Let Your Good
Deeds Glow
Habakkuk
1:2-3; 2:2-4 II Timothy
1:6-8,13-14 Luke 17:5-10
To the church in
the diaspora[1]
& to the
church of the unchurched[2]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel
according to Luke.
Glory to you,
Lord.
(Lk 17:5-10)
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." The
Lord replied,
"If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this
mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
If one of you had a hired hand who has just come in from plowing or tending
sheep in the field, would you say to him, “Come here and sit down at table”? Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare
something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and
drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished'? Is he grateful to that
servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you
have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we
have done what we were obliged to do.'"
The Gospel of
the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.
----------------
Introduction
Foul!
In
the parable today a farm hand goes out at sunrise and bears the heat of the day
and the toil of plowing the fields and tending the sheep. At sunset he returns
to the farmhouse feeling good about his good work. But his master reminds him that he’s done no
more than his duty and is no more than an unprofitable servant. In fact, the
master adds to the farm hand’s fatigue by making him put on an apron and
prepare supper for him. The master will eat and drink first, and then the tired
servant may satisfy his hunger (Lk 17: 7-10).
The
parable makes one cry foul! The boss, you’d think, in gratitude to his farm
hand for his good work would have patted him on the back and poured him a rum
and Coke at the end of a long hard day. And if he were a truly great guy, the
boss would even have donned an apron and said to his servant, “Now you sit down
and relax while I get up to prepare you a good dish of pasta.”
“Not
so!” says the word of God today. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your
ways are not my ways”
(Is 55: 8).
It reminds us of another of
the Lord’s parables. The owner of an estate hires day laborers to work in his vineyard.
Some are hired at early dawn, some at high noon and others in late afternoon.
At sunset they all line up for their checks, and the foreman of the vineyard
gives the late arrivals the very same pay he gives those who were on the job at
early dawn (Mt 20: 1-16). That, too,
makes one cry foul! You’d think the early
birds would have received a lot more pay than the stragglers.
“Not so!” says the word of
God today. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.”
New news
The
good work of the farm hand didn’t work for his master. The good work of the day
laborer who came into the vineyard at early dawn didn’t work for the estate
owner. Both parables seem to attack or at least deflate good works. It’s old
news when religion attacks our bad works
(our sins). In Galatians Paul recites a
litany of our misdeeds: jealousy, anger, ambition drunkenness, and orgy, and
then declares that, “Those who do these things will not enter the
Good news
To attack good works or deflate them of power over God is not only new news it is also good news! It’s gospel! It delivers us from the terrifying fear of a God who needs to be bought off by the sweat of our good works. (Down deep, ever so subliminally, we feel the same about gods who need to be bought off as we do about people who need to be bought off.) The gospel attack or deflation of good works is good news because it delivers us from the gnawing doubt about whether we’ve done enough good works to buy God off or even whether they good enough to buy God off.
Protestant theologian Paul
Tillich thinks our good works are never good enough to buy off the priceless
God. All our virtue, he says, is really flawed. There’s always some pride in
our humility; always some selfishness in our generosity; always some self-centeredness
in our God-centered lives. If it weren’t for the mercy and grace of God, he
says, all our works would be basically tragic, and we would be terrified not
only by our vices but also by our virtues.
God doesn’t
need them
The
Protestant Reformation sought to reform a corrupt 16th century
church. But over and above that it sought to reform the bad news (rife in the
general piety of the day) that God needed our good works to make Him happy and
put us right with Himself. Luther’s revolution was personally and urgently more
about that than about the corruption of the 16th century church. On the
cornerstone of his reformation he inscribed two solitary words: Sola Gratia – By Grace Alone. We are
justified (put right with God) not by any good work we do but only by the blood
of Christ. That’s called grace. In the Reformation’s hymnology
that’s called Amazing Grace.
Luther
discovered that amazing good news as he was working out his personal
and terrifying problem of how to make God feel good about him. In Paul’s letters, especially to Galatians and
Romans, he discovered the good news that
our works have no power to puts us right with God; only the blood of Christ has
that power (Gal
3:13, 28; 15:1; Rom 3:24). That marvelously freed Luther; what he could
not do for himself that Christ did for him!
We
need them
But while the good news of Amazing Grace might liberate
us from the hopeless task of trying to buy God off, it does not liberate
us from good works themselves. God, indeed,
does not need them, but we, indeed, do! Jesus said we need them. “I was
hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was
naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison
and you visited me. Come you blessed of my father and take possession of the
kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of creation” (Mt 25:31-40).
The Good Samaritan needed his good work
One day a man was going from
God didn’t need the good work of the Samaritan, but
the man waylaid by robbers, indeed, did. And more importantly the Samaritan needed
his own good work even more than the poor victim. To ruthlessly pass by the man
dying by the wayside would have made the Samaritan a monster like the Jewish
priest and Levite. It was by stopping and pouring the oil of compassion that
the Samaritan became the great human being whose praises have been sung down
through the ages.
Our kids need their good works
In this new day our kids need ipods, iphones,
blackberries, gps, etc. One good father
and mother were wise enough to see that their four sons needed something better
than such consumerist needs. Their sons needed good works, not to buy God off
but to buy themselves off! So the parents encouraged them to do
volunteer work in an animal shelter cleaning out dog and cat kennels (no pay). And
to socialize puppies in preparation for leader-dog programs for the blind (no
pay). And to tutor kids who were poor in mathematics (no pay). As the mother and father rang Salvation Army
bells at Christmastime, they invited their sons to accompany them by playing
Christmas carols, one with a guitar, another with a saxophone, a third with a
French horn and a fourth with a key board (no pay).
God doesn’t need the sons’ good works. But animals in
shelters do. And blind people do. And the poor at Christmas do. But above all,
the sons need their own good works because that’s what rescues them from
becoming me, me, me kids, and that’s what turns them into great humans beings.
Conclusion
Let them glow
Today’s
parable asks, "Who among you would say to your hired hand who has just
come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here and sit down at
table while I get up and serve you’”?
I
would! If I had a hired hand who worked hard all day long plowing the field and
tending the sheep, I would, indeed, “turn the tables.” I would rise and say to
him, “Come here, good man, and you sit down at table while I get up to serve
you.” Then after pouring him a rum and Coke, I would don an apron and prepare a
good plate of pasta for him. That’s the
way it is with our good works. They have power to “turn the tables.” They have
power to set masters donning aprons and serving their hired hands, as Jesus donned
an apron at the Last Supper and washed the feet of his apostles. Our good works
have power not over God but over the people around us. “So let your good deeds
glow for all to see and give praise to their Father in heaven (Mt