Luke 17:5-10
“No More Than You Ought To”
By Rev. Kenneth Emerson Sauer,
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church,
Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
“The apostles said to the Lord,
‘Increase our faith!’”
How many times have we asked the Lord for this same thing…
A couple of times?
A hundred times?
A couple hundred thousand times?
I can hear my own voice jump out of the Scripture and into the air, as I have many times cried out to the Lord, “Increase my faith!”
At other times I’m not even so sure I want to have any faith at all.
And this is because the demands of the Gospel are hard.
They go against the grain of the way the world conducts business.
And they often go against the grain of the way I would like to do business.
The world tells us to make all we can, save all we can, and spend all we can.
And that sounds pretty good to me, but the Lord tells us: “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22b)
What in the world is that supposed to mean?
Treasure in heaven?
I want treasure on earth! I want a big fancy house! I want a brand new luxury car with all the bells and whistles.
Do I want treasure in heaven?
Sure, but can’t I have it both ways?
I mean a big fancy house and a nice expensive car will certainly help me to better live out my Christian mission.
It might even help increase my faith.
I could feel pretty good about myself as I drive to visit a poor widow in distress.
I could be more effective if I were able to have all the modern conveniences at my fingertips, and could sleep undisturbed within the folds of the finest French linens in a house fit for a king!
Or would these things actually cause me to stop caring for the poor widow?
Would I come to like these things more than I enjoy visiting the poor widow?
Would I decide that I am too good to bother with ministry and God?
Would I become so wrapped up in me, me, me, that I wouldn’t have time to think about him or her?
At the beginning of Luke chapter 17 Jesus tells us: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come…,” and then warns us in verse 3: “So watch yourselves.”
God knows what is best for us, and God provides all we need to fulfill God’s will for us in this world.
Jesus tells the apostles and Jesus tells us: “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.”
Do we have this faith?
I believe we do.
As Christians we believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
As Christians we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord!
And how did we acquire this faith?
Was it through anything we have done or accomplished?
No. This faith is a gift which has been given to us by God through what God accomplished for us in sending God’s Son into this world to die the death we deserve so that we can be free to live, and do the things that God created us to do.
Our faith may very well be as small as a mustard seed, but God is telling us that this is as big a faith as we need.
This is all we need.
If we needed more, God would provide.
So let’s run with it!
There is nothing as great, and nothing as powerful, and nothing as valuable as the faith through which God saves us and calls us.
As we are told in Ephesians Chapter 2: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so no one can boast.”
Let’s not spurn this faith, which is a gift from God.
Let’s not tell God that God has not given us enough of this faith.
Instead, let us be like the person who found treasure hidden in a field, and then in our joy sell all that we have and buy that field.
Let’s take hold of that mustard seed of faith; let’s claim it as a gift from God, and in joy—let’s let go of all other things we would desire to have in order that that mustard seed will grow and become a tree, “so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches” (Matthew 13:32c).
It’s not how much faith we have that is important, it’s what we do with the faith that we do have.
What are we doing with the faith that we do have?
Are we doing what we ought to be doing with this faith?
Remember the parable of the talents? (see Matthew 25:14-30)
It’s just like that.
God has given each of us all the faith we need to achieve God’s objectives.
It’s up to us to take the faith God has entrusted to us and use it for the building of God’s kingdom!
And, after all, it’s not really our faith in the first place—it’s God’s faith—given to us as a gift for the good of all.
Woe to any one of us who never uses our faith because we fear that it is too small!
But how do we use our faith?
What does God want us to do with it?
I believe that at least part of the answer to this question can be found in verses 7-10 of our Gospel lesson for this morning.
Jesus says: “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 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.’”
What is our duty?
What are we to do with our faith?
A friend of mine, who grew up on a farm, recently told me that her grandmother used to kind of rule the roost.
Her grandmother would tell my friend and her siblings the things that they were to do on the farm before they could relax and play—like milking the cows, feeding the pigs, collecting the eggs.
Often times my friend and her brothers and sisters would complain to their grandmother and ask, “How much more of this do we have to do before we can go out and play.”
Her grandmother would reply, “No more than you ought to.”
They were expected to do everything they were told, after all, it was their duty as productive members of that household.
If they hadn’t done their fair share of the work, the cows would not have been properly milked, the pigs would have gone hungry, and they would not have had enough eggs to sell at the market.
The farm would not have been productive, and they would no longer have a means by which they could earn a living.
It’s similar with the kingdom of God.
The Lord has provided us with all the faith we need in order to be productive members of God’s kingdom, and we are called use that faith to do no more than we ought to do in order to participate in God’s growing of God’s kingdom.
We are unworthy fallen, sinful creatures who have been given the greatest of all gifts—the gift of faith from God, and we are simply called to do no more than we ought to with this faith!
We are to do what we have been told to do because it is, after all, our duty.
Does this humble you?
It sure does humble me.
Last week I was sitting with a group of colleagues when one of them asked the other, “Do you tithe?”
“Yes,” replied the colleague, “but isn’t that what we are all called to do?”
This person did not expect a pat on the back. This person was only doing the duty of a member of God’s kingdom.
Are we doing what we ought to be doing as members of God’s kingdom?
Or are we not doing what we ought because we think it is something extra that we are not obliged to do?
Doing what we ought to do in the kingdom of God is not glamorous.
Folks do not usually applaud at the end of the day, and the pay certainly leaves something to be desired.
But it is the most worthwhile thing that we can possibly, and I mean possibly do!
When we do what we ought to be doing as members of God’s kingdom God’s Church works properly as the body of Christ on this earth.
The body grows as others become members of the household of faith, and perch in its branches.
The body represents Christ’s love to a needy world as its members reach out to the hungry, the lost, the outcaste, the forgotten.
The body is able to pay its bills as each member tithes.
The body enjoys the fellowship of believers as we gather for meals, barbecues, pumpkin sales, yard sales, Bible study, worship, and song.
The body is able to fulfill the Great Commission of Christ which is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded…”
Wow!!!
That’s even more powerful than having a mulberry tree obey you!!!
We’re talking about changed lives here!
We’re talking about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven!!!
When we have done everything we were told to do, we should say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”
Yeah!
Let’s go out and do it!!!
It’s no more than we ought to do.
