Sunday 03 October 2010

Background

The middle ten chapters of Luke's Gospel tell of Jesus' journeyfrom Galilee to Jerusalem, and are an account of his teaching.There are lots of parables (stories with meanings) and shortproverbs (wise sayings). Jesus chose everyday examples which werecommonplace and familiar to those who were listening, and thatmakes the teaching easy to remember. Some of those briefillustrations continue to be well-known today.

When the apostles, the followers of Jesus, asked him about faith,Jesus over-exaggerated his answer. He chose to mention a mustardseed as one of the very smallest seeds, and then he spoke of amulberry tree. The mulberry tree, or possibly a type of sycamoretree, was regarded as having very deep roots and therefore was hardto uproot. Uprooting a mulberry tree and planting it in the sea wasimpossible to imagine. So Jesus was saying that even a minuteamount of faith could do impossible things.

Slavery was a common aspect of the culture of Jesus' time, eventhough it is something which is appalling to accept today. ButJesus used that everyday example to say that a slave has to do hisduty. No matter how hard that slave has been working he doesn'tclaim a reward just because he has done his day's work.

So it is with following God's way. Discipleship is about continuingto follow, not to earn something, but to do what disciples ought todo.

Jesus told his disciples that even a little bit of faith wasenough, and that being a disciple is not about thinking they couldearn a special place with God.

To Ponder

How much faith do you think you have? Can youtrust that God might think it is enough?

Can you think of times when you felt that you'ddone enough for God, even though there might have been morerequired of you? What else could/should you have done?