Throughout this part of Luke’s gospel, Jesus lays out the challenges and demands of being his follower. The gospel readings we’ve had in the past month or two have included lovely parables that help us see that following Jesus means a call to set aside self-interest, value others, use our resources to care for each other, and both notice and respond to the needs around us. And that’s only part of the teachings in these chapters. Loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves is a huge task when we take it seriously. It is no wonder that Jesus’ closest followers cry out “Increase our faith!” in this week’s gospel. They are overwhelmed by the enormous task, just like we sometimes are.
Once again, Jesus’ response is tricky and complex (I keep saying that, right?). He talks about faith the size of a mustard seed (pretty small) as enough to move a mulberry tree into the sea. Then he describes how a slave and their master would interact. Our current day struggles with human trafficking and our nation’s ugly history of chattel slavery and its horrific legacy usually make us uneasy about biblical references to slavery. Unfortunately, this is among the references to slavery in scripture used to justify human enslavement in our country. Let me be clear. Jesus is neither condoning nor condemning slavery here. His is describing the reality in his context. He explains the role, the duties, the responsibilities, and the attitude of a slave in his time. As they do these things, the slave is living out their identity.
I think Jesus turns to his overwhelmed followers as they plead for more faith and tells them they only need a little faith to do enormous things. He describes an absurd interaction between slave and master, where the master offers the slave dinner and a rest (what!?), contrasted with instructions to the slave to complete all their work before they rest, which is what would have been expected of one living out the identity of slave. So, followers of Jesus are embodying their identity as Jesus’ followers as they live those very roles, duties, responsibilities and attitudes. With only a tiny bit of faith, we are loving God by loving neighbor, working for justice, forgiving like we are forgiven, sharing what we have, and sharing the good news. It’s who we are and what we do.
Even when we are overwhelmed by Jesus’ call to follow, just a tiny bit of faith empowers us to live out that identity, to love and serve the world around us, and leads to remarkable things.
Peace,