19 Pentecost, Year C

Proper 21 -- Habakkuk 1:1–13, 2:1–4; Psalm 37:3–10; II Timothy 1:1–14; Luke 17:5–10

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, October 3, 2010

“OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED”
(Homily text: Luke 17: 5 – 10)

Let’s reflect on the gospel text before us this morning, just briefly.

And as I did so this past week, the phrase that kept running through my mind was “other duties as assigned.”

This is a phrase that one encounters in job descriptions. For example, a job description might read something like “The person who has this position will do ____, and ____, and _____, and other duties as assigned.”

Jesus paints a picture the good and faithful servant who does one task that the servant is assigned by the master, only to the n be given a totally different task.

Maybe Jesus is telling us that we have to be flexible!!!!

He might ask us to do one thing, and then another, something totally different.

At any rate, let’s consider some of the implications of what He has to say.

The first thing we might consider is the nature of our relationship with the Lord….it is one of mutual servanthood. In Luke, chapter 22, we hear Jesus say that He has come among us as one who serves. So Jesus comes as servant. Of course, He is also Lord. So, if we are to be comprehensive in our understanding of who Jesus is, we need to understand that He is, first of all, the Lord. But he is also the Lord who voluntarily sets aside His lordship to some degree, in order to come among us as a servant.

For us, then, the Lord models servanthood. We are not asked to do anything the Lord hasn’t already done Himself.

Secondly, Jesus describes one set of tasks, that of plowing a field or keeping sheep, tasks which are done outside. But then He says that, once those tasks are done, then we might be asked to do something else which is entirely different. The second task has to do with serving someone at table. (Notice that table fellowship – or eating (and drinking) – figure prominently in Luke’s gospel account. Here, we see yet another example of this.)

Third, when we respond to the Lord’s command to do something, we are only doing what our status as servants tells us we are to do. Notice that the Lord says, “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.’”

Finally, let’s consider the connection between Jesus’ first comment, which has to do with the things that faith can accomplish, and His ensuring comments, which have to do with the tasks that lie in front of us. Jesus says that faith can uproot trees and move them to the most unlikely of places: the sea. What connection does accomplishing the impossible have to do with the tasks we are to do?

I think the answer is that the tasks that we do, while seeming to be small and insignificant, are exactly the means by which the impossible is accomplished.

Sometimes, I think we think that the impossible happens when God moves to act in some spectacular way. Usually, I think, our perception is that that is the only way the impossible is accomplished.

But many times, faithful people will set themselves to a task, only to look around afterward to see that they’d accomplished the impossible, one step at a time.

By being a servant of the Lord’s, we surrender our welfare in order to advance the welfare of the master. Doing so gives us the flexibility to undertake one task which might seem pretty mundane (or even distasteful), and then another. We do so because we know that the master knows better than we do what it will take to accomplish the tasks before us, even the impossible ones.

AMEN.