⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
⁶ And the Lord said, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, 'Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
⁷ "Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down at table'?
⁸ Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'?
⁹ Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?
¹⁰ So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

• Much of Jesus' final teaching before his passions, recorded in chapters 17 and 18 of Luke, were about living the faith.
• (v.6) The mulberry is a large tree with an extensive root system, very difficult to remove. It also does not grow in water. However, a little faith can transform the disciples so that they can perceive and affect their environment in apparently impossible ways.
• Jesus' answer implied that the disciples, who have lived with him, been taught by him for years, and now accompanied him to his passion in Jerusalem, did not have any faith at all.
• (v.7) In Jesus' world, it was estimated that about two-thirds of the population were slaves or former slaves.
• We are "unworthy servants" or "useless slaves" not because we will not be given anything. What God gives us is a free gift, not a wage earned by our actions. Many Jewish leaders at the time thought that correct observances would earn God's reward (18:9-12).
• One important gift that God gives us is to allow us to be in His household.
• The two apparently disconnected ideas in the reading this Sunday, namely the power of faith and the unworthy servant, need to go together. With faith we do spectacular things to serve God, neither to get something from God nor to glorify ourselves in our community, but simply because it is our duty.

Faith in God can transform and empower us to serve God in incredible ways, but we should credit God and not ourselves for our total effort or for the spectacular results. What we can look forward to is a free gift from God to include us in God's household.

1. Have you ever been glad to play a minor role in a group you admired? Does that experience throw some light on this parable?
2. In what way do you experience the Church as God's household?
3. How could you help others to know the church as "home?"

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A synthesis by the Vietnamese Christian Life (Dong Hanh) Community