This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on October 4, 2025.
Hab 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14; Lk 17:5-10
You can find the readings for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time here.
Jesus has some strong words for his disciples this week: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to the mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
If?
In his commentary on this passage, the New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson calls this an example of an “unreal conditional.” In other words, it suggests that the disciples do not have such faith.
After this, Jesus gives the disciples a parable about a servant who comes in from the fields. Does the master, Jesus asks, invite him to dine at table? No, he would more likely say, “Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink.” In conclusion, says Jesus, after you have done your duty as disciples, you should merely say, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done all we were obliged to do.”
In conclusion, says Jesus, after you have done your duty as disciples, you should merely say, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done all we were obliged to do.”
Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? “In a word, the sayings addressed to the Prophet’s followers are not comforting, but demanding,” says Johnson. “They are indeed deflating.”
As ever, the context is important. These sayings follow the Gospel reading from last Sunday, the story of Lazarus and Dives, in which a rich man completely ignores the poor, hungry, begging man who sits outside his door. He fails to do even the “least he can do.” And he is punished severely for it.
Sometimes we forget what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, in another setting, “the cost of discipleship.” And while the slave-master relationship is hard to hear today, Jesus is making an essential point about our responsibilities as disciples. We should not expect thanks for simply doing what is required: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger. This, according to Jesus, is not only the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets but simply what is expected, and required, of his disciples. The thanks should be going the other way: from us to God.
A few years ago, there was a homeless man who begged for alms on the corner near the old residence of America House in Manhattan. My rule for giving alms is: If I have it, I give it. But for some time, I wasn’t giving him a great deal, maybe a dollar a day. One day I decided that I would take all the loose coins that I had collected in a little basket in my room to the bank. Whatever the total, I would give it all to the man on the corner of 56th Street and Sixth Avenue. It turned out to be $88.00, which I considered a substantial sum. So, I stopped at the corner, and with something of a flourish, handed him the cash. In response, he said nothing, stuffed it in his pocket and asked the next passerby for money.
We can be secure in our knowledge of his love for us and…know that he sets a high bar: love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion and care for those on the margins.
I was angry. Couldn’t he even say, “Thank you”? But when I mentioned this to a fellow Jesuit, he reminded me of this passage. Why are you seeking thanks? This is what it means to be a disciple.
The point is not putting yourself down by calling yourself an “unworthy servant.” Jesus speaks to his disciples the way a parent does to a child: firm but in the backdrop of love. This is what is required to be in the family of Jesus. We can be secure in our knowledge of his love for us and, at the same time, know that he sets a high bar: love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion and care for those on the margins.
I like what Dennis Hamm, SJ, says in the new Paulist Biblical Commentary: “The point, rather, is that, for people in covenant relationship with a loving God…obeying the Master’s commandments…simply comports with life in the secure household of God. The good news is that we belong to such a household.”
