I saw a cartoon once showing a man sweating and grunting, carrying a whole church on his back. Can you identify with that? It seems as though the demands of church membership are pretty heavy, aren’t they? Always asking us for money - if not to repair the roof, then for missions or for hunger. If we complain we don’t have anything to spare, then we’re told we should eat a bit less and give the difference. On top of asking for our money, the church also wants our time - for committees, for teaching, for learning, for visiting the shut-ins, for calling on those who are slipping away from our fellowship, for making contact with new people, for caring for our altar, for reading the lessons, for ushering, for singing in the choir, for licking stamps, for tending the library, for mowing the lawn and mopping the floor, and what not.
It’s not just the church making it hard but our Lord himself. Two Sundays ago the Gospel told us Jesus wants us to choose between him and money. Four Sundays ago it was a choice between him and our families. Then Jesus followed that up by uttering a statement he must have made many times because it occurs often in the Gospels: "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:27)
He’s rubbing salt on our sores with the parable in today’s Gospel, asking, "Will anyone of you say to your servant when he’s come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down; I have supper all ready for you. It was kind of you to have done all that plowing’?" (How Jesus’ audience must have smiled at that.) No. "Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare dinner for me and serve me, and when I’m finished, you may eat’?" Then the punchline: "So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ "
He expects us to put him ahead of money and family and he thinks we shouldn’t look for any thanks. Pretty grim.
There’s a weekly program on Public Radio on Saturday evenings called "A Prairie Home Companion." The host is Garrison Keillor who’s invented a whole community he calls Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. He brings a report each week of what’s been going on in his "home town." Frequently he describes the foibles of the church members either of Lake Wobegon Lutheran or of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility (the local Roman Catholic parish). Garrison Keillor is fairly well acquainted with the Scriptures. I wonder - when he was creating the name of that Roman Catholic parish - I wonder if he wasn’t thinking of this very Gospel, "So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ " ... "Perpetual Responsibility ..."
I’m afraid that’s how we feel at least some of the time. I know I do. But we’ve had enough positive experience to understand it really isn’t that way at all, that our Christian faith is a relationship to Jesus - and that it’s not a load but a lift. I’ve struggled to find an expression that would show the difference between the way we sometimes feel and the way we know it actually is. The best I’ve come up with so far is: Lovers never ask, "What’s the least I can do?"
I
First of all, for lovers, duty is only natural.
Ask any parent who gets up at 2:00 a.m. and then at 3:00 a.m. and then at 3:30 a.m. to answer the cry of a sick baby. Lovers never ask, "What’s the least I can do?"
Ask any man whose income is so limited that after he pays his rent and buys his groceries he has only pennies to spare. But his sweetheart has a birthday the next month and he has his eye on something that means he’ll have to go without lunch for three weeks. So he buys it.
Boys’ Town near Omaha has made capital of a poster showing a little guy toting a tyke nearly as big as he is, saying, "He’s not heavy; he’s my brother."
Are any of these lovers looking for a medal? No. They’re only doing their duty. And it’s only natural.
Our relationship to Christ is like that. For although Jesus may have been cracking a small joke when he portrayed how ludicrous it could have been if the master served the slave, yet that ridiculous reversal of roles is just what took place in the Upper Room when the Master served the disciples, washing their feet. It was symbolic of his entire ministry, including the cross.
And we can’t help responding to that. It’s only natural. For example: how does the sweetheart react to her birthday present? Unless she’s cold and cruel or perhaps trying to shuck him off, when his birthday comes around, she’ll also buy something way beyond her means. It’s only natural.
In the same way, our Lord has been extravagant with us and the duty that this extravagance calls forth comes naturally. When we discover what Christ’s atonement has done for us, then we can live without the strain of thinking of alibis. We can relax with ourselves and not be uptight about what others think of us because God has claimed us as members of his family. That’s not bad. We can even feel better about our family, our inlaws, our neighbors, our coworkers, our enemies. When we see that Christ’s atonement even makes up for their faults, then we don’t have to stir up our stomach juices about their defects. What a relief to live forgiven! As we grow in our appreciation of that, we grow in our love for the Lord. We begin to feel Jesus was indeed talking sense: "So you also, when you have done all that is commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have done only what was our duty.’ " Perpetual responsibility? Yes. It’s only natural. "We have done only what was our duty."
II
And just what is our duty? In terms of the rest of today’s Gospel, it includes at least these matters:
- to set a good example;
- to be forgiving;
- to have a positive outlook.
