Luke 17:1-10 contains a parable called The Bond Servant. It has been called the least inviting and most difficult parable. Perhaps a reason for this thinking is that it appears to put God in a bad light:- that he would qualify as one of Pharoah’s taskmasters! (Similiar thoughts also often accompany the reading of The Persistent Widow and The Midnight Friend, but they are parables which teach by contrast, rather than by direct comparison) The Father is the One who always gives rather than receives. Jesus was amongst us as one that serves and He came, not to be ministered unto, but to serve and to give His life.
In the parable, the servant returns from his duties in the field to serve his master in the kitchen, all unthanked, before he thinks of his own necessities. He does it unquestioningly, uncomplainingly. How much more then should we serve our Master to Whom we are children and friends, and who Himself is no inconsiderate taskmaster? We should be ready to serve Him to the utmost, and having done so, acknowledge we haven’t really done anything of great note. One of the great traps of obedient Christians is to develop self-dependence and arrogance. The servant looks at his performance in the light of strict justice, and acknowledges his shortcomings, for every zealous child of God knows that his service is less than perfect (perhaps only the zealous really know this). The Master looks at them in the light of grace and love, and rewards them with overflowing bounty.
However, the parable does teach unequivocally that duties are expected of servants. We can never put any claim on God or have Him in our debt. When we have done our best, we have only done our duty. And when we have done our duty, we have only done what we could have been compelled to do. If the master sent out the slave at sunrise to plough, and he ploughed all day so well that he did twice what was expected, the master would not say Have tomorrow off. No, the master would say to himself, this is an exceptional servant, and look forward to another really productive day of ploughing on the morrow. And, further, every year when ploughing time came, you know who the master would send to do the ploughing. An exceptional ploughman, no doubt, but just a workman working to his ability.
Not only should every servant work to his ability, every servant should strive to be reliable (Prov. 10:26 – As vinegar to the teeth, as as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.) You know what the irritation of unreliability is like:- got a car that starts most of the time but not the morning you need to get to an important appointment on time? Got a mower that goes most of the time but when the grass is high and you’ve got just enough time to mow it but you spend the time fixing it? We also know the pleasure it is to the boss who can say of his employee, He’s here on time every morning. We should want our heavenly Father to feel that way. It doesn’t matter that we don’t always feel like doing what the Lord wants us to – that’s the nature of the human beast – but we do what we ought to do because to not do it is to be an unreliable servant. It may be possible to satisfy the claims of law, but never the claims of love. But isn’t this sense of unprofitableness rather demeaning and soul-destroying to the Christian? Not at all – this sense of unprofitableness arises out of the magnificence of the Christian ideal. The Christian system sets before us such an incomparable excellency that we are always falling short of it. All Christian progress is conditioned upon a sense of unprofitableness – of not having arrived as Phil. 3:13 would say. God is everything, and He has pre-ordained that works be done (Eph. 2:10). There is no work or deed that we can dream up beyond the call of duty.
Why does Jesus tell this parable at this time? We glean from Lk. 17:1-4 two frightening responsibilities. First, we must not cause others to stumble, and second, the willingness to forgive must be continual. This is difficult since forgiveness is exercised when one is wronged and it demands maturity in dealing with our own feelings and hurts. Besides, have I really been sinned against or am I just hurt? The disciples felt the pressure of this and the only solution they can think of is to ask for increased faith (v.5). To their credit, they did this rather than complain (cf. Matt.19:10). But we must confess we like things the easy way, don’t we? Sometimes that’s fine – part of our technological drive to make labour-saving devices. But some things can’t be gained the easy way. There’s no easy way to gain character, or patience, or any good virtue – or a good marriage and other such things. If you come across a book with a title like Character in ten Simple Steps, don’t buy it. Some things have to be gained through ‘blood, sweat, and tears’. Jesus was made perfect through sufferings!
So they ask Jesus to snap His fingers and give them greater faith and Jesus’ answer was that a very small faith was sufficient for their needs. Faith wasn’t their problem, neither was it their solution. Some have suggested that Jesus was giving them a backhander and suggesting that they didn’t have faith even the size of a grain of mustard seed (which He said in the parable of the Mustard Tree was the smallest of all garden seeds). Remember, these are the disciples who have left their families and personal businesses and were following Jesus daily. They had that much faith:- O ye of little faith He had said to them in the boat, so who amongst us would venture that the disciples had a dead faith? Would their faith grow? Of course it would and it did, but the faith of their tomorrows would face the challenges of their tomorrows, and the faith of their today would face the challenges of their today. Sufficient unto the day is the faith thereof – 1 Cor. 10:13.
The solution to the demands of the Christian life is not to pray for increased faith, for every Christian has the required faith to live for Christ already. We may pray for increased faith, but we need to pray for it with the same clear understanding of what it is to pray for our daily bread – pray and then go to work.
You can’t become a Christian without the required faith. So we have faith sufficient, and that’s because the power of faith rests in the object of that faith, not the size of the faith. To focus on the size of the faith is to take our gaze off the object of our faith, which is Christ. Many a Christian has fallen for no other reason than he has focused on his weakness and failings (he says “I can’t” rather than “I can” and it becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy) – his condition he attributes to his little faith and which he believes would be overcome by a greater personal faith – he keeps lamenting “I’m so weak, I’m so weak”; “If only I were stronger” and all this takes his eyes off Christ who is able to hold him up and stop his from falling. (It’s the same with the power of prayer – the power of prayer is not in eloquence or length – ever asked your Mum or Dad for something? Ever said “Thankyou”? – you can pray. None of us would have enough faith to become a Christian or survived our beginning days as Christians if little faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, wasn’t enough. We don’t become Christians with great faith. This is not to suggest our faith needn’t grow, but rather to say that the Christian’s growth is not attained by asking for a greater measure of faith, or to excuse ourselves from our duty on the basis that “my faith isn’t big enough, but when it is I’ll let you know” sort of thing.
What’s the answer? The parable follows. We are not to stop, mourning over what we may perceive to be our little faith, and what we may perceive we may not have. Rather we are to focus on the Lord and our obligation to Him. We are to take a servant’s place and do a servant’s task. And even if I never cause anyone to offend, and if I always forgive those who trespass against me, I have no cause to boast for I have but done the servant’s task. The aim is not to accomplish great things by great faith, but rather to patiently persevere in well-doing and unwearied continuance. Don’t fall for the old trap If I can’t do great things I don’t want to do anything. If you do you’ll condemn yourself to a life of stagnation. I knew a man who couldn’t stand for anyone else to preach – he spent his time in the foyer pretending to tidy up the tract rack and pretending to be ready to greet any late visitors, rather than listening to the sermon.
Great faith and greater rewards and greater abilities come through doing mundane duties. A small man once said to a big man, If I was your size I’d go out in the woods and fight a bear. The big man replied, There are lot of little bears in the woods too.