Life Project Blog

Luke 17:11-19

The scene has changed; Jesus and His party are on the road again travelling near the Samaritan border on the road to Jerusalem. Suddenly 10 lepers cry out to Jesus for mercy. He tells them to present themselves to the priests, and as they leave they are healed. One of them rushes back and throws himself at Jesus’ feet, giving praise to God and thanks to Jesus. Jesus takes note of the fact that only one in ten has seen fit to give praise to God and tells the man that his faith has healed him.

He was a Samaritan.

Please recall that as far as the Jews were concerned, Samaritans were unclean, dirty, nasty and more or less on a par with Gentile dogs.

We can speculate quite a lot about this story as many have. Was this man healed in more than one way? Were the others thankful? Did the man’s faith heal him in the first place or was it Jesus?

It appears to me that all 10 believed Jesus could heal them; they had heard the stories and the reports of what He had been doing, but this one man seems to have seen more than the others. Luke doesn’t give a great many details, but it seems likely that this man had come to realize that Jesus was at least God’s special representative; maybe he saw that Jesus was the Messiah.

One thing is quite clear however: This man, though he was only a Samaritan slime, had enough faith to be healed of leprosy and made clean again, not only from the disease, but from being a Samaritan. “Faith as small as a mustard seed…”

I’m guessing this probably made an impression on the disciples as they recalled Jesus’ words in the previous passage.

Luke 17:1-10

This is an odd passage because Jesus, who has been addressing Pharisees and teachers of the law now, turns to His disciples again with some instruction that might not quite seem to fit the situation… Yet other than turning once again and speaking to the Twelve, the scene hasn’t changed. Jesus has just gone through a series of parables with the Pharisees about the condition of the heart. There have been various themes and examples; the love of money, corruption, putting God first, and the response in heaven to a sinner’s repentance…

And now this.

The first part is Jesus warning His disciples that believers must not cause one another to fall into sin (17:1-3a). Then He quickly tells them that they must forgive others who might sin against them. Even seven times in a day, if they repent, we must forgive (17:3b-4). We might conclude that Jesus is implying that our failure to forgive would cause others to sin. This if followed by the disciples’ reaction to 17:1-4…

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (17:5)

Do you see how this fits together? This is a part of a long and flowing narrative that began back in Chapter 14; this passage is not four separate items, it is one conversation, an aside really, in a very large narrative all on one occasion. Jesus has just been telling the Pharisees about how heaven rejoices more at the repentance of one sinner, than for all of the righteous, so great is God’s love for His children. Then Jesus turns to the disciples and tells them they must never cause even one of God’s “little children” to fall into sin. By implication we can add “like the Pharisees and teachers of the law do”. Then He tells them they must forgive, something the Pharisees and teachers of the law are not really known for doing, and then they ask for more faith: Apparently this sounded difficult to them.

Jesus tells a couple of parables to clarify the point He has just made:

The first one (17:6) is quite short, and the upshot is that they already have all the faith they need. Hold that thought…

Now He speaks of a master and a servant (17:7-10). The Master gives instructions to the servant, the servant does his job. In the process of His telling, Jesus makes it quite clear that the servant does his job because it is not his place to tell the Master how things are to be done. Jesus is the Master, the disciples are the servants, they have their instructions and all the faith they need to carry them out. They have received God’s great favor, they will soon receive His grace, and they will show this grace to those around them, for this is the way of love.

It is also quite a contrast to the ways of the Pharisees and teachers of the law.

The scene ends on this note, but as Luke continues his story, Jesus will be showing the disciples what He has been talking about…

Luke 16:19-31

It is very important to remember that this parable follows without any break whatsoever the previous parable, the Parable of the Unwise Manager. Thus, the context is still the same. In this one, Jesus is taking His message another step forward for His listeners who consist of the disciples, and Pharisees and teachers of the law. At the end of the last parable, the Pharisees sneered at Him, and then He mentioned their manipulation of the law concerning divorce and how they profited from it…

Lazarus was poor and destitute; he had nothing in this world other than severe hunger and sores. The rich man was loaded and lived the life of luxury and plenty. Lazarus begged at the rich man’s gate, but received nothing. As the story goes, they both died…

Lazarus was gathered to Abraham’s side, while the rich man went to torment. There was a great chasm between them, but the rich man could see Abraham and Lazarus in the distance; who was the beggar now? The upshot of the story is that there is no way to send aid to the tormented rich man, and Lazarus will not be going back from the dead to warn his brothers to change their ways. There is great justice in this, for the rich man had been blessed with much in his lifetime, and now felt the torment Lazarus had felt during his life; their roles had been reversed and the scales of justice were even. The rich man and his brothers had all been able to follow the teachings of Moses and the prophets (the Scriptures) but were living in negligent disregard of them. If they would not listen to the Scriptures, they won’t listen to anyone, and the brothers’ fates will be just like that of the rich man.

I must add that we should resist the temptation to take this as a teaching about heaven and hell, and thus miss the point. This is a parable, not a historical account; it is not a teaching about heaven and hell.

The rich man represents lovers of money and wealth, such as the Pharisees and teachers of the law. They might have a grand time in this life; wealth, position, power, influence and self-righteousness, but in the end they will come to ruin for their folly. As in the last parable, the very part the Pharisees sneered at, they refused to use the assets they had been given for God’s purposes. There were desperate needs all around them and they ignored those needs, and basked in luxury, which is to say that they could not be trusted with “little”.

Luke 16:1-18

Jesus continues with the parables, this time the Parable of the Unwise Manager. A rich guy received accusations that his asset manager was wasting (or dispersing) his assets. He calls the manager in and tells him he is fired and asks for an explanation. The man, realizing he was losing his job, came up with a plan; he would call in his master’s debtors and discount their balances for immediate payment. This would be good for the master because he would have those accounts paid up immediately. It would be good for the debtors because they would pay a discounted rate and have the debt off their backs, and it would be good for the manager because he will have made new friends, and he is about to be looking for a new job.