Our duty to set a good example I take from these verses:
Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! 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. (Luke 17:1-2)
The word translated, temptation to sin, refers to the trigger on a trap, the bar on which the bait is placed. Woe to the one who trips somebody up, who causes them to be ensnared by sin! You may have seen millstones in museums. The ancients put their grain between two of them to grind it into flour. The bottom one was stationary. The top one had a handle on it on which two men would tug and shove. That gives you some idea of its size. Our kind and loving Jesus said that if anyone caused one of these little ones to sin, it would pay to have that rascal have such a millstone hung round his neck and be thrown into the sea. It’s a question whether by little ones he meant children only, or whether he didn’t also include other little ones of the world - those of no account, such as those behind the symbols of the lost sheep, the prodigal son and beggar Lazarus. I’m not sure; perhaps he was thinking of them all. For it’s our duty as his disciples to refrain at all costs from destroying the souls of those for whom he died. "Perpetual responsibility"? Yes. But for lovers it’s only natural.
Another duty our Lord lays upon us in today’s Gospel is that of forgiving:
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; 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.
If someone has spread a tale about you - O God, you know how hard it is to forgive that! Gossip squirts around like a greased pig and you can’t get hold of it. The squealing goes in all directions. Now let’s say the one who started the rumor repents and comes to apologize. How shall we respond? If we refuse, the net result is that our own blood will curdle with hate and we’ll shut the door of God’s forgivenness to us. But if we do come through and forgive, it’s no big deal - we’re only opening the door so God may come into our hearts and stay there. It’s just our duty and we’re not grumbling, not as long as we’re in love with the Lord.
— The duty to set a good example;
— The duty to be forgiving;
— And then also, the duty to have a positive outlook.
I take that from these words:
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
(We can understand why that request: to set a good example and to keep forgiving seven times a day - who doesn’t need strength for that?)
And the Lord said, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."
I don’t know which sea he was talking about: the Mediterranean? That’s salt water. The Sea of Galilee? That’s fresh water. Do trees grow in a lake? Cypress trees thrive in swamps. No matter. It’s a preposterous claim, to show by hyperbole - by exaggeration - what a positive outlook can do. We have no record of the disciples going around uprooting mulberry trees just by saying the word and transplanting them in the lake. This is an excellent example of stretching a point for effect as when we say, "There must have been a million mosquitoes out there." Nobody ever challenges us, "No, you’re lying. There were only 900,157, because I counted them and I know." We all know what we mean when we say "a million mosquitoes" and we all know that Jesus was saying, "It’s not the size of your faith but the quality." For our Lord that was too flat to say it like that, so he said it far more effectively:
If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."
The duty of a positive outlook! If we approach a problem saying, "It can’t be done," then it won’t be done. But if we come to it saying, "It must be done," chances are it will be.
When, between 1911 and 1917, a half-dozen pastors came and went as our congregation was struggling to be born, I wonder if there weren’t some who were complaining, "Looks like it’s just impossible; look at all those ministers who’ve tried." Comes our own Pastor George Hansler in 1917 who said a few words to some black mulberry trees and Bethlehem became sturdy and flourishing. When 1930 rolled around, I don’t know whether you and Pastor Hansler had heard there was a depression; you just knew you had to have a church and so you went ahead and built it.
Instead of a grouchy, pessimistic tone, looking only for the worst, assuming God is sick, we have the duty of a positive outlook. In the Revelation to John, the message to persecuted Christians is, "Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!" In Romans 8 we affirm with Paul that we know God can take the worst evil and turn it into good for those who love him. Easter proves it. So why be glum?
Now if we should ever find ourselves in a spot like that of Paul and Silas, their clothes plastered to their backs because of blood from a whipping, their feet fastened in stocks in a stinking, fly-infested dungeon, and if we - like them - should use the occasion to sing hymns to God, it’s only natural. "We have done only what was our duty."
To sum it all up:
For those of us who’ve found that guilt breeds more guilt, that when we feel we’re no good we fall into the pit even deeper - it’s Good News to hear that for Jesus’ sake God declares us good and calls us daughters and sons. We’re not unmoved by this. "We love because he first loved us." And lovers never ask, "What’s the least I can do?" So the duty to set a good example is not a heavy load. We’re glad to flee from temptation and to blaze a trail we’d be happy for others to follow.
Nor is the duty to forgive a pest seven times a day really such a chore when we remember how often our Lord overlooks our faults. Neither is it so hard to have a positive outlook, because on Easter God has shown us what he can do.
The kingdom of this word has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15)
Hallelujah! What looks like a load - "perpetual responsibility" - is really no burden at all. For every lover knows that nothing he or she can do will ever satisfy the claims of love. But who cares? As Isaac Watts explained:
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.