The last two Sundays we were focused on the issue of the proper use of earthly goods. Now we are reminded of the constancy and hard work expected of us as disciples of Jesus with real faith in God (Luke 17:5-10).
Daunting standards
Christian discipleship, as we have repeatedly seen, operates on standards that are daunting. Saint Luke in his Chapter 17 sets off with the minimum expected of the followers of Jesus: one must not give scandal to others causing them to sin, and one should be ready to assist and correct another, and be always willing to forgive. Hearing these stringent demands, the apostles could only gasp out to Jesus, “Increase our faith.” These moral requisites of discipleship truly necessitates a strong faith.
Jesus’ reply reassures them that in fact even a small amount of genuine faith can do wonders. Not that faith is like magic that enables us so-to-say to control God so that we program and accomplish sensational feats. Rather, in faith we are simply cooperating with God in what He is accomplishing in and through us. By faith we are ordinarily responding to God’s initiative within the context of our personal relationship with Him. In God’s grace we can indeed usually and responsibly reprove and forgive others readily, as well as be not a scandal but a model to others. As ordinary by the grace of God as Jesus’ vivid and hyperbolic comparison with ordering a mulberry tree to be uprooted and replanted in the sea. This extreme language, to stress the possibility of the impossible in God’s power, minces with the very difficult task of uprooting a tree with an extensive root system and also with the unlikely event of a tree transplant in the sea.
Faithful, dutiful servant
The servant in the parable works all day in the fields and afterwards still has chores to do in his master’s house. Not only double-tasking as a farm hand and a domestic help, but actually being on duty all the time is the picture of the servant that is intended. All this is his workload and what is expected of him. And for being so, he should not be reckoning with a bonus from his master.
“So should it be with you”—the followers of Jesus must realize that they are on 24-hour duty in this world. At no point can the work for the kingdom of God be halted or put on hold. There is no time out for the followers of Jesus; there is no rest for the weary. And no crowing and self-congratulation either, for they are simply doing what is expected of them. Even if they avoid at all time giving scandal to others, or always forgive those who wrong them, no special gratitude is due them because they are only doing what they are supposed to do. They should actually see themselves as “unprofitable” servants, to whom nothing extraordinary is due because they are just doing their ordinary duties.
Alálaong bagá, no amount of service on our part can be the guarantee of our salvation. What we do could never merit God’s gift of eternal life. Grace is always gratuitous, and faith in truly needed even to see that it is God’s power that makes possible the impossibility of our own total love and fidelity. The words of Jesus deflate the pride of those who boast of their personal accomplishments in God’s service. This pharisaical attitude of listing down one’s virtues and good deeds (like the older son in the gospel narrative three Sundays ago) makes relationship with God commercial and dependent principally on one’s performance and not on divine love and goodness. Our security and ultimate value is in the love of God, whose goodwill we do not lose when we no longer produce. The faith we ask for guides us to trust God’s unconditional love and to proclaim and share it with the world.
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