was simply addressing a situation that would have been easily understandable to His listeners.  And what He said was this: When your slave finishes his work in the field, would you invite him to sit down, relax, and have his dinner?  Or would you have him continue to do his job, making and serving YOUR dinner, and then he could have his dinner when all of his other work was done?  These slaves all had their obligations and they weren’t entitled to any special treatment, simply because they did their job. 

            And so it is with us.  We are called to serve, to become a part of God’s kingdom and to live in ways that advance that kingdom.  This is our calling; this is our task.  We serve because we are called to serve.  Manson tells us that, “If a mere man is entitled to make such far reaching demands on the service of his servant, and that merely for his own profit and comfort, how much more is God entitled to require the utmost from His servants in the manifestation and extension of His kingdom among humans?  [5] 

            In our passage today, the NIV uses the phrase “Unworthy servants”.  This may leave the impression that we are considered worthless, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I actually like the way Google AI parses this verse, “After performing one’s duty, a servant should say they have only done what was expected of them, not that they are inherently worthless but that they have no claim to special praise or a reward.”  [6] 

            Now, the fact that we have no CLAIM to special praise or reward doesn’t mean that there won’t BE special praise or reward.  That is because we serve a loving and gracious God who delights in our faithfulness.  Maybe we can remember what we read a few weeks ago when the bridegroom returned to find his servants alert and attentive with all of their work done, and the bridegroom changed into a servant’s clothes and served the servants instead of having them serve him.  I made the comment at the time that, “The implications of this are almost beyond belief.  We, the humble servants, the imperfect sinners, not only will be welcomed at Jesus’ table, but will be honored guests, with Jesus Himself serving.”  So, a reward really is waiting, it’s promised, but we are not serving in order to gain that reward, we are serving because we have been called to serve.  And when the love of God is in our hearts, serving Him is our delight.

            So, do we think that our ice skating friend maybe had a little more confidence in the ice after he saw that truck parked on it?   I think that would do it for me.  When we know what it is that we have put our faith in, when we understand the solid ground on which we stand, realizing what God, in Jesus, has done for us, when we understand that we have been called to the task of being ambassadors of God’s kingdom, then service becomes the natural response to the love that God has shown to us, as He has restored us to the right relationship with Him that He has always intended for us to have. 

And so, we serve with joy and with delight.  We gladly pour ourselves into the task of advancing the kingdom of God and of sharing the Gospel.  In His Name we have the capacity to accomplish amazing things for the kingdom.  And all it takes is a lot of faithfulness, and a little faith.  About the size of a mustard seed.

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[1] David E. Garland, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 681

[2] James Laurence, MyPastoralPonderings.com, How Much Faith is Enough?

[3] Evan Almighty, © 2007 Universal Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Relativity Media. 

[4] Matthew Root, MatthewRoot.ca, Increase Our Faith

[5] Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, Pg. 302

[6] Google AI Search Result