Luke 17:1–10

19th Sunday after Pentecost

¹And he said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! ²It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. ³Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, ⁴and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him." ⁵The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" ⁶And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. ⁷"Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down at table'? ⁸Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink'? ⁹Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

At first glance, this text appears to be a random collection of sayings of Jesus. But in reality, Jesus was catechizing his disciples and preparing them for the time that they would lead his church. In order to understand this text it must be interpreted in light of its catechetical intent. It centers on the temptations or stumbling blocks that are to come and how his people are to respond to them and deal with them.

Seen from this perspective, these four statements all fall together. Let’s take a look at the text itself first to see what it is saying, then we will step back and look at it as a whole to learn what it means for us in our world today.

Jesus begins by telling us that all believers will have temptations or stumbling blocks in their life. They will be tempted to fall away from the faith and stray. But as leaders of his church, Jesus warns us not to allow them to fall into sin and lose their faith. Woe to you who are a stumbling block to your brother in Christ. It would be better for you to be cast into the sea with a millstone around your neck to drown. This is a severe statement. It shows God’s wrath against sin and is a stern warning we need take seriously.

Instead, Jesus says, when a brother sins, we are to rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. That is how we are to deal with the sin of our brother. Rebuke is to confront him with the law of God, for it is the law that convicts us of sin and leads to repentance. So that when he repents we can proclaim the gospel of forgiveness to him. Law and gospel is our message, the law to show the sinner his sin and the gospel to bestow forgiveness and peace with God that he might be saved. Our purpose as disciples of Jesus is to bring forgiveness and salvation to them through the Word of God.

However, the apostles immediately realized that forgiving others is not that easy. It is much easier to hold grudges and harbor bitterness toward others. We would much rather keep the fire of hostility going, talk about them behind their backs, criticize and accuse than to forgive them.

The apostles recognized that this is a problem of faith. That to forgive another his sin requires faith. The refusal to forgive is caused by a lack of faith in Jesus Christ. For it is faith that produces love for our neighbor in our heart and it is faith that results in forgiveness of others.

Jesus answers their request by saying that if you had faith like a mustard seed you could tell a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey. By saying faith “like a mustard seed” Jesus was referring to the size of a mustard seed. He is talking about the tiniest little faith. If the tiniest little faith can do such miracles, then the issue is not how much faith, but merely having any faith at all. Faith in Jesus Christ is sufficient. The mere presence of faith in Jesus is what changes our hearts and produces a flow of love for our neighbor. In other words, faith is not a commodity that we can add to or take away from. We do not by our effort or work acquire more of it. Faith is a gift of God’s grace. Only God gives us faith, we don’t “do” it, or produce it. It is a gift.

And that leads to Jesus’ final illustration. In this illustration there is a servant who works for his master all day long in the fields. When he comes in from the field at the end of the day, will that master set a table for him and prepare his dinner? No. The master will expect the servant to get dressed up and prepare the supper for him. Then when the dinner is over, will the master thank him for his kindness? No. For the servant was only doing his duty. He did nothing more than what was expected and required of his position. Therefore he should not expect to be praised or thanked. His pay is his compensation for his work. He did only that which he is getting paid to do. Therefore, Jesus says the servant will say to himself, “we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty.”

This illustration shows that no matter what we do, even if we have obeyed God in all his law, we are not worthy of salvation or of praise from God. God does not need to thank us or reward us for doing what he commands, it is our duty. There is nothing to boast about. Just like faith, we can add nothing by our effort to our status before God. In other words, finding favor with God is not something we do by our obedience or work or service. Receiving God’s favor is a gift from him. We do not earn it or deserve it. We do not obey God’s laws and merit his forgiveness. Our relationship with God is a gift. Our forgiveness is a gift. Our salvation is a gift. It is all given to us by God on account of his love which he has shown us in his Son Jesus Christ. Favor with God comes by the obedience and death and resurrection of Christ.

This is a brief explanation of the text, but what does this all mean? Let’s step back and get an overview of this text and what it means for our life today. It is really all about Jesus.

