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Do we deserve heaven? Or better yet, does God owe us eternal life? It’s a reasonable question, especially given our penchant for speaking of the deceased as “going to their eternal reward.” It betrays common misconceptions about eternal life.

On the one hand, we often inadvertently speak of heaven as a prize for doing extremely good deeds or winning the local theological spelling bee. On the other hand, the language seems almost contractual: We do work for about 80 years here below and try to be nice and not make too big a mess, and God compensates us with a set of wings, a personalized cloud, and a harp. So long as our good deeds outweigh the bad, God is on the hook for our eternal rest. Thus says the fine print of our contract, if only we can remember where we’d put it.

Set against those fantasies is our Gospel today from St. Luke, in which Jesus levies two sharp reminders to us disciples. They seem unconnected at first glance, but both are related to salvation and the type of relationship that can enter eternal life.

Consider the first: The disciples ask to have their faith increased. Jesus responds enigmatically — faith the size of a mustard seed can work miracles.

Is he condemning their faith as too small or non-existent? Likely not. He’s taking issue with the word “increase” and how it relates to magnitude. How often do we think that the fullness of the Christian faith is only for the “holy rollers” or the theologians? For example — “If only I were a monk or a missionary, then I’d be a saint!” or “If only I had a Ph.D. in theology, then I’d really know the faith.”

While certainly not knocking religious life or theology professors, what every Christian should understand is that the simple baptismal faith the size of a mustard seed does the trick, when lived not in “larger or smaller magnitude,” but in deep trust in love. Faith, love and trust, when given totally, even from the smallest heart, are the real treasure. Like the widow’s mite, it’s not the magnitude of the contribution, but the spiritual weight and meaning of it that matter.

The second parable is like it, albeit crunchier: Can you imagine the king of England coming back to Buckingham Palace, realizing the servants have had a hard day of polishing the silver, and then inviting them to dine whilst he waits on them? Or an employer who gives their workers the rest of the day off because they showed up on time having navigated I-395? Not likely.

The point of this parable drives at a different but related misconception about salvation: That God owes us eternal life and joy for being a “good person” here below, regardless of our interior disposition. Jesus points out the incongruity — even if we’re good stewards and servants in the sense that we work hard and clock the hours — the master still doesn’t owe them a ticker-tape parade and a raise. Doing good, being a “good person,” is not above and beyond the call of duty. It’s the simple basic pattern of duty. That people commonly and boldly confess things like “Well, I never killed anyone” to signal their virtue is not encouraging. It is, in fact, a low bar. Here again, God does not want employees who reliably do the daily grind work even though their heart is elsewhere. He wants their hearts and minds given in faith, love and trust.

Put another way: The first part of the Gospel dispelled the notion that monumental deeds, golden-tongued prayers, or deep theological insights are the essence of deeper, saving faith. The second part strikes at the notion that salvation is just a reward in the opposite sense. Heaven is also not the run-of-the-mill salary and pension issued to all employees of GOD Inc. who have consistently clocked 9-5 workdays and not overused our personal or sick leave.

Behind all this is a point. Heaven, it turns out, is a share in the ecstasy of God’s divine life for all eternity. But God’s life is properly God’s, not ours. We can have no “rights” to it, nor can we earn it any more than we could have “rights” or “earn” someone else’s kidney or liver.

God’s life can only be received as a gift, in our delight and wonder like a child on Christmas wholly absorbed by the generosity and freedom of the thing. And in turn, that means the opening of our whole heart and mind and presenting that as a gift to God in return. That’s the faith that is “large” enough, total enough, pushing beyond both the pride and apathy to encounter grace. And miraculously, when we have faith like that, it is in fact enough to move mulberry trees and mountains and even transform stone hearts to flesh and death to life.

We even find that we’re servants invited to the master’s house, where beyond all worldly expectation, we’re guests served by the master himself at the wedding feast of the lamb.