I’ve heard preachers call this “dishonest” dealing on the manager’s part, but I must disagree; it is a common business practice that turns bad debt into a win-win. What good is a note receivable to a business person if it isn’t collectable? We have come to call such uncollectables “toxic debt” in recent years, because it’s a loss that looks like a gain. What the manager did was to turn the “bad paper” into the equivalent of cash for the master for the benefit of all concerned, and I have often wondered if he had done so sooner if he might have kept his job. You should note that the master commended him for this… but he was still fired. Might he have been given another chance had he done this sooner?

Of course, none of this is really the point Jesus was making; He was talking about our hearts to people who were lovers of money.

In 16:8 ff. Jesus is actually saying that the manager’s move was a good one, but for all the wrong reasons. We should use worldly assets shrewdly for the kingdom, money and possessions to make friends so that we might share the light of Christ with them, as opposed to keeping all for ourselves.

You see, it’s a matter of the heart. God has entrusted us with certain things in this life. We are to handle these things for God’s benefit, rather than for our own, yet if we cannot be trusted to this, what will God think of us after all, He is the “master” in this parable.

The Pharisees sneered at this. Jesus pointed out that they might fool most people, but they can never fool God who sees all, including the condition of the heart. He continues in the next few verses with a warning: They will not be able to force their way into the Kingdom by manipulation of the law and indirectly at least, He comes to another area in which the condition of the heart is exposed: Divorce. The system of that day had so manipulated the law concerning divorce that great injustice was being done to many people.

To put it another way, the Pharisees and teachers of the law had enabled wealthy men to abuse their wives and to get away with it by dedicating their assts to the Temple. In an extreme case, a wealthy older man could divorce his wife of many years, get a younger model and dedicate his fortune to the Temple, making everything all neat and proper, and leave both women destitute upon his death, to the profit of the religious establishment.

Ah yes, that was the corruption He was talking about, and there’s another parable right after this one…

Luke 15:11-32

Jesus tells a third parable to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, this one is so familiar to us that I need not recount the details. Of course we know that the younger son who had taken his inheritance early went out and squandered it on wild living, ended up broke and in very bad circumstances and then having come to his senses, had gone home to beg his father for a job as a servant, believing that he was no longer fit to be called a son. His father rejoiced upon seeing him and threw a great party to celebrate his return, causing his older brother to harbor serious resentment; their father explained:

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (15:31-32)

Such is God’s attitude when a sinner repents, as we all know.  Now, picture in your mind the vilest, the most unattractive, the least deserving kind of person you can imagine; yes, the one you would least want to be seen with that is the person we are talking about here.

When that person repents, God is in the mood to throw a party!

With this in mind, why do we not always share His enthusiasm?

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’  In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15:8-10

Jesus quickly moved on to the next parable, this time of a woman who loses one of her ten coins. She drops everything and searches the house until she finds it, and then tells her friends of her joy at having it back. Once again He tells that that it is just like this kind of joy in heaven when a sinner repents, for just as that coin was of great importance to the woman, it was ten percent of her savings after all, it is so important to the angels of heaven. I would imagine that the Pharisees and teachers of the law might identify with this one, being rather well-to-do; imagine searching the house for ten percent of your net worth that has gone missing!

If this would get their attention, it just might serve as a revelation to them about the value that God places on each person, even those who are “tax collectors and sinners”. As we know, this term describes people the Pharisees didn’t much care for. Yet it was more visceral than just not caring for or enjoying their company for the Pharisees wouldn’t even want to be seen with such people because they were considered so ultra-nasty socially.

Oh yes, such people were so ultra-nasty that you would be damaged even being seen around them: Yuk!

But God loves them anyway and does not want even one to perish!

I wonder: Are there such social outcasts today; people who we would feel dirty just being near, or people whose company would cause others to look down on us for being in?

Even if “they” repented and followed Jesus, heaven would rejoice more that it does for you and me, so great is God’s love for them. How does that strike you?

Jesus had another parable coming…

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?⁵ And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders  and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Luke 15:1-7

It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the Pharisees and teachers of the law are grumbling about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, when He has so recently eaten with Pharisees and teachers of the law; do you suppose they were the “sinners” in the equation?

Probably not.

Jesus in His response to their grumbling will tell a series of parables that show how much God desires to have sinners repent and return to Him, for unlike the Pharisees and teachers of the law, God loves His children, even those who stray from His path, and wants not even one to perish. For the rest of us, we mustn’t fail to see the contrast between God’s way of love, and the Pharisees’ way of self-righteousness, for there are a great many “Pharisees” among us in our time; will we join their ranks?

In this parable, Jesus uses a simple humble shepherd to illustrate His point: If one lone sheep wanders off, the shepherd leaves the flock to find the lost sheep. When he does, he returns joyfully and puts the recovered sheep back in the flock and celebrates its return. Luke doesn’t say, but I wonder if the Pharisees and teachers of the law grumbled about comparing God to a lowly shepherd, since they were only a notch or two above “tax collectors and sinners” in the social order of the day.

The parable ends with a memorable comment: There is more rejoicing in heaven for one sinner who repents than for 99 righteous men who had nothing to repent of.

I’ve often wondered how many people might repent of their sin and follow Jesus if they had the impression that they would be received with joy and celebration by the “flock” rather than criticism and scolding. I’m sure that in most cases, the flock would be genuinely pleased and happy for one who repents, not critical, so maybe we could do a better job of communicating than most of us are doing…

It looks like Jesus wasn’t waiting around for their reaction; He was off to the next parable.