First we notice that it all starts with the statement that temptations and stumbling blocks will come. We will sin because we are sinners. Our fellow believers will sin because they are sinners. We will offend others at times by what we say and do and they will offend us by things they say and do. This will happen because we are all sinners. We are all imperfect. It will happen because we live in a world under the curse of sin and so in this life we will have crosses to bear. This is the theology of the cross. This is what Jesus is warning us about in this text that our lives will be filled with crosses that we must bear, just as he bore a cross for us.

But as we said, it is all about Jesus. This is the point here. Jesus himself bore this cross for us. Never did anyone experience more offense than what Jesus experienced from us; at our own hands. For we caused him to suffer. We rejected him and abandoned him. It was our sin that subjected him to torment and pain. On account of our sin Jesus poured out his blood and was hung on the cross to die. He suffered in absolute torment and agony for our sins. Yes, stumbling blocks and temptations are sure to come, and Jesus Christ was the first to suffer them on account of us.

Jesus suffered these torments for us. Out of love for us he suffered at our hands in order to forgive us for our sin and rebellion against him. Therefore, if a brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents forgive him. The purpose of his church is to dispense forgiveness to the world. His church is to proclaim law and gospel. Forgiveness is dispensed only through the word of God. First the rebuke, the law which leads us to repentance, and than the gospel which pronounces that our sins are forgiven. We, the church of Christ, are in this world for the very purpose of spreading his forgiveness to sinners; sinners for whom Christ died.

And we do this by word and Sacrament; the means of grace. This is the purpose of the church; it is the reason the church exists on earth; it is the reason and purpose of Emmanuel Lutheran Church. We are to dispense forgiveness to the world around us through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. It is the reason this church sits here on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Jackson Street. To dispense the forgiveness of God to all who enter those doors.

It is the reason we come here on Sunday mornings; to receive the forgiveness of God. We receive it in the Divine Service, through the absolution of sins, the word of God which declares forgiveness, the sermon which tells us that we are forgiven, through the liturgy and the hymns which declare the forgiveness of God, and in the sacraments which dispense forgiveness. We come here as sinners, thirsting for God’s love and forgiveness, and we leave forgiven and strengthened for the work of forgiving those around us.

Then we see Jesus again in this text. Jesus was the servant in this final illustration. He was the servant who came in from the fields after a long, tiring day, and set the table for his master. Jesus is the servant who fulfilled all the commands and duties and obligations of the Law of God. His perfect obedience was righteousness. He fulfilled the laws of God for us, on our behalf. In other words, his perfect obedience counts to us as our obedience. Because Jesus obeyed the law of God perfectly, God counts us righteous in Christ. God sees us as the obedient servant who has done everything well. And because Jesus died on the cross to wash away our sin, God sees us as perfect, having no spot of stain from sin, but his perfect, holy, obedient children. Our sins are forgiven and the commands and duties that God has give us have been fulfilled. There is nothing left for us to do. Like the servant who obeyed his master, all duty has been fulfilled and there is nothing more we can do to merit or deserve our master’s favor. In Christ, and on account of his obedience and death and resurrection, we are God’s perfect and obedient children.

And as his children, we are not a mere collection of individuals who happen to believe in Christ. We are the church. We are the family of God. Notice he says, “If your brother sins.” Our true family is the church, the sons and daughters of God, and that makes us all brothers and sisters for we are all children of the same Father. We are part of a greater whole; a transcendent body of Christ which spans all generations and all peoples and nations and languages.

Our culture is very individualistic. We think of ourselves as individuals, not as community. And so we sometimes have difficulty understanding this concept. We are not merely a collection of individuals, we are a greater body; the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit, through word and sacrament, illumines us to faith and then gathers us into the church, the body. In our baptism we are made children of God. We become part of a family; the family of God. And just as in our own family each person has a role and a responsibility to each other, so in the body of Christ each has a responsibility to one another; the responsibility to forgive each other as Christ has forgiven us.

This body is the body of Christ who died to wash away the sin of the world. Daily we bear our cross by forgiving those who sin against us. It is our cross to forgive the sins of people through Word and Sacrament. For as Christ placed his body on the cross to wash away our sins, and as we have become his body, it is through us, his body, proclaiming the gospel and administering the sacraments, that his forgiveness is spread around the world to all mankind. By calling them to repentance and proclaiming to the world: your sins are forgiven!

Amen.