I don’t understand the tip. I know that it is a cash gift given to express gratitude to individuals who have performed a service, but I never know how much I am supposed to tip. I know you are supposed to tip your waiter or waitress 15%-20% and I typically tip 20% because it is easier to figure out the math, but what do you give the guy who puts your golf bag on your cart, what do give an uber driver, what do you give the door dash dude?
I never know how much to tip people, but what I really confuses me about tipping is I don’t know who to tip. Several weeks ago, my local pizza place put a tip jar on the counter and started including a suggested tip amount when I pay with a credit card. The tip jar is sitting on the counter at the store that I drive to pick up my own pizza. I know they had to make the pizza and that’s why I paid them for the pizza, but I am not really sure what I am tipping them for? I have always been under the impression that a tip was given as an expression of gratitude for service that went above and beyond what is commonly expected, but now it seems like everyone expects a tip. It makes me wonder, am I supposed to be tipping the guy who hauls away my garbage? Or what about my mechanic who changes my oil and rotates my tires, or what about the teachers at my son’s school who put up with the knucklehead 8 hours a day, should I be tipping them? Don’t get me wrong, I like showing appreciation to people who make my life better by providing me a service. I am all in favor of giving your garbage man cookies at Christmas, writing your mechanic a good YELP review, and buying a bottle of wine for the teacher who has to put up with my son all year, but I am starting to think tipping has gotten out of control. I feel like we are becoming an entitled people who expect extra compensation for doing the very things we are already being paid to do.
It is one thing for us to be so bold with each other, but it is an entirely different thing for us to be so bold before our God. It is not that we buy into the propaganda that the pope is peddling and believe we are working our way into heaven, we are far too Lutheran to be seduced by the heresies of Catholicism. It’s not that we are deceived by the televangelist’s prosperity gospel that suggests that the harder we work for the Lord the more earthly blessings we will enjoy, we have read our bibles too closely to be fooled by such fairytales. But that does not mean there still isn’t a small part of us that believes in some way we who show up to worship more often than others and contribute to the ministry of Messiah with more of our time and treasures than others that doesn’t mean there still isn’t a small part of us that believes we deserve a tip for our service to the Lord; some sort of gratuity of God’s grace that we should enjoy if not here on earth, then at least in the hereafter of heaven.
Before we start bringing tip jars to church let’s take another look at Luke 17:1-10. There Jesus reminds His disciples that they and “we are unworthy servants”.
In verses 1-4 Jesus reminds us that we are “unworthy”, and the way Jesus brings us to this realization is brilliant. He reviews with us some of the things we have been told to do; He highlights three duties every Christian is expected to do. In verses 1-2 we read, “1 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” It is the duty of every Christian is to cause no offense to others. Jesus sadly recognizes that we live in a sinful world and there will be many things that will tempt a Christian to sin, but Jesus warns one of those things better not be us. We better make sure that we aren’t doing or saying anything that would cause someone else to sin.
It is hard enough to not let myself be the cause of my own sin, but now Jesus tells me that I need to be worried about the sins of other people?!?! That is not a very popular idea among us. We have been taught to believe that if someone has a problem with the words we speak or the things we do that their problem is their problem. We pull bible passages out of context and say those people shouldn’t judge us or gossip about us, all the while forgetting the passages about being our brother’s keeper and loving our neighbor. Jesus pronounces a woe upon all who allow their words and actions to lead others into sin. Jesus says the world would be a better place if such self-centered, loveless people were dead. If by your words or action you have caused someone else to sin, Jesus pronounces this woe upon you.
In the first half of verse 3 Jesus lists a second duty every Christian is expected to. Jesus says, “3 “If your brother sins, rebuke him.’” It is the duty of every Christian to say something when a fellow believer is sinning. You wouldn’t think this would be a difficult thing for us to do. We are after all dealing with our brothers and sisters in faith. These are people we are supposed to love and who are supposed to love us in return. But some people are harder to love than others. Especially the people who are full of excuses, try to justify their behavior, and lie to your face. After a while you get sick of wasting your breath on such people and wonder if your attempts to rebuke such people aren’t a waste of your time. Professionally, sometimes I feel this way about some people. Personally, I am sure you do to. But Jesus doesn’t ask us to rebuke our brothers and sisters in faith, He doesn’t suggest it, He doesn’t recommend it, He commands it. We don’t get to think of someone’s sin as “not our problem”. We don’t get to say, “it’s none of my business”. We don’t get to assume someone else will do it. It doesn’t matter how lame their excuses sound, or how unjust their justifications are, or how transparent their lies might be. It is our duty to rebuke our brothers and sisters when they are sinning.
