Gospel Reflection on Luke 17:5-10

October 5, 2025

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

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At the center of the question of faith, 'what is faith, and how does it function?' is a deeper question about what drives us, what motivates us: are we driven by some desire to be powerful, to be effective, to make a difference, especially for a good cause?

One of the most perplexing dimensions of Jesus is His lack of any need to defend Himself.

He's no territory to protect, no interior area that He needs to guard. He is always and only 'for', for you, for me, for everyone.

He makes no attempt to convince, to shout out the truth, to force Himself on us.

And in His company, this begins to rub off on us. If we don't work in His vineyard, what are we going to devote ourselves to? We shouldn't be afraid of sacrificing ourselves. What we should really be afraid of is not sacrificing ourselves.

There is a great grace in serving Him. If we fail to serve Him, we miss out on the blessing that He gives us in recompense. He fills our lives with mercy, the mercy we can only find in Him. It is never worthwhile to stop serving Him, and our reward is faith. The opposite of faith is a nervous anxiety, a fear of not succeeding. No, thank you.

There is no more beautiful or interesting life than to live the life of God. There is no need to be paid for it.

Faith looks like being at peace and unafraid, a certain sort of being established, unmoved by what is going on in the world around us.

The power of Christ, which is revealed over and over again, and His not defending Himself enables us to pay no attention at all to what people are saying, not to be swayed by what moves people.

Our faith reveals itself in an ability not to have to engage in any group building activities. We don't have to focus on overcoming the wicked other, whoever the other is.

God, who is wholly other, has no interest in such activities.

Our faith takes a form of sitting with One who comes from nowhere, who is not opposed to anything, who is not interested in overthrowing anything at all. Our God is engaged in no kind of rivalry. Our God is not interested in creating a group who wants to overcome some other group.

Our faith depends on being constantly renewed every day by being spoken to, by being asked, and in answering we come into existence. And that gives us the security to know that we're loved, as we let go of all the things that we once thought made us lovable, which we tend to think make us important. And once we let go of our need to prove to convince,

then the mulberry trees will not root themselves, be planted in the sea, or wherever else God wants them to grow.