Lamentations 1:1-6; Ps. 37:1-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10)
I don’t know if anyone else is like this, but it took me a long time to learn that it’s important to read the directions. Of anything: a math test, a kitchen appliance manual, a driver’s license renewal application. I think I just always instinctively felt that reading directions was kind of a waste of time, that it was common-sense stuff that I already knew enough to get by without, and I could figure out what I needed to as I went along. And I have to confess that it wasn’t really until I got married that I learned otherwise: that – to pick a random example – when you ignore words like – say – “Wash in cold water”; “Gentle cycle”; and “Tumble dry low” – there are consequences that reverberate into larger areas of life, which are uncomfortable, and – through paying attention to the directions – avoidable.
It works much the same way with us here in church. We get directions, in the life of faith. We get them mostly from scripture, especially of course from the words of Jesus in the gospels. These directions are usually simple, but sometimes not easy to understand, and very often not easy to follow, for a variety of reasons. That’s why we read them over and over again, year in and year out. These directions make demands of us. Sometimes they require sacrifices, which are not easy to make.
But the more we read them, and the better we follow them, the more we come to understand that they are for our good, and the good of everyone around us, and for a very simple reason: they lead us into the real world: the world that God created. So we follow directions that we sometimes don’t fully understand. In the language of faith, this is the virtue of obedience.
To ask obedience from adults doesn’t feel quite right, does it, it feels like asking people to dumb themselves down. But by the grace of God today we have an excellent analogy staring us in the face. In a few minutes we’re going to have a baptism: we are going to welcome a young person into Christ’s church, into the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement. We look for obedience from our kids because there are things we grownups know better than they do just from having been around a while and knowing the world a little better. So we can say, do your homework, brush your teeth, don’t run between parked cars into the street. Well, we are all children in the kingdom of God, grownups usually more than kids (Jesus refers to his disciples as “little children”, or “little ones”); and obedience in the life of faith is at least as important for us.
Today’s reading from the gospel of Luke is one of a cluster of stories in that gospel that in one way or another are about obedience: following the directions: learning to live in the real world. Last week we heard the story about the rich man who, in his life on this earth, paid no attention to the poor beggar Lazarus who lay suffering by his gate; and when they’d both died, and Lazarus was in heaven with Father Abraham, the rich man, suffering in Hades because he’d ignored Lazarus, called up to Abraham, Tell Lazarus to warn my brothers about this situation; and Abraham told him, They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them: they should follow the directions.
Later on in Luke’s gospel we hear the story of the rich ruler who asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answers, “You know the commandments. “
And as if to say, You know this already, he lists some of them: you shall not murder, you shall not steal, honor your father and your mother. And the ruler says, I’ve kept all the commandments since my youth. To which Jesus replies, Okay, if you want to go the whole way, go sell everything you own, and you’ll have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me. The point is that following the directions – in this case, obedience to the commandments – is where we start.
Today’s reading comes about because, a few verses before, Jesus has given his disciples some directions about forgiveness that are quite simple and extremely hard to follow: he says, “…if another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent’, you must forgive.” Well, even if our friend does something hurtful to us and repents, which of us would take that and forgive seven times in a day? But: that’s what God does, over and over: we sin, we repent, God forgives; we sin we repent, God forgives; that cycle never stops.
That’s the love of God, and the kingdom of God that Christ calls us to enter.
So in the first verse of today’s reading, in response to this command of Jesus to forgive like God does, the disciples throw up their hands and say, “Increase our faith!” We can’t do this on our own! And Jesus tells them, You already have the faith within you. It’s simply a matter of obedience: follow the directions, and you will grow into it.
Now the way Jesus explains this is hard for us to hear, and to understand, because of the example of slavery he uses. But in Jesus’ time slavery was an unquestioned fact of life, and he uses it here just as he uses the metaphors of fishing and farming elsewhere in the gospels. They are all circumstances from everyday life that his hearers would have been familiar with, which he uses to illustrate the reality that God’s kingdom is among us.
The summation Jesus makes of this metaphor of slavery is in the last verse: “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” There’s a lot that we don’t like hearing in that sentence: is he saying that we’re just mindless robots? And that we’re supposed to accept that?
Well, of course nothing could be further from the truth. Forgiving like God does, for example is a great, free, personal work of the spirit. These words of Jesus are just a different way of saying what he’s said from the beginning: that the kingdom of God is among us. He is calling us to be who God created us to be. Jesus is describing the relationship to God in which we stand: our utter dependence on God, who gives us life, and through whom alone we know the truth; which Jesus tells us, makes us free.
So we begin by praising God, worshiping God, thanking God. And as disciples of Christ, we are to be alert for those times in life when God is being shut out – ignored, denied, in whatever way, by ourselves and by anybody else – and in such situations, ask ourselves, what can I do to serve God in this situation?
How can I help God to get in?
This is following the directions. This is the life in the Spirit of God – the life of peace, and joy – into which we are welcoming this young man today. Thanks be to God.