I got a call from our pastor at FBC/DC, Julie Pennington-Russell. She was in Orlando, Florida visiting her mother. She was scheduled to return to D.C. that night, but her flight got cancelled due to Hurricane Ian. She asked me if I could give the sermon on Sunday if she was not able to make it back. I asked her what scripture text she was preaching on. She said it was the Gospel text. I told her I could do it, but I hoped she would be able to catch a flight and preach on Sunday as scheduled.

I looked up the scripture text for the sermon for October 2. Here it is:

One day the apostles said to the Lord, “We need more faith;tell us how to get it.” “Even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed,”the Lord answered, “you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May Goduproot you and throw you into the sea,’ and it would obey you!When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep,he doesn’t just sit down and eat. He must first prepare his master’s mealand serve him supper before eating his own. And the servant is not even thanked,because he is merely doing what he is supposed to do. In the same way,when you obey me you should say, ‘We are not worthy of praise.We are servants who have simply done our duty.’” Luke 17:5-10 (NLT)

Not exactly the most popular parable of Jesus. I looked in my sermon records to see if I had ever preached on it. Yes, I found one sermon out of almost 1500 I preached while I was pastor at Village Baptist Church in Bowie, Maryland. Coincidentally, I preached it on World Communion Sunday, the first Sunday in October, which is the Sunday Julie asked me to cover if she could not make it back in time.

This rather obscure parable is preceded by a more familiar saying of Jesus about faith as small as a mustard seed. Most people are probably more familiar with the mustard seed saying than they are with the parable about the servant who must fix dinner for his master after working all day in the field plowing or taking care of the sheep. No wonder I only preached on this passage only once!

Many other parables of Jesus are far more memorable and meaningful for most people. The Gospel of Luke includes 27 parables of Jesus, including the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, and the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Surely, those parables are more important than the parable of the Master and Servant in Luke 17. Yet, I still found something to say about this parable, even if it was for only one sermon. Other parables of Jesus I preached about multiple times.

This illustrates one of the principles of “Spelunking Scripture”, namely that all passages of scripture are not equally important. Some passages of scripture are more important than others. The aim of “Spelunking Scripture” is to explore some of the most important passages of scripture.

I did revise the sermon and was ready in case Julie could not make it back. Thankfully, she was able to rebook her flight and arrived back in D.C. on Saturday and preached on this obscure parable on Sunday. Even she admitted it was not the easiest text to preach on.