Can We Continue to Live in a Religion of Merits ?
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Missionaries

“Increase our faith.” It is the prayer of the disciples today. Can faith grow? If faith is reduced to the assent given to a list of truths, it cannot grow. But, if faith as growing in an unconditional trust in the Lord, then, it is easy to realize that faith can grow or diminish. Just like a child increasingly trusts in a reassuring father as an emotional connection is established based on familiarity. The trust could diminish, if the father has not been around the child during the early years of its life.

An uncertain and wavering faith is our own daily experience. We believe in Jesus, but we do not trust him totally. We don’t have the courage to untie ourselves from certain habits, to make certain renouncements. Here we have a faith that needs to strengthen itself. To explain the growth in faith, Jesus employs a tree. If Jesus refers to a sycamore tree, then the allusion is to its very strong roots. The roots can withstand for over six hundred years and it is very difficult to uproot them. Jesus says: Faith is capable of realizing something as impossible as uprooting a sycamore or to making a mulberry grow in the sea.

These miracles he spoke of refers to the possibility of the transformations that can happen in our society and in the world when we trust the word of the Gospel and put it into practice. For one who believes—Jesus says—no irremediable situations exist. Those who trust in his word will be witnessing extraordinary and unexpected miracles. But, Jesus also warns that no one might trust in God in order to get rewards. So he narrates the parable of the slave that leaves us a bit bitter and disillusioned. After a hard day’s work, the slave returns home very tired. The master, instead of complimenting him for the service done and inviting him to sit and eat a piece of bread, demands harshly: “First, serve me, after I am satisfied, you will eat supper.”

Jesus makes use of the example to transmit his theological message. He wants to correct the Pharisaic spiritual guidance of that time (in our time too) that preached the religion of merits. They were saying: at the end of life, God will remunerate based on the performance of each one. Multiplying good works: prayers, fasting, alms, religious practices, sacrifices, scrupulous observances of the commandments and precepts for meriting reward from God is Pharisaic.

God, like a master who rewards well behaving servants corresponds perfectly to our logic. We think it right to imagine such a God. We are not aware that we are reasoning exactly like the Pharisees. The one who practices virtues for merits puts himself at the center of his own interests, helps the brothers/sisters to better one’s own spiritual life. The major trouble provoked by the religion of merits is to reduce God to an accountant in charge of maintaining the account books in order and signing accurately the debits and credits of each one. The parable wants to destroy this image of God.

Because of the idea that in doing good we acquire merits before God is too rooted in us we feel very uncomfortable at the prospect of having to repeat, “We are simple servants; we have not done nothing more than our duty.” Jesus does not intend to underestimate the good works. He, rather, tries to liberate us from a dangerous egoism. Jesus wants us to understand that the Pharisaic behavior of doing good works to merit a reward is foolish because all that is good is always a gratuitous gift of God and not a merit of the person. “What do you possess—says Paul—that you have not received? If you have received it, why are you proud of it as if you have not received it?” (1 Cor 4:7).

Indebted to Fr. Fernando Armellini for textual analysis

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Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2022