The gospel, Luke 17:5-10, chastises the apostles into faith and dutifulness. It places before the apostles an uneasy parable of a master and his servant. A master who is at the enjoying end constantly, and a servant constantly at the serving end is a poor parable for our times that detests master-slave relationships and existence. So it is natural that when we read the perpetuation of the same in Scriptures we find ourselves repulsed. Where's the warm Jesus? Where's the love, the affirmation? Where is the Jesus who took out his garment and knelt down to wash his disciples' feet?
This passage of the gospel has to be read in a particular context. It is material for people who are pursuing novitiate formation. Note that all through Jesus was addressing the crowd who followed him, whom Luke kept addressing as disciples. But here (see verse 17:5) Jesus is precisely speaking to the Apostles, whom Jesus is forming to be his committed and uncompromising followers. Novitiate is a period of rigorous formation to clamp down, crush one's ego and self-centeredness. At times illogical things are asked of the formees, like, to water plants even when it is raining; imagine watering plants with an umbrella held up against the pouring rain. A story that is coming down from the time of Francis of Assisi is that a novice is asked to plant a tree upside down; if that is not stupid enough, the novice is asked to continue to water it daily. Complete surrender means dying to oneself.
Martin Luther King Jr., who worked for the emancipation of the slaves and eradication of slavery, said, a God-fearing servant is as good as a God-fearing master. An honest servant is as good as an honest master. In other words, a dishonest servant is as bad as a dishonest master. Martin Luther could say that about slaves because he was one of them. But when a slave owner says it, it becomes vulgar and condescending. Here Jesus being a servant saying it to his apostles who are to be servants too, it does not sound vulgar; rather it is a self-critique.
Coming back to the passage, the apostles were fishing for compliments, recognition, and greater power. Jesus is speaking to these arrogant disciples, fishing for power, who are demanding they be elevated above others; this story challenges their motivation for following Him. Christian life is not an exchange or transaction. If you know why you love it is not love, it is transaction, business. As Christians it is our duty to love, care, forgive, show mercy—we are only doing our duty.
Secondly, it is an indication of the fact that we would be repeatedly called forth to bear fruit: forgive, forgive, and again forgive. See the passage before it. Jesus instructs his disciples to be self-aware and to forgive a brother or sister even if they repeatedly commit the same offence seven times in one day. "So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 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" (Luke 17:3-4). Still we are only doing our duty, nothing more. Christians must never grow tired of doing good.
In Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin, the aftermath of a school shooting becomes a haunting meditation on the duties we fail to perform—the father who chose not to see, the mother who struggled to love, the community that looked away. The novel's power lies in its refusal of easy answers, revealing how catastrophe often grows in the soil of small abdications: the conversation not had, the warning sign dismissed, the difficult truth avoided for the sake of comfort. Eva's tormented retrospection shows us that duty is not about grand gestures but about the accumulation of present moments—the choice to truly see the child before us, to ask the hard questions, to remain engaged even when alienation seems easier. The tragedy whispers that our duties are not burdens imposed from without but the very threads that bind us to one another's humanity; when we fail them, we don't merely fall short of an obligation—we participate, however unknowingly, in unraveling the fragile fabric that keeps darkness at bay.
The life of Jesus stands as a stark testament to this crucial truth. From the start of his public life to ending in his crucifixion it was one serving after another, one battle after another; finally he said, it is finished and gave up his spirit, which could mean that I have only done my duty.
Being a Christian is not a hundred-metre sprint, but a marathon; only someone with steadfast loyalty, fidelity, and total commitment can finish a marathon. Spiritually, a marathon symbolises the enduring, long-term spiritual journey of consistent perseverance through life's challenges, requiring patience, endurance, and a steady walk with faith. It is about maintaining spiritual momentum and character, one step after another, over an entire life, rather than a single moment.
It is comparatively easier (and even more easier after Emperor Constantine declaring Christianity as the state religion) to profess our faith in Christ, but gruellingly difficult to have the faith of Christ: which is an absolute surrender and trust in God, and hold on to his non-negotiables like love, mercy, forgiveness, nonviolence and so on.
When Jesus asked his apostles to forgive seventy times seven, they lost it, they fell on their knees and cried out, Lord, increase our faith. The Greek word for faith is pistis. It is growing in trust in something or someone; here it is growing in trust in the person of Jesus and his teaching to the degree of embodying it without an iota of doubt. It means to have faith in forgiveness like Christ even after forgiving a friend for two, three, four, five, six, and seven times.
St. Paul has a lovely expression about the people of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 3:3—you are a 'letter of Christ'. Corinth was a rich city, but it had a morally very loose way of living. Paul preached there and maybe others too. When Paul came back he found them not only having verbal and pious faith in Christ but had transformed themselves as a public demonstration of Christ's message and work, written on their hearts and expressed with their hands, rather than on stone tablets or in ink. So he writes to them, you are a letter of Christ. Others can read you and know Christ—you have become Christ's message and testament.
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