Lectio Divina: 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (2025)

Lk 17:5-10 for 27th Sunday 2025

This gospel reading deals with two different topics, faith and discipleship as service. As far as religious faith is concerned, theologians point out that it can be looked at from two separate but interrelated points of view. Firstly, faith can be looked at as a noun in so far as it refers to the objective truths that are to be believed. It is commonly referred to in Latin terminology as the fides quae (that which is believed). Secondly, faith can be looked at as a verb in so far as it refers to the subjective act of believing. In Latin it is referred to as the fides qua (the act of believing). So, although it can have many contents, scholars, ancient and modern, have suggested that there are only two basic forms of faith, doctrinal and trusting. For example, in the 4th century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem said in one of his catechetical sermons that the word ‘faith’ had two meanings. “First of all, it is concerned with doctrine and it denotes the assent of the soul to some truth.” Then he added, “The word ‘faith’ has a second meaning: it is a particular gift (charism) and grace of Christ.” He went on to explain that this gift of grace is a form of trust which reaches its most intense form in mountain moving faith.

The same distinction is made in Orthodox theology. For example, in the fourteenth century the monks Callistus and Ignatius of Xanthopoulos wrote, “Faith is of two kinds.” They went on to say that the first was the faith into which people were baptized. People who had the second kind: “Being enriched by the Divine light of grace, they put all their hope in the Lord to such measure that, in accordance with the word of our Lord (Mk 11:23), when they pray, they do not think in their hearts about their petitions to God, but with faith both ask and readily receive what is needful.” The two authors then proceeded to describe the mystical awareness of a unitive kind that is characteristic of people who have exercised such firm faith. “These blessed men,” they say, “acquired such firmness of faith through pure works, because they had steadfastly renounced all knowledge, speculation and hesitation and freed themselves of all cares and totally absorbed in the Divine rapture of faith, hope and love of God.”

Mk 11:22-24 apparently makes Jesus’ powerful curse of the fig tree a paradigm of the power of faith filled prayer. Some later manuscripts, render the phrase “have faith in God,” as, “if you have faith in God.” Other translations opt for, “whoever believes,” or “you have God’s faithfulness,” i.e. you hold on to God with the faithfulness he displays towards you. Derek Prince and George Montague maintain that what Jesus actually said in its most literal form, was, “have God’s faith,” in other words, through the gift of the Spirit, share in the authority of God’s own faith.

At this point, Luke talks about servanthood. The world's idea of success is to lord it over others; Jesus' way is the reverse—namely, servanthood—which is actually the way to true greatness. Two earlier parables on this theme occur in Lk 12:35-37; 42-48. The circumstances Jesus describes here in chapter 17 were normal in that society and point to what was obvious. In contrast, in the parable in Lk 12:35-37, Jesus presented a reversal of the normal procedure, with the master serving his servants by doing just what 17:7 rules out. The master's extraordinary act depicted in Lk 12:35-37 symbolizes God's grace, while the normal expectation of the master here in Luke 17 symbolizes the proper servant attitude. Jesus did not intend to demean servants but to make their duty clear.

There are two basic dynamics informing the Christian life. The first, which is characteristic of beginners spontaneously asks, “what can God do for me?” e.g., “Give me peace, healing, success” etc. While these desires are legitimate, they see God as being at one’s service. The second dynamic, which is characteristic of mature disciples asks, “what can I do for God?” e.g., “reveal you will to me, guide my steps.” The second dynamic is the one that animates the life of Christian servanthood. Arguably it was encapsulated by Jesus when he said in Mt 7:12, “in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”