Luke 17:5–10 ESV – Bible Gateway
There are a couple of ways of looking at the parable of the mustard seed and the lesson Jesus meant to impart.
Peter Kreeft’s take is:
Yet Jesus’ reply takes them down a peg. He says that their faith is smaller than a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds. If they had even that much faith, they could work miracles: they could move mountains, or at least trees.[1]
He later continues on this point:
Jesus is constantly taking his Apostles down when they feel up and taking them up when they feel down. That’s because he gives them what they need, not what they want or what they expect. He always moves us on to see what we didn’t see before. That’s why we need him—not to tell us where we are right but to tell us where we are wrong. We already know where we are right but we don’t know where we are wrong.[1]
On the contrary, John Bergsma interprets it this way.
However, I don’t think our Lord was trying to discourage us and tell us that our faith was insignificant. Rather, the purpose of our Lord’s words is consolation, not rebuke. The point he is making to the disciples is this: You don’t need much faith to be effective! Just give me a little bit of faith, and I can do great things for you! Just as I took five loaves and two fish and fed five thousand, I can also take a mustard seed of your faith and transplant a tree into the ocean.[2]
The interpretation also seems to depend on how St. Luke is placing these parables together and whether the parable of the mustard seed and the unprofitable servant are supposed to be thematic or juxtaposed together. It seems to me that maybe there is a both/and here of Jesus commenting on their level of faith and also encouraging them in that even a little faith, with God’s help, can perform miraculous deeds.
The second parable seems to be easier to grasp the meaning. I find it interesting the reversal pointed to in verse 7 that the servant can make not expect to be treated like a master at the end of a day of work, especially as Jesus is the master who has lowered himself and become like a slave to us. I am thinking of Philippians 2, where Paul refers to Jesus as emptying himself, by taking the form of a servant and how he humbled himself.
This second parable looks like a rebuke toward spiritual pride with them thinking that their place as disciples of Jesus is well-earned on their part.
… sometimes those who do great works of faith think they are doing God a favor. Jesus says in a different place, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’” (Matt 7:22, RSV2CE) These are works of faith. However, to these individuals, Jesus responds, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers” (v. 23).[2]
I have found this parable striking and always a good reminder for myself. God has created us for his glory. We can not grant God any favors, and he does not require any of our works. It is when our finger slips from pointing at ourselves to pointing towards him for all good things that we then give him the glory he is owed. It really can be both strengthening and encouraging to remember that he can take our small faith and magnify it to do his will. That he was the one who first moved us toward faith, and he can expand that faith like a mustard seed into doing great things in his name. We can not even exist for one second without him.
From the Navarre commentary on Luke:
Jesus is not approving this master’s abusive and arbitrary behaviour. He is using an example very familiar to his audience to show the attitude a person should have towards his Creator: everything, from our very existence to the eternal happiness promised us, is one huge gift from God. Man is always in debt to God; no matter what service he renders him he can never adequately repay the gifts God has given him. There is no sense in a creature adopting a proud attitude towards God. What Jesus teaches us here we see being put into practice by our Lady, who replied to God’s messenger, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38).[3]
Return to John Bergsma:
We don’t do God favors by serving him. Paul says, “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,”—alluding to a version of our Lord’s teaching in Luke 7—“but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2, RSV2CE). Great works of faith do not add to God’s glory. Nor does our holiness.[2]
Brant Pitre ponders that:
So perhaps that might be the answer to the pairing of these two parables. One teaches the virtue of faith; the other teaches the virtue of humility. And those two things really do go together, because it takes humility to put trust in God and to trust that no matter what happens in this life, no matter what happens in this world, at the end of the day, God is the one who is in command. God can do impossible things with the tiniest gift of faith if we trust Him. So I think that’s what Jesus is trying to call the apostles to here in the Gospel for today, to humility and to faith in God.[4]
Sources
- Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C
- The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year C – John Bergsma
- Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
- Navarre, Saint Luke’s Gospel (2005)
- Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
- Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C ↩
- The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year C, John Bergsma ↩
- Navarre, Saint Luke’s Gospel (2005) ↩
- Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre ↩
