In the 1850s, two men in Rutherfordton, North Carolina--Edward Carter and Nathan Young, both of them loyal Baptists--became concerned that there were no good Baptist schools near their town.
Carter first became alarmed when he heard that his niece and nephew had converted to Methodism. This dire circumstance occurred at a local Methodist school they attended. Now you can imagine how this affected a dyed-in-the-wool Baptist. These young people had become--horrors!--Methodists! Even more alarming, Carter's own son attended that school, and he was worried the boy might also be led astray by strange Wesleyan theologies. So Edward Carter and his friend, Nathan Young, began raising funds for a Baptist College to be built on Carter's land.
They raised pledges of $2,000 from their neighbors, and hired workers to begin construction. But the final cost of the college building was $3,100--they were $1100 short--and none of the investors was eager to cough up more money.
The contractor, determined to get his money, looked over the names of the men who had invested in the school. None of them could single-handedly donate the rest of the money owed. But one of the investors, J. W. Anderson, had a slave named Joe, a healthy young man whose labors would be well worth $1,100. So the contractor notified the sheriff, and had young Joe thrown in jail. The contractor meant to force Anderson to sell Joe to pay the debt.
Strangely, that's not what happened. Joe was so well-liked in his town that a storm of outrage erupted. This storm was directed at the rest of the investors. They quickly met and figured out a way to raise the rest of the money owed to the contractor without selling Joe. And Joe was granted his freedom immediately.
Today, you can find Joe's grave on the grounds of Mars Hill College, the school that was funded by his imprisonment. In 1961, Oralene Graves--Joe's great-great-granddaughter--became the first, full-time African-American student at Mars Hill. (1)
What a great story. Even if it comes out of one of the most tragic circumstances in our history as a people. Maybe it will help us prepare for our text for the day.
I doubt that very many sermons have ever been preached on Luke 17:7-10. All of us know Luke 17:6. Jesus said, "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." Perhaps millions of sermons have been preached on this text.
But how many of you have ever heard a sermon on Jesus' words beginning with verse 7? Listen closely while I read: "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!'"
Some of you are asking, "That's in the teachings of Jesus? That doesn't sound like Jesus at all." Well, it's there. And because it's there, I believe that somehow it can be a vehicle of grace--regardless of how offensive it may sound to modern ears.
First of all, you and I are offended by the word, "slave." "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'?" That sounds awful. And yet Jesus was speaking at a particular time in history, within a particular cultural context--2,000 years ago. Our ancestors owned slaves [were slaves] less than 150 years ago. Progress is slow, slow, slow. Jesus wants us to be offended by such language today. You and I would echo the words of Abraham Lincoln who said, "Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." We are offended by the idea of slavery, as well we should be.
Second, we are offended by how elitist the story sounds. "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'?"
Maybe if you and I had grown up with servants in the house we could stomach this passage a little easier. "Here, servant, you feed me and you can have some later." Let's face it, there are some people who would have no problem with this approach at all. Even without slavery, it's always been necessary for people in the leisure class to regard those who worked in their household as slightly less worthy than themselves. How else could you expect your household staff to eat in the kitchen while serving you in the fine dining room?
But this doesn't sound like Jesus, does it? And of course that is the point. Jesus has so affected our lives that we can never look at another human being as being less worthy than we are. So we must look for a deeper lesson in this passage--even though we are offended by the reference to slaves and by how elitist it sounds.
In the third place, we are offended because we see the story as an attack on our own self-esteem. "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'?" Then Jesus adds, "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!'"
Hey, Jesus isn't talking about people at the bottom of society at all. He's talking about us. "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!'"
Boy, that's hard. Jesus is not only calling us worthless slaves, he's telling us not to expect thanks for our good works. After all, those good works are no more than we should have done in the first place. That hurts. We're used to being patted on the back when we've done what we ought to do. We're used to being held up as paragons of virtue when we've fulfilled our responsibilities.
In fact, we think God owes us some favors because we've done what God called us to do. Isn't that true? That's how some of us feel. We've been members of the church for twenty years. We have almost perfect attendance in Sunday School. We tithe--or close to it at least. And then a dark cloud comes into our life--our business fails, a loved one is sick, we discover a lump--and immediately we think, "Doesn't God know who I am? Doesn't God know how much I've done for Him?"
Be honest now. In your heart of hearts, don't you really believe that, because you are one of God's people, God ought to work a little harder to take care of you? God ought to tilt the table in your direction, just a little? That's no more than you deserve.
Then we come to the Lord's table. We hear these words, "This is my body that was broken for you . . . This is my blood which was shed for you." And they remind us that we don't deserve anything at all. All of our righteousness is as filthy rags, as Paul reminds us. But that's all right. Christ came for the undeserving. Christ came for us.
There was an article in National Geographic sometime back about the caste system in India. For over 1,500 years, Indian society has been dominated by this ruthless system in which some people are born to power and privilege, while others are born into poverty and virtual slavery. The lowest caste in Hindu society is the achuta, or Untouchables. Untouchables are the victims of violence and discrimination. In many villages, they are forced to live in their own ghettos. If an Untouchable tries to buy land, or drink from a public well, or apply for a job that is outside his caste, he is often harassed, beaten, or killed.
Mahatma Gandhi, who led the Indian nation in their struggle for independence from British rule, opposed the caste system. In 1933, he traveled across India, agitating for the right of Untouchables to enter Hindu temples. Gandhi also created a new name for the Untouchable class. He called them Harijan, which means "people of God." Hey, that'll preach. Once you were untouchable, but now you are people of God. He was acknowledging that these people who were treated like dirt by social decree were actually people of great worth in God's eyes. (2)
That is what the Lord's Supper says to us. We are of unimaginable worth to God. Not because we've been in church all our lives, not because we put a twenty in the offering plate, not because we are virtuous people--but because Christ died in our behalf. This is not to minimize the importance of good works. It is to say that when it comes to salvation, our good works are irrelevant.
In human society some people may eat in the fine dining room while others eat back in the kitchen, but not in God's society. In God's society, everyone is invited to dine at the Master's table. Here all are equal. Won't you come and enjoy his fellowship? Don't worry about being worthy to receive this sacrament. None of us is. God says, "That's all right. Christ has made you worthy. Christ died for you."
1. Carden, Gary and Nina Anderson. Belled Buzzards, Hucksters and
Grieving Specters. Appalachian Tales: Strange, True & Legendary (Asheboro, N.
C. : Down Home Press, 1994), pp. 155-158.
2. "Untouchable," by Tom O'Neill, June 2003, pp. 8-31.