Doing Your Duty with a Little Faith
Luke 17: 5-10, 2 Timothy 1:3-12
The Apostles were with Jesus daily. They saw miracles that would make their hearts stand still and yet they wanted more faith. What more could Jesus possibly give them? The answer is, he doesn’t give them anything more. Notice how Jesus answers their request. He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”
I believe he is saying to them and to us, “Your problem really isn’t a lack of faith. It doesn’t take much faith to do sensational things. What it takes is commitment. What it takes is determination, and persistence and a will to see it through to the end.”
Don Gullett was the greatest athlete eastern Kentucky has ever seen. He excelled in all sports. He was so good that he was recruited by the University of Kentucky in all three sports….Basketball, Football, and Baseball. In Basketball he averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds a game; I personally witnessed him pitch a Perfect Game striking out 20 of 21 men he faced in the District Final against Ashland at Central Park; and he set the State record for scoring in football…..he scored an amazing 72 points in one game (11 touchdowns and 6 Extra Points). That record still stands today.
Although he was recruited by many major universities, he decided to play baseball and quickly found himself pitching for the Cincinnati Reds at the age of 19. In the end, he became a Red’s Hall of fame Pitcher winning World Series games for both the Reds and the Yankees.
I remember when Catlettsburg Wildcats played his High School the Mckell Bulldogs, in football my sophomore year 1969. Don was a senior. We had already been beaten by Wurtland at home 28 to 7 and the following week, Don Gullett’s team beat Wurtland 72-0. That was the game that he set the state scoring record for a single game.
Now I don’t have to tell you, we were really worried. We had already been beaten by the team that he scored all those points against. And now it was our turn to face Don Gullet and the McKell Bulldogs.
I remember that in preparing us for the game, our Coach, Jerry Klaiber, held a team meeting in the school cafeteria. We watched film of the game where he scored all those points. One of our players got so enthusiastic after the Coach’s pep-talk that he jumped up and shouted, “Put Gillett in the Skillet” and that became our Battle Cry the rest of the week.
I know the coach must have been sweating bullets dreading what was sure to be a terrible, embarrassing lost. But he did his best and came up with a defense to stop Gullett. What was it?
He decided not to worry about the things that we were lacking, that we couldn’t control. Instead, he relied on the things we already had. He looked at our weak points and our positives and he came up with his game plan. What did he do? He took the fastest, strongest man on our team, Jack Kelly, and told him to tackle Gullett every play. He said, “Run past any others in the backfield even if they have the ball and tackle Gullett anyway. Guess what? It worked, every play, Gullett was looking for Kelly to hit him.
At half-time, he was minus yards rushing and we were leading 12- 0. You see, all it took was very little. To use what we already had. A little faith and silly slogan.
O, the rest of the story…..McKell kicked off to us to start the second half. Jack Kelly received the ball and ran it up the field. He was tackled and injured and removed from the rest of the game.. We ended up losing the game 27-12, but we considered that a victory having escaped the record books.
In much the same way in our lesson today, Jesus talks to his team, His disciples. They are asking for more faith, and he is telling them you don’t need a lot of faith to win. It only takes a little faith to do great things. He is saying to them the problem is not that you have too little faith. The problem is that you are not applying the faith you already have.
He tells them a strange little parable. We could say that this is one of His “Hard Sayings” He says, “Suppose one of you has a servant who’s been plowing or looking after sheep. When that servant comes in from work would you say to the servant, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Not likely. You would probably say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink.’ Then, after dinner would you thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?” Then Jesus adds these interesting words, “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’
Here His teaching is so out of step with our times that it will take some explanation. Jesus lived in a world in which slavery was a fact of life. In such a world, if the master of the house saw a servant in the field, he would not say to him, “Come on in and get cleaned up, while I fix you some dinner.” No, he would say, “When you finish your work, come in and prepare my meal. I’m getting hungry.” Then, after he had eaten the meal he would not have gone out of his way to thank the servant, nor would the servant expect to be thanked. After all, he had simply done his duty.
