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The Sunday lectionary reading for Trinity 16 in Year C offers some serious challenges to our understanding and practice.

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” (Luke 17.5–10)

The passage contains some basic textual challenges, in that the subject appears to switch suddenly from the question of ‘faith’ to being servants. The parable about servants itself has a sudden switch, in that Jesus begins the story by putting his listeners in the place of the master, but then concludes by putting them in the place of the servant.

But there are wider theological issues too.

In this week’s video, James and Ian talk about the issues in reading the text, how we might preach on it, and the practical and pastoral issues that arise.