Jesus wants us to rebuke our brothers and sisters in faith so that we might have the opportunity to fulfill yet another Christian duty. In the second half of verse 3 and verse 4 Jesus says, “3… if he (the brother or sister in faith that you just rebuked) repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” It is the duty of every Christian to forgive people who are sorry for their sin. This sounds like it should be really easy to do. How hard is it to tell people that Jesus loves them? How hard is it to tell someone as far as the east is from the west so far has the Lord removed their transgressions from them and the all-knowing God in His mercy has decided to remember their sins no more? How hard is it to tell someone that they now stand before God blameless? It is not hard at all… until you realize that means they are standing next to you. Then all of a sudden it doesn’t seem right that people who have done worse things than you have done or done the same things as you have done but done them more often than you have done them, that those people should be treated the same as you. We know they should be forgiven of course, but shouldn’t they have to grovel for a little bit first? Shouldn’t they be required to give a display of remorse that is comparable to their depravity? And before we forgive them shouldn’t we, who have not sinned so grievously or often as they, be allowed to determine what that display of remorse should look like? Jesus does not ask us to evaluate the level of remorse or to determine the depth or their repentance. Jesus simply commands us to forgive those who are sorry for their sin again and again 7 times over.
The apostles listened to Jesus as he explained to them what they and all Christians are expected to do. They heard Jesus tell them it was their duty not to cause other people to sin, to rebuke sin in others, and to forgive those who are sorry for their sin. And the apostles said what we are all thinking, “5… Lord, “Increase our faith!” Lord, the work you have given us to do is hard! Lord, we have failed to do what you have asked us to do. Lord, we have failed to do our duty. When we pause to ponder how poorly we do our jobs we quickly concluded the last thing we deserve from Jesus is a tip. Honestly, what we deserve is to be fired for we are unworthy of the work Jesus gives us to do.
Thankfully, “unworthy” is not all we are. In verses 7-10 Jesus tells a story that reminds us we are “servants”. In verses 7-8 Jesus says, “7 “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’?” Jesus tells a story in which we are invited to see ourselves as His servants. I don’t know that we always appreciate what an incredible act of grace and mercy it is for us to be called His servants. But you start to get an idea when you remember before we were Christians all of us were by nature followers of the ruler of the kingdom of air; we were servants of the devil. That master tortured us with guilt and sought to make us suffer the wages of our own sin. Before we could become servants of Jesus, we had to be purchased from our first master and the cost was steep. But, because He loves you, Jesus paid that price. He paid it so that the chains of sin that once bound you to your old master could be broken and you could be set free. Because of Jesus you are now free, free to serve a new master, one who releases you from the tournaments of your guilt and offers you blessings beyond imagination. Your service to this master is not an unwelcomed burden or miserable obligation. Jesus has already made it painfully clear that we really aren’t all that good at the work He has given us to do. We don’t do our duty expecting to get a tip from Jesus. We do it because it is a joy and it is a delight, even when the work we have been given to do is difficult and our duty is wearisome, we do it because it is our pleasure and privilege to serve the one who first served us.
As Jesus’ servants there is joy in doing the work we have been given to do, but that joy is nothing compared to the bliss that awaits us. Did you notice what the servants in Jesus’ story did after their long hard service was over? They sat down at the master’s table to eat and to drink. There will come a day when you find yourself seated at the banquet table of heaven. You will be seated among your fellow saints who have come out of the great tribulation, and who, like you, have had their filthy rages washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. At that table you will eat fruit from the tree of life and drink your fill of living water. When your long hard service is over you will be invited to take your seat at the Master’s table.
In time the Master will invite you and your fellow servants to sit at His table, but that time has not yet come. There is work to be done. There are offenses to be avoided, sins to be rebuked, and people to be forgiven. We will often fail as we do this work and demonstrate how unworthy we are for the task, but because of His great love and His rich mercy we are allowed to continue serving the one who first served us. So let us serve! Let us serve not in the hopes of securing a tip from Jesus but because serving Him is a pleasure and a privilege. Let us serve until the day when the Master invites us to sit at His table. And on that day when the Master says to us, “well done good and faithful servant.”[1] Let us say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” Amen.
[1] Matthew 25:21