Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Eugène Burnand

And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” (Luke 17:5–10)

For if you do not say to a servant who has plowed or grazed the sheep, go on, put yourself at the table—where you hear that no one sits down if he does not pass first: Moses first began to move to see the great vision—so if you not only do not say to your servant: sit down to table, but you claim from him another service and do not thank it, so the Lord does not admit that you are giving Him a single work or work; for as long as we live, we must always work. Recognize, therefore, that you are a servant of many services. Do not worry about being called a child of God—you must recognize grace, but without forgetting nature—do not boast if you have served well: you had to do it. The sun does its work, the moon obeys, the angels do their service. The instrument chosen by the Lord for the Gentiles says, “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I have persecuted the church of God;” and in another place, after having shown that he is not aware of any fault, he adds: “But I am not justified for that reason.” So we, too, do not pretend to be praised for ourselves nor anticipate the judgment of God; and let us not prevent the judge’s judgment, but reserve it for his time, for his judge.

Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel of St. Luke 8