Proper 27C
From Faithfutures
This page is part of the Lectionary series within the Living with Jesus Now project.
Contents |
Lectionary
- Lamentations 1:1-6 and Lamentations 3:19-26
- 2 Timothy 1:1-14
- Luke 17:5-10
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10
Faith's Power
The saying in Luke 17:5-6 seems to be a Lukan variant of a more widely-attested saying of Jesus about the power of faith to achieve what seems impossible, and should not be confused with the well-known parable at 035 The Mustard Seed:
(1) The earliest witness to this saying comes from 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul seems to be using it against those spiritual enthusiasts who claimed to be possessed (as individuals) of just such an amazing faith and yet, so Paul implies, lacked the underlying Christian charism of love:
1 Corinthians 13:2b
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
(2) The version attested by the Sayings Gospel Q has been reconstructed as follows:
If you have faith like a mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree:
Be uprooted and planted in the sea! And it would obey you.
(3) The Gospel of Thomas has two versions of this saying:
Thomas 48
Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in a single house,
they will say to the mountain, 'Move from here!' and it will move."
Thomas 106
Jesus said, "When you make the two into one, you will become children of Adam,
2and when you say, 'Mountain, move from here!' it will move."
(4) The Gospel of Mark uses this saying in the context of Jesus cursing the fig tree, itself a symbol of the destruction that would befall Jerusalem and its awesome Temple structures. The important thing here is that there must not be even the slightest hint of doubt in the believer's faith:
Mark 11:22-23
Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God.
Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,'
and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass,
it will be done for you.
= Matt 21:21
Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt,
not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree,
but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,'
it will be done.
(5) Finally, Matthew and Luke each develop the saying so that the emphasis falls on the point that even "little" (mustard seed sized) faith is effective:
Matt 17:20 He said to them, "Because of your little faith.
For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain,
'Move from here to there,' and it will move;
and nothing will be impossible for you."
= Luke 17:5-6
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.
In these various instances of this widespread aphorism we can see the persistence of an underlying structure. The conclusion is always the same: subject to some condition being fulfilled, the impossible becomes achievable. But the description of what that prior condition changes from one example to the next: is it individual faith (free of any shadow of doubt), faith no matter how miniscule/fragile, common/shared faith (rather than individual charisma), or unity and harmony within the community (or the individual)?
The Servant's Duty
The other part of this week's Gospel takes us into a social setting that is quite foreign to most Western readers. The story assumes not only the acceptance of slavery, but an honor/shame social system in which honor is presumed to lie with the powerful while the subservient have no inherent dignity. This mindset now stands in stark contrast to the values expressed in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR], which asserts the dignity and worth of each and every human person:
Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
These are the liberal values of secular Western societies, although they are often attacked by both Western Neo-Conservatives (can we imagine the present administrations in the USA or Australia ratifying them at this point in our histories?) as well as by Two-Thirds World leaders who resent Western cultural and political domination. They are not biblical values, even if many people see them as vaguely Christian in character. They have more to do with the spirit of the Enlightenment than with traditional religious views of humanity and society.
Bill Loader captures the clash of cultures involved when modern Westerners read a text like Luke 17:7-10:
We enter the world of slavery and servitude. You don’t treat slaves as equals; you treat them as subordinates and so they should be! Don’t thank them. Their role is to serve you. The problem is that we may assume that many who heard Luke’s story would have nodded their heads in agreement. Slaves are slaves, servants are servants. Some listeners could have perhaps added: and if you are nice to them it will give them ideas above their station. You have to keep them in their place! We don’t want them getting illusions about their worth.
This is all very odd and seems to have more to do with what the gospel of Jesus was trying to counter than what it was trying to promote. We are perhaps more conditioned to think differently, but these have been dominant values throughout much of Christian history. The best exponents were probably the Stoics who helped develop the idea that society must be ordered and preserve its order. Those passages which enjoin wives to obey husbands, slaves to obey masters, and children to obey fathers, reflect this kind of influence. It may also be Luke’s view.
There is a partial parallel to the story in the version of 046 The Tenants given in the Shepherd of Hermas, a Christian text thought to have been written in Rome around 100 CE. In this version, one of the servant's has a "proper" sense of his duty as a slave and is commended for this by the master--even being made a joint heir with the master's own son:
He deliberated to himself saying: 'I have completed the lord’s command. Now I will dig up this vineyard, and it will look better when it is dug; without weeds it will give better fruit, since the weeds will not be choking it.' So he dug up the vineyard and pulled out all the weeds that were in it. That vineyard improved and was thriving without weeds choking it. /5/After a while, the owner of the slave and the vineyard returned and went to the vineyard. Seeing the vineyard nicely enclosed and even dug and weeded, and the vines thriving, he was extremely happy about what the slave did. /6/Calling his loved son whom he held as heir, and his friends whom he held as advisors, he told them what he had commanded the slave and what he found achieved. These congratulated the slave according to the testimony given by the owner. /7/He said to them: 'I promised freedom to this slave if he kept the commandment I gave him. He kept my commandment and added good work to the vineyard, and so has pleased me greatly. In return for this work he has done, I want to make him joint heir with my son, for he appreciates the good and did not neglect it, but completed it.' [Hermeneia]
Both the Gospel of Luke and the Shepherd of Hermas reflect the social conservatism of Christianity around the end of the first century and the beginning of the second. It is from this same period that we get the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus) with their household codes that exhort Christians to reflect proper respect to those above them in the social order: wives to husbands, children to fathers, slaves to masters, etc.
The radical vision of Jesus ("give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but give God what belongs to God") soon gave way to the collective instinct that traditional values should not be challenged. Christians were told to pray for the emperor and to show respect to those in authority.
The ancient tension between Gospel values and cultural norms may be again exposed in contemporary calls for "family values" and faith-based engagement in party politics. Are Gospel values to be found in historical expressions of human society, or in a prophetic critique of any and every human institution that claims ultimate value?
Current conflict over human sexuality, and especially same-sex relationships, points to deep-seated cultural values that are in tension with the liberal secular values enshrined in artefacts such as the UDHR. Conservatives opposed to homosexuality appeal to the Bible as if it provided timeless truths free of the cultural conditioning of its authors and original audiences. To their chagrin, progressives also appeal to the counter-cultural instinct of the faith tradition that birthed the Bible in the first place.
The Bible does not serve either side well in such disputes. It is a flawed text insofar as it assumes and promotes such things as slavery, demon possession, ethnic cleansing, racial superiority, a three-tiered universe, and the subordination of women. Such realities should be an embarrassment to traditionalists and progressive alike. The Bible does not fit neatly with our cultural assumptions, as this week's Gospel reminds us. The immense spiritual value of the Bible may lie more in its capacity to empower our human quest than its ability to (re)solve our immediate challenges.
Jesus Database
- 035 The Mustard Seed - (1) Gos. Thom. 20:1-2; (2) 1or2?Q: Luke 13:18-19 = Matt 13:31-32 ; (3) Mark 4:30-32 = Matt 13:31-3.
- 055 Caesar and God - (1) Gos. Thom. 100; (2) Eger. Gos. 3a [50-57a]; (3) Mark 12:13-17 = Matt 22:15-22 = Luke 20:20-26.
- 173 Faiths Power - (1) 1Q or ?2Q: Luke 17:5-6 = Matt 17:20
- 383 The Servants Duty - (1) Luke 17:7-10; (2) Her. Sim. 5.2,4-7
Liturgies and Prayers
Music Suggestions
See David MacGregor's Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.
