St Luke’s, Havelock North – Ordinary Sunday 27, 2007 – Sermon

Reading: Luke 17: 5-10

I can do no other.

As I’ve pondered and studied today’s readings over the past week, especially the gospel, I’ve found myself continually coming back to those oft-quoted words of Martin Luther’s. Asked why it was that he insisted on challenging the Church and the culture of his time, Luther simply said, ‘Here I stand, I can do no other.’

I keep getting drawn back to those words and I’m led there, primarily, by the closing comments of Jesus in our gospel reading; “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.’”

‘Only what we ought to have done.’ Before we get hung up on it I want to briefly clarify that word ‘worthless’ because it could be problematic. It’s clear elsewhere that Jesus doesn’t see anyone as without worth and it’s important to note that’s not what he says here. From the Greek, for those keen on such things, we find that in its original context what we read here as ‘worthless’ meant ‘those to whom nothing is owed’.

‘Those to whom nothing is owed.’ I can’t help but feel there’s something important in this for us. I have to admit that sometimes I find myself bothered by a sense that we’re approaching this whole religion thing from the wrong direction. So often I suspect we come at the God-stuff in the same way we come at most other stuff, from the point of ‘what’s in it for me?’

For me personally, I know, when I first started coming to church it was mostly because I wanted to make sure I got to heaven – and kept out of hell. I don’t believe in the same way now, but I still have to ask myself, how much of what I do is really focused on my own self interest?

I talk to people about church – a lot – and there are lots of reasons why people come and get involved, but seldom do I get the sense that they’re doing so without expectation of reward, without anticipating a pay-off, just because they ‘have only done what we ought to have done.’

Jesus’ words here are designed to be the shocking end to his parable-like illustration. In 21^st century New Zealand the idea of slaves and slavery is rightly abhorrent. In the wake of the film ‘Amazing Grace’ a whole new anti-slavery movement has sprung up focusing on the appalling cases still happening around the world and not once, so far, have I heard anyone stand up to defend slavery today. In 1^st century Palestine – Israel, however, slavery wasn’t just common, it was the norm. Anyone of any substance had slaves. It was normal, accepted, taken for granted.

So when Jesus says to his disciples, ‘now you wouldn’t let your slave eat dinner before you, even though they’d been out working all day,’ they all quite naturally agree, without so much as a second thought, and then he hits them with verse 10; “So you also …” Just like those slaves, he says, you too don’t deserve any special rewards or treatment, because at the end of a hard day you have simply done what you ought to have done. You’ve simply done your duty.

Here’s the real point of this reading in its context – and as always context is important. In that context what we find is Jesus doing some more teaching with his followers about what it means to be a disciple. Immediately before what we’ve heard today Jesus has told them the difficult and challenging story of Lazarus and the rich man and then warned them of their responsibility to be leaders and not cause anyone to stumble. The message is fairly clear that this isn’t going to be an easy job, and the disciples listen to all this and we can almost hear them thinking, ‘this all sounds very hard, I don’t think we’re up to the task.’ So they turn to Jesus and say, ‘increase our faith.’ We don’t have what it takes to live up to the standards you’re setting, give us more so we can reach the heights you’re talking about.

And Jesus says, ‘you’re missing the point.’

There’s a wonderful quote from Mother Theresa that goes, ‘Our calling is not to do great things, but to do small things with great love.’ For me those words take on extra meaning and significance now that we know the context she was speaking from. Her letters that she never wanted made public, now opened to us, showing a woman very different from the one we used to see on television. A woman wracked by doubts, by fears, by a sense of aloneness and doubt, even in the very existence of God. Through all that still she could say, ‘Our calling is not to do great things, but to do small things with great love.’ That, to me, is true faith; to continue to work out her calling, to do small and large things with great love, not out of even a belief in Christ, but simply the conviction that this was what she had to do. She could do no other.

This is the precise point that Jesus makes with his disciples in this reading. ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,’ he says. The point isn’t that they should be moving mulberry trees or mountains. The point is that being a disciple is not about doing great things, although great things are possible, it’s about doing the small things, the everyday things, all things, not for reward or acclaim or an extra boost into heaven, but because that’s what you ought to do, that’s your job and your duty as a disciple.

Therein, for us I believe, is the word for today.

The truth is that sometimes being a Christian is hard, or at least inconvenient. We could all be at home watching the rugby right now, but we’re not, we’re here. We could be doing so many things rather than coming to church or attending church functions or helping on committees or in the shop or over in Flaxmere or with the youth or at any of the other of dozens of things that need to be done all the time around here, so why do we do them? The reality, of course, is that many people don’t.

There are lots of reasons why we struggle to get people to help with parish tasks, just as there are lots of reasons why attendance at churches in general have fallen, why parishes like this one often have less than 10% of those on the parish roll attending services. There are lots of reasons, and one of them is that for many people there’s a sense that there’s nothing in this for them anymore.

Should we take that seriously? Yes, of course, but I ultimately I want to challenge the thinking behind that attitude. I want to know what it is that drives the Martin Luther’s and the Mother Theresa’s of the world, against all odds, against their own best interests, to do great things? The only answer I get from those people themselves is, because I can do no other. So can we say the same?