Pastor Appreciation Month

Luke 17.1-10

Did you know that October is national Pastor Appreciation Month? No? Well, apparently it is. It is also national Crime Prevention Month, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Chili Month, National Apple Month, National Pretzel Month, National Pork Month, National Physical Therapy Month, National Occupational Therapy Month, National Children’s Health Month, National Pizza Month, National Arts and Humanities Month, National Rodent Prevention Month, National Cruise Vacation Month, National Stamp Collecting Month, National Seafood Month, and National Dental Hygiene Month, just to name a few.

It’s sort of odd. Where did the idea ever come from? There are the ones that are trying to raise awareness in order to affect change, like National Crime Prevention Month and National Rat Prevention Month. There are others that are trying to sell something. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that National Cruise Vacation Month comes at the end of Hurricane season and before the holiday rush. Then there are the ones that appear to be celebrating like National Physical and Occupational Therapy Months, National Stamp Collecting Month, and National Pretzel Month.

But how did National Pastor Appreciation Month make the cut? Surely it’s not raising awareness for prevention, nor trying to sell us something, I would hope. If it were trying to get people to consider being a Pastor, I could understand that, but it seems to be a celebration and I just don’t remember Jesus saying a thing in favor of that. There was no ‘Love the lord your god with all your heart, mind and soul; Love your neighbor as yourself; and applaud one another for being good disciples.’ In fact, in this week’s lection, he says something else entirely.

In chapter sixteen, we’re told that Jesus had been speaking to the Pharisees about the law and the kingdom of God and about love of wealth. Then, as chapter seventeen begins we are told that Jesus turned to his disciples and began to instruct them. It seems like sort of a laundry list at first. The sayings have to do with sinning, forgiveness, faith, and service. It looks like four almost unrelated subjects like the editor just threw is some odds and ends with which he didn’t know what else to do, but they sort of build on one another.

First he tells his disciples to not lead anyone else into sin. He says that “occasions for stumbling are bound to come” (v1). One cannot live so hidden away that there is no temptation to do things that should not be done. Even a hermit living by himself in a cave carved out of the side of a hill, without human contact or the draw of consumer goods, can stumble. He can lie to himself about his motivations for living in a cave or indulge his weakness for guilt. Certainly in a community occasions for sin arise. Whether it is laziness or greed or lust or gluttony, opportunities to sin are around and generally close at hand. But, Jesus said, we should not create these opportunities for one another. We do not need to help each other to find stumbling blocks. That means no goading and no peer pressure. No, “c’mon how bad can it be,” and no, “everybody’s doing it,” and no, “it’s not that big of a deal, just give it a try.” Now these sound like childish taunts, but they arise from adult throats plenty. Perhaps they are dressed in more sophisticated phrases, but adults offer them to one another regularly. And we shouldn’t because offering someone a road map to a stumbling block is far worse, according to Jesus, than just finding the stumbling block on our own.

That leads us to the next bit in verse three where Jesus tells the disciples that if they see another person stumbling, if someone is sinning, they should go to that person and rebuke him or her. Suddenly the disciples are sounding like the wet blanket at the party. First they are not participating in the stumbling of others and then they are calling people out on their stumbling. That’s a tough order. Stopping something that isn’t right and telling someone that they are hurting themselves or the community are difficult things to do. It is difficult to stop something that isn’t right once it has begun. And what’s more the rebuking goes hand in hand with forgiving. “If another disciple sins,” Jesus said, “you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive.”

Jesus told them that if a person repents of their sin, the disciples should forgive that person, even if the person does the same thing all day long. As long as the person repents, that is as long as the person recognizes that what they have done is wrong and acknowledges it, then they should be forgiven repeatedly. That goes for the person at work that offends you and the little brother that drives you crazy. No matter who it is, even if they ought to know better, if a person sins against you and then repents you should forgive them seven times.

