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» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » Mulberry trees and unprofitable servants

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Source: (consider it) Thread: Mulberry trees and unprofitable servants
TurquoiseTastic

Fish of a different color
# 8978

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Last Sunday the second lesson was Luke 17:5-10

I had not thought of this as one unit before. Indeed my NJB splits v5-6 off from the rest. Hearing it together made me think along the following lines:

Could Jesus be saying: "You are thinking about faith in the wrong way, as though it were some special 'mojo' that you can have more or less of. That's not what faith is: faith is trusting God. So it doesn't matter 'how much' faith you have - if God wants the mulberry tree in the sea, and you trust him on that particular issue, into the sea it will go".

So then vv 7-10 are saying: "You're thinking of faith as some sort of spiritual prize that you get for being super-good beyond the call of duty. But the whole point of faith is that it's just trusting God, it's just doing your duty. You're thinking of how 'spiritual' you are rather than what God wants - otherwise the question of 'more faith' wouldn't cross your mind..."

Although reading it in Bible Gateway NIV I wonder if it is tied up with vv1-4 as well - the disciples saying: "This is really tough; we need some 'extra faith' to deal with it" and Jesus saying: "No, this is basic, suck it up..."

Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378

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spot on, I would say.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
Although reading it in Bible Gateway NIV I wonder if it is tied up with vv1-4 as well - the disciples saying: "This is really tough; we need some 'extra faith' to deal with it" and Jesus saying: "No, this is basic, suck it up..."

IME, it's usually safer to assume that a passage of Scripture ties up with what immediately precedes and follows it than to take each short passage in isolation. Especially when there's no obvious narrative break, as here where Jesus says do something and the disciples then chip in with something.

So, what is the "we need more faith" element of rebuking those who sin against you, and forgiving when they repent? Is it just that it's hard to forgive when you've been wronged? Surely then the disciples would say "we need to be stronger, to do something difficult" rather than "we need more faith to do that".

To me, the detail of note is the "Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them". It takes faith to forgive someone when the evidence is that they'll only sin against you again. It takes faith to accept that someone in sincere when they say "I repent", even more so when you've plenty of experience of that repentance not changing behaviour. It takes faith to trust that someone will do what they have said, especially when they have regularly not done what they've said they'll do.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
leo
Shipmate
# 1458

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I need to more thinking on this passage.

I've done plenty on the mustard seed but not much on anything else.

I read that gospel yesterday, acting as deacon, and hadn't looked at it in advance (I usually prepare) and it struck me as an odd collection of isolated statements, especially about servants doing what they are told. I was wondering what all our new intake of students was making of it and was a bit miffed that the celebrant's sermon completely ignored it.

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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Maybe the "doing as your told" links into next week, with the 10 lepers going to the priest (as they were told). Except for the Samaritan who couldn't follow simple instructions, and rather than do as he was told ("go present yourself to the priest") decided to come back and thank Jesus instead.

And, it was the Samaritan who came back who was commended. So much for doing what you're told to do. What sort of example is that for the children?

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Maybe the "doing as your told" links into next week, with the 10 lepers going to the priest (as they were told). Except for the Samaritan who couldn't follow simple instructions, and rather than do as he was told ("go present yourself to the priest") decided to come back and thank Jesus instead.

And, it was the Samaritan who came back who was commended. So much for doing what you're told to do. What sort of example is that for the children?

Great timing-- I just got done reading "Zealot." Reza Aslan claims that Jesus was being a smart-ass when he told the lepers to go to the priest, as the rigamarole one had to go through to get an official priestly cleansing was cost-prohibitive, especially to outcast folk who didn't have a pot to piss in.

He said Jesus's instruction translates as "*&%@ the ritual cleansing franchise, you got this for free."

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Robert Armin

All licens'd fool
# 182

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Many years ago I remember David Pawson talking about this. He took vs 1-10 as a unit, in this way. Jesus says you must forgive seven times in a day, the disciples retort we'd need real faith to do that (ie it's impossible), and Jesus replies that forgiveness is your basic duty as a servant/Christian - don't expect to get praised for doing it. Makes sense to me.

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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin

Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Maybe the "doing as your told" links into next week, with the 10 lepers going to the priest (as they were told). Except for the Samaritan who couldn't follow simple instructions, and rather than do as he was told ("go present yourself to the priest") decided to come back and thank Jesus instead.

And, it was the Samaritan who came back who was commended. So much for doing what you're told to do. What sort of example is that for the children?

This story doesn't seem to make sense. The other 9 would only be able to go to the priest if they had been healed, then they could be brought back into the community (as long as they paid) and thank God. The Samaritan surely wouldn't go to the priest in any case, as he wasn't a Jew? It would make sense for him to return to Jesus to thank him, and for the others to assume that thanks to God via the priest was sufficient. Why did Jesus commend him, and tell him his faith had made him well, when all were healed?

I'm sure that faith is the message of this whole section, and of course the writer of Luke is angling toward championing the gentiles, but I don't get it. [Confused]

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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10

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Oscar the Grouch

Adopted Cascadian
# 1916

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I must admit that I found the second part of the gospel reading difficult this Sunday - especially the comment about being "worthless slaves". On the surface, it would seem that we are being encouraged to be no more than servile nobodies.

For me, the key seems to be that request from the disciples: "increase our faith". On the surface, it seems such a worthy and admirable request, doesn't it? And yet Jesus clearly had a problem with what the disciples were asking.

It seems to me that the underlying story here does something like this: the disciples want to increase their power. "Increase our faith" is not a humble, godly request at all, but a desire to be important and powerful. "Increase our faith, Jesus, so that we can do amazing things and have people in awe of us."

Jesus punctures this attitude in two ways. First of all, he makes it clear that faith cannot be measured like that. It isn't some sort of spiritual battery that needs supercharging.

And then Jesus targets the attitude behind their request. "You want to be powerful? You want to be able to strut and preen like peacocks? Rubbish! Just do what you are supposed to do and don't try and angle for compliments and praise."

As such, it is a message less for the "ordinary" church member and more aimed at the kind of people who are likely to puffed up with their own importance - be that ministers, worship leaders or preachers.

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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu

Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941

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When I preached on this on Sunday, I went with a similar idea to that, Oscar, but took it in a slightly direction, because the congregation at my church less likely to puff themselves up and think of themselves as "Super-Christians" achieving great things that God would be impressed by, and more likely to worry that they don't have what they need to do what God's calling them to do.

So in that context, I suggested that the point isn't that God is looking for us to do super-impressive acts of amazing faith, but simply to use what God has already given us, put it into practice, however small and ordinary it may seem, and see what God can do through that. We can't impress God (in the sense of doing something that will amaze Him and make Him fall down on His knees in gratitude) and we don't need to try and impress God either; we just need to use the gifts, talents and faith God has already given us - they're enough, however ordinary and "mustard seed-sized" they may seem.

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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist

Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
leo
Shipmate
# 1458

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last few posts very helpful

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

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On the lepers going to be examined, and any associated costs--i thought Jesus' point (okay, one of them) was to demonstrate to everybody concerned that he was abiding by the Law of Moses, which required this. Although I have a dark suspicion that the real life effect was to freak out the priest-on-duty, who had probably never had a call for this function before ( leprosy being normally a life sentence in those days). i have visions of the temple crew hastily reviewing manuals untouched for ages, muttering under their breath at Jesus all the while...

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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Dunno. Aslan's attitude was "oh, he HAD to be joking," and he was basing this on the unlikeliness of any of the men having anything near the resources to satisfy the prescribed ritual.

Even just the bird might have been too much for them. Don't even mention the cedar wood.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged


 
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