Dr. Rodney Plunket

Over ten years ago I was living and ministering in England as a missionary supported by this church.  For many months I studied the Bible with a policeman there.  We studied the Gospel of Luke together, and we came to the passage that was used as our Scripture reading this morning (Luke 17:7-10).  I told him that I thought this passage was directed at those who felt that they were good enough to be saved on the basis of their own good works/their own fulfillment of the commands of God.  He could not buy that.  The context of the passage was what gave him the problem.  I wanted to see it the way I always had.  In the past, I had preached a sermon on this passage entitled “Christ Kills Legalism;” and, by the way, I still think that this passage makes clear that we cannot be saved by any works of our own.  Such knowledge forces us to rely solely on the grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  But what this British cop saw could not be ignored.  I came to realize that he was really on to something.

Please turn to Luke 17.  I will begin reading from verse (v) 1 so that we can all see the context of this parable.  Please follow along as I read.

Luke 17:1  Jesus said to his disciples,  “Occasions for stum­bling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come!  2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.  3 Be on your guard!  If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive.  4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

Luke 17:5  The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”  6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

Luke 17:7  “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’?  8 Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’?  9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’

In verses (vv) 1-4 Jesus gives a very strong message concerning forgiveness; He says, “if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” The response of the apostles is to say, “Increase our faith!”  I think they are saying, “Lord, that is hard to do.  Please give us the trust the faith that it will take to do that.”

Jesus’ response to the apostles is to tell them that the amount of their faith is not the issue.  Jesus says, that even a small amount of faith no bigger than a mustard seed is enough to successfully command a mulberry tree to uproot itself and be planted in the sea.  Since that is true you should all have enough faith to forgive the same person seven times a day.

Now we come to the parable of the worthless slave.  I am told that Jewish landowners often owned just one slave and that such a slave had a wide variety of duties.  I am also told that the way such a slave would have been treated is exactly as Jesus describes it here.  So this parable would have easily communicated to Jesus’ audience, because his audience knew that a slave did all that was com­manded simply because that was the role of a slave.  To do otherwise would have violated the master-slave relationship and been worthy of punishment.

To realize that perfect obedience is what God has every right to demand and expect means that I cannot look to Christianity as an avenue leading to pride.  It leads to humility.  It leads to the awareness that even at my best, even on a day that I might do everything that God commanded––I would still be nothing but a worthless slave.

But what does this have to do with forgiveness––forgiveness of the sinner who offends me repeatedly and, therefore, has to repent repeatedly?  I think Jesus is saying that the problem is not faith, it is attitude.  He is saying that the reason we have so much trouble forgiving the chronic sinner is that we think too highly of ourselves.  Once the pride is leveled, then forgiveness can flow generously and consistently.  We have trouble forgiving the chronic sinner because we have lost sight of our real status before God.

When we were planning this worship assembly, Adam Looney (our worship leader) said something like this:  “The reason we have so much trouble forgiving the chronic sinner is because we do not really believe that he or she is saved.  We cannot imagine that someome who keeps having to repent is really a Christian.”  Those words stung me; they stung me because I knew that he had hit my problem dead-on.  The truth of his words and the pain they caused me converged to force me to look more deeply.  I began to realize that my spiritual failures were not the kind that offended people.  That is what keeps me from having to repent over and over again to you.  I am not even a worthless slave.  I never have a day when I do all that God commands me.  I am a chronic sinner too.  But the hurt my sins cause are of the quieter sort.  I fear that most of the time I do not even notice.

Those whom we categorize as chronic sinners are persons whose sins hit us hard.  They cause us clear and self-evident hurt.  But when they repent, even repeatedly, we should rejoice that they have a conscience that has not been seared over.  Their battle, as long and hard as it is, has not destroyed their faith nor their desire to make things right with their sisters and brothers in the Kingdom of God.

Now let’s be aware.  This is not a whitewashing of sin.  This is not a tolerating of sin.  This is not an excusing of sin.  The person whose sins offend must be confronted and must repent.  But when that person repents, he or she must be forgiven by all the people of God.

Sisters and brothers, let’s realize that there are no grounds for pride or arrogance in the kingdom of God.  On our best, on the day that we do everything that God requires––“We are worthless slaves, we have done only what we ought to have done.”  Let’s be a humble people for whom forgiveness is dependable and real.  Let’s forgive others as God through Christ Jesus has forgiven us.

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