By this point the disciples were feeling pretty overwhelmed. They were to watch that they didn’t do something wrong and make sure they didn’t help anyone else to do anything wrong. But if wrong was done and repentance was made, then they were supposed to forgive until the cows came home. They were feeling the pressure of all of these directives. Not sinning was hard enough, but then forgiving as well? How could they possibly live up to this tall order and please God? There was no way, at least not as they were.

The disciples hadn’t really gotten good at being faithful. They felt like if they were just better at it, all of this would be easier. Surely once you’re really good at faith you’re not longer drawn to sin and forgiving the same person all day is easy. Their minds were whirring with their ineptitude and the crush of the demands upon them so they cried out to Jesus, “Increase our Faith!” (v5). That was it. That was the answer to doing it all. How brilliant they were to think of that. Jesus would love that answer and they felt like it would really help them to do everything they needed to do in order to be faithful enough to please God.

Their pride was short lived.

There are two kinds of “if” statements in Koine/biblical Greek. There is one that is asked with the expectation that the answer is ‘negative’ and another that is asked with the expectation that the answer is ‘affirmative’. In this case, Jesus asked the question in the affirmative style. It is as if when he says, “If only you had even a very little bit of faith,” Jesus then implies “[and you have]” (v6). He’s telling the disciples that though they may not see it the faith they have is enough. That is all the faith they need to do the things that God has asked them to do. And what’s more, it was presumptuous of them to ask for more faith. That’s what brings us to the parable.

In Luke, when Jesus tells the disciples a parable, he often draws them into the story. Luke uses the phrase, “who among you” as if what Jesus is about to explain is so common and universal that not one of the disciples would disagree about how he would react. In this case, Jesus says, “Which one of you,” or ‘Who among you, if you had hired someone to do a job, and if the person worked all day but the job was not complete, who among you would say go ahead, don’t worry about the rest?’ It’s a leading question. Of course no one would dismiss a person who has done only half the job he was asked to do. Jesus continues saying, ‘Wouldn’t you tell the person to come and finish the work? and that he could have leisure time later.’ Of course the disciples would ask the person to finish the work that was expected.

Then Jesus shifted the story. Whereas he had encouraged the disciples to relate to the person demanding the work, now he asks them to relate to the worker. ‘And wouldn’t you,’ he asks, ‘expect to do the work you were asked to do and with out thanks or reward?’ And they would. They had worked, the disciples had, and no one had praised the fishermen for bringing in their catch. They had worked hard and hauled in a catch, but no one stood over them and told them to rest when the catch was half in or rewarded them with a party when the boats were full. They did the work that was expected of them because it was expected. They would not do the work in order to make something of themselves in their own eyes, the eyes of the community, or in God’s eyes.

Jesus was telling them that discipleship is hard work and work that does not end. It is work that is not above and beyond our usual lives. We don’t commit acts of discipleship in addition to what we do and how we live our lives. Once we, the disciples, start thinking that our discipleship is something above and beyond, something from which we deserve a rest, we elevate ourselves. We confuse ourselves into believing that we deserve certain things like rest and appreciation. It’s hubris.

If we concentrate on ourselves we start to think that we deserve God’s grace and we don’t. Because even if we are able to live up to this tall order of discipleship and even if we are not the one who has to be forgiven seven times in one day for the same thing, even if we repent and forgive, we do not deserve an ounce of God’s Grace.

There is not disciple appreciation month, there should be no pastor appreciation month because our service, all of our service no matter how grand or sweeping an action it is, no matter how time-consuming or tiring, our action is not more that we ought to be doing. There is no correlation between our work or how much faith we have and the amount of grace we are given. None, because God’s grace is far beyond anything we deserve.

We are invited to the table, with the rest of humanity. We are invited with the hard workers and the lazy ones. We are invited with the faithful and faithless. We are invited with the forgiving and the forgiven. We are invited because of nothing we did or did not do. We are invited to the table by the invitation of Jesus Christ our Lord, who has laid out the table for us with a bounty of bread to sustain us and the overflowing cup of grace.