Sermon Preached by the Rev. Lance Wallace
A number of years ago a movie came out called The Pink Panther Strikes Back with Peter Sellers. In one memorable scene Inspector Clouseau was checking into a hotel and as he was leaving the front desk he sees a dog lying by the doorway. He asks the proprietor if his dog bites. The proprietor who is reading a paper replies, no. Clouseau smiles and bends down to pet the dog. Suddenly there is vicious growling snapping and Clouseau jumps back. He says to the proprietor, “I thought you said your dog did not bite.” The proprietor replies, “That is not my dog.”
Communicating is something that we humans frequently do not do well. One of the wonderful things about Jesus is that he is able to see beneath the surface of our question or request and responds in a way that really answers the question or need.
At first glance today’s gospel reading doesn’t make a lot of sense. Jesus and apostles seem not to be communicating. The apostles said, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you have the faith of a mustard seed then you can tell a tree to be planted in the sea” and then goes on to talk about a servant serving his master. How does telling them if they had even a little faith they could do incredibly miraculous stuff like telling large trees to go be planted in the ocean help them to increase their faith? And what does the story about a day in a life of a servant have to do with anything? That’s like if my wife asks me to pass the salt during dinner and I reply with “did you know that the waters of the Dead Sea contain 33% salt, an amount 10 times higher than is found in the Mediterranean Sea?” And then did not pass her the salt it would probably irritate her.
In order for apostles’ request and Jesus’ reply to make sense, we need to look at the verses that precede our gospel reading for today. In those verses Jesus says to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, `I repent,’ you must forgive him.” (Luke 17:1 RSV) It is after these commands by Jesus that the apostles say, “Increase our faith!”
Jesus first tells them that they had better not be the occasion for stumbling by which others are tempted to sin. What does this mean? What does it mean to trip someone into sin? According to Matthew Henry this can take place in three different ways. First one if discourages a young Christian in the service of Christ. Second if one corrupts the truths of Christ and his commands. And third if lives in a scandalous way and thereby discourages those younger believers around him. In other words, we are our brother’s keeper. We do have to watch out for those around us. Jesus concludes this section with a “Take heed to yourselves!”
And then Jesus tells them that they need to forgive those who sin against them. He tells them that if a brother sins, they are to rebuke him. That means to tell someone that they did something wrong. Personal confrontation, bummer, and how easy is this to do? It is very difficult. And then on top of that, after the rebuke, there is the forgiveness. Jesus says if the brother sins against you seven times and then says sorry I will not to do it again each time, we need to forgive them.
It at this point, the apostles throw up their hands and say, “Increase our faith.” We cannot do that; we need to become faith supermen in order to behave like that!
Now we come to Jesus’ strange reply. If you had the faith as tiny as a mustard seed, you could still do amazing miracles. In other words you don’t need a lot of faith to do amazing miracles! Just a pinch of faith is all one needs. Jesus is telling us here that the miracle is not dependent upon your faith. A miracle is dependent upon the power of God. God has plenty of power. It is not about you at all. Jesus tells them that even if you have just a little bit of faith you can do fantastic miracles. Remember earlier in Luke, Chapter ten, Jesus had sent the 72; they had performed miracles and healings and even cast out demons in Jesus name. The twelve apostles were part of that group. So they had faith, perhaps more than a mustard seed’s worth. But you see—faith is not the issue here. Let us look at the story he tells them.
In the little story Jesus tells them he points out how we treat our employees. We ask them to do the tasks for which we hired them. We don’t get all excited that they do what we pay them to do. Usually we are not surprised if we pay someone to mow our lawn that our lawn gets mowed. After all that was what they were supposed to do. That is why we paid them. In the same way, Jesus says, we, His followers, His servants, are supposed to do what he has told us to do. This particular issue—the issue of not offending other and of forgiveness—is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of obedience. Jesus is saying we don’t need lot lots of faith to make sure we do not offend others. We simply need to make sure we do not do it. We don’t need to have lots of faith to forgive those who sin against us. We simply need to do it. Like the Nike slogan, “Just do it.”
We should probably note here. Jesus asks us to do what is difficult; but we need to remember it is for our own good. We don’t want to have the guilt of being the cause for someone stumbling. We don’t want to be a bad influence on those younger Christians around us. And modern psychology has shown over and over that people who will not forgive others may hurt those they do not forgive, but certainly they hurt themselves.
The apostles had one thing right though; it is very difficult. Personal relationships can be extremely hard. But the good news is that to handle relationships correctly doesn’t require great amounts of faith. We don’t have to be faith super-people to do things correctly. It requires great amounts of obedience. And obedience is at the core of Christianity. It is not simply that we believe Jesus is Lord, but once we believe we need to obey what our Lord has told us to do. May God help us to not be the cause of stumbling and may He help us to forgive others. Amen