Luke 17.5-10
The apostles said to the Lord,
“Increase our faith!”
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.
“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’?
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’?
Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?
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!’”
SERMON
Upon first hearing, the scripture sounds like the slave
comes back from a giant day of work, plowing in the field and tending sheep and
then is commanded to serve their master dinner. The slave is doing what they
ought, what they were told. But Jesus makes another suggestion. “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’? It is like the
benevolent parking ticket God but way bigger. Jesus is asking who in the power
position of master would reverse the roles and become the slave or servant?
Jesus continues to those who would identify as the masters,
“Would you not rather say to the slave, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your
apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? This is
the normal top-down mentality to which the master subscribes. “Do you thank the
slave for doing what was commanded?” No, I imagine them responding.
Jesus asks, to those who are the powerless position of the
salve, “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!’” My
hope is that the slaves answer, No. we are not worthless, we do these things
because we are commanded without choice. That they are the ones who know that
slavery is no one’s place. If this is the case, then I think Jesus is aligning
with them, giving them a nod that says, I am with you and I know your masters
need the lesson here. But unfortunately, I think history also confirms that
there are ways that once someone or someone’s people or gender or group, are
enslaved they tend to buy into an identity of lesser than, or even
worthlessness. Perhaps to these Jesus is preaching the same parable as he is to
the masters.
I think Jesus knows that both sides are most likely stuck in
their ways, of powerful and powerless. But if we know anything about Jesus, it
is that he came to turn over these tables and welcome everyone to the table.
At the beginning of the passage, the apostles said to the
Lord, “Increase our faith!” 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.” Faith that has the strength to uproot and turn
over and welcome is the faith Jesus asks of us.
The slave, you remember, has plowed the field and tended the
sheep. Comparatively, it wouldn’t take much physically for the master to serve.
Yet, it would take an uprooting, a turning over, of culture and oppressive
systems for the slave to be served by the master. It would be a welcome to the
table of unfathomable measure. This is Jesus’ challenge. In Greek Mythology,
the mulberry tree represents forbidden love requiring death. For there to be
love between a slave and master would mean the death of the system all
together. It would begin to erase the lines of slave and master, powerful and
powerless. Moreover, it would mean that acts of service are done by choice
instead of command. It would mean serving is the commodity rather than power.
It would mean that a foolish welcome was the base of all actions.
I look over at this table, dressed with cloths from all over
the world, and I wonder who we might struggle to serve at that table,
immigrants, refugees, Secretary Clinton, Donald Trump, Putin, Kim Jon-Un, the
one percent, the ninety-nine, the black sheep of your family, the person to
which we no longer speak, that person that you hope now shops at the other
grocery store, or would be that part of ourselves that we deem unworthy. Who
would be the most radical for us to serve? And I want us to imagine as the
plates are passed, that having communion with them or those parts of ourselves
this day, because Jesus was that radical but Jesus didn’t do it by command. He
did it by grace. He is the master who chose to serve.
Likewise, if you ask Lynn or Larry why they served at Open
Door feeding middle school kids or Backpack sending students home with food, it
boils down to feeling grace and serving out of that feeling. If you listened to
Kourtney’s sermon last week she talked about the grace she felt being included
as a youth in this congregation. She has felt that radical welcome and serves
from that place. You are the church that feeds people, and there is a radical
welcome in doing so, and you do it from a place of grace.
I think about this pulpit, and that grace is the only reason
I am here. Because like Jesus, you have extended grace to me, like when I was
twenty-eight and wanted to be a pastor and you gave me a chance and said you
would be teachers, or when I was twenty-nine got divorced and you sent more
cards than I have ever received, or when I moved the flags out of the sanctuary
and you didn’t move me out with them, or the times I got beyond frustrated
during session meetings and you loved me anyway, or how I have been late so
often that the youth jovially call it Katy-time, or when I’ve preached sermons
that made no sense and you come back the next Sunday, or others that rubbed you
the wrong way and you say I gave you something to think about, or, or, or, I
may be the one ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament, meaning I get to
preach, baptize and serve communion, but the only reason I am here is not
because of that title but because of your grace, you, like Jesus have welcomed
me to the table. It is from that grace I serve you. I do it not from a position
of power but of humility, it’s probably the reason I get teary most Communion
Sundays.
Especially on this one, today on World Communion Sunday I imagine
the radical grace and welcome of Jesus extending from this table to our pews,
where we take the bread in unity, and from this church to other churches in
town which may hold those people for whom we have hard time inviting, out to
the streets and homes where our welcome feeds weekend meals to students whose
name we do not know, out across our country to people with different views and
different lives, out to various countries whose people in Jesus’ eyes should
all be welcomed to this table, to be fed with grace. If you imagine it, our one
small piece of bread, like mustard seed, but out across the world it is
mulberry tree uprooted and planted by grace.