You and I would not fare well in such a culture. We like to be appreciated for our work. We like to be patted on the back, rewarded. We would not like being a faceless servant.
Actor Anthony Hopkins once spent some time with a professional butler in preparing for a role for a movie. This butler measured his success by how well he could be of service while not drawing any attention to himself. The real test of a butler’s excellence, he said, is that, “the room seems emptier when he’s in it.”
That is a concept that is alien to us. We don’t want to disappear into the woodwork. We like people to recognize us when we’ve done a good job, and to say, “well done,” or even, on occasion, to give us excessive praise. We don’t have the same sense of Duty that people use to have.
This sense of duty is what Jesus is talking about, He says that when we serve God, we are only doing our duty. We don’t deserve any special reward. Neither do we need any special gifts to carry out our work. We don’t need any special spiritual insights. We don’t even need an abundance of faith. What we need is to show up willing to do our part. Why? Because we don’t deserve anything. Because we have sinned against God, we have hurt him. Even if we knew that we were not going to make it to heaven, we still should want to serve God.
Over the years I have employed many people in the grocery business. Once I hired a woman to update shelf tags when prices changed. She was a quick learner and did the job well. However, a problem arose when she announced to me when she was available for work. I told her that the prices must be changed on the days I have scheduled her because our price changes were automatically updated by computer.
She quit, after I had paid to train her for several weeks, and then filed for unemployment. I challenged her claim and had to attend a hearing. To make a long story short, she did not get Unemployment Benefits because at the trial, I offered to give her job back but only if she could work when I needed her. The judge ruled that she was an “At Will Employee” and had to work at my pleasure, not hers.
The truth is, that is how too many Christians want to serve today--when it is convenient for them, when it is within their area of expertise, or when they can receive recognition and appreciation.
Servitude is really an alien concept for us. If I were to ask “would you be willing to take up a cross and carry it”, many of you would say yes, but never do it.
The disciples thought their problem was that they lacked faith. Jesus’ told them that was not the problem. The problem was a lack of commitment. That is our problem, too, isn’t it?
Dr. Isaac Watts put our situation in a hymn a couple of centuries ago:
Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?
While others fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas?
Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend to grace, To help me on to God?
Sure I must fight, if I would reign; increase my courage, Lord.
I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain, supported by thy word.
Are those sentiments lost on us? Are we too affluent, too pampered, too comfortable to hear and appreciate the words of the Gospel?
In our Epistle lesson, didn’t we hear Paul say, "share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling"?
The truth is, you serve….without complaint….sometimes with no recognition or glory. It is your duty and nothing more! It’s only when you pass over to the other side, to be received into the arms of Jesus that you hear those ultimate words of commendation, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come, share my joy.”
Does this make sense to you? Can you perceive that we have a crisis of commitment, a crisis of servitude in our society? As my father used to say, “We have too many Chiefs and not enough Indians”. Can you sense that the “Look out for # 1 attitude” has taken something very important out of our character?
There is no record that Jesus granted the Apostle’s request. They didn’t need more faith. What they needed was simply to show up for duty. He would give them what they needed, but first they needed to show up. They needed to say, “It is our honor to serve you.”
Sometimes, like in the song, it just takes a little spark to get things going. It takes someone saying, Hey, we can do it! Just that little faith that Jesus was talking about can ignite a great fire. A great revival not only in our hearts but also in our church, in our community and even the whole world. Are you willing to give it a try?
The Catlettsburg Wildcats lost the game, but we learned a great lesson. We learned to first look at what we already had and not pine for things that we're not even sure we need. Looking at our little church today, how we have dwindled down, and how our ministry has diminished. This is not the time to close the doors, this is a time to step up and do our duty. This is the time to survey our strengths and weaknesses and come up with a strategy. This is the time to step out in faith and actually do something for the Lord. Look around you, at your own family and friends and do what you have promised the Lord. Reach out.
