Read: Luke 17:1-19
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 “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 recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” 11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Do you ever think about how by putting an emphasis on certain words changes the emphasis of the entire statement? I once saw a sketch of various actors delivering the iconic line from Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” And each of them saw the statement differently depending on what word they thought most important. When I read this passage in Luke, I wonder if we do the same thing in a roundabout way. Do we emphasize what we want to be the most important thing and as a result, de-emphasize other portions we desire to ignore?
When Jesus says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him.”–Emphasize.
“and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” —De–emphasize.
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”— Emphasize
And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”– De-emphasize.
And on and on it goes in this passage. We take the things that make us feel good (or at least better than the person beside us), and we focus on them, all while leaving behind the things that make us uncomfortable or challenge our way of living and thinking.
It’s much easier to identify how someone else needs to repent, rather than identify how we need to forgive. It is easier to ask the Lord to increase our faith, rather than hearing the Lord say, “If you had faith.”
Jesus healed ten lepers, and one came back. Would you have come back? Would you have been the only one to hear Jesus say, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
Or would you have kept walking, only focused on yourself? I almost always assume I would be one of the nine. I would have been so excited for myself that I would have forgotten to thank the one who healed me. Do I do that now? Do you do that now? Do we slow down to see the one who is working in our hearts?
I see within these verses a challenge to let God’s word stand as it is, not to mold it into what I want it to be or to push it to be something I think others need, but rather to let it teach us, rebuke us, challenge us, and encourage us. This is how God designed it to be.
As Jesus speaks to the various groups and moves in and out of these conversations, he speaks truth that we all need to hear. To his disciples, he gives a harsh warning about leading others into sin. After hearing Jesus say forgive, the first thing this same group asks is for him to increase their faith. Jesus’s answer starts with, “If you had faith.” He knows the hearts of those in front of him, so is he encouraging them or rebuking them?
Next, Jesus tells a story of a servant and a master, and he says, “Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Jesus instructs his followers how to respond when obeying, but we live in a world where we want recognition; we want to be honored and praised. So when we do obey, can our hearts say, “I have only done what was my duty”? That is a big ask for most of us.
But maybe today we can start to say, “Increase my faith” in a way that our hearts honor and obey God regardless of what we might lose. We pray, “Lord teach us to pay attention to ourselves to live a life where we don’t lead others away from you but instead, seek the good of others. Help us to remember who our hearts and lives belong to and teach us to take time to praise you for the work you have done and are doing in our lives.”
These passages and teachings were given out of Jesus’s love for those before Him, and Luke recorded them so we could see this love of Christ. Love that pushes us to look outward and upward. Love that challenges us to live a life where we rebuke and forgive. Love that encourages us to serve with all we have and doesn’t seek to be given empty accolades for the work. We need look no further than Christ as our example.
