Last Sunday we explored the very well-known parable of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector. It is certainly one of the most well-recognised of the parables, even if its message is not always the most well understood or, more importantly, taken to heart and acted upon! As with so many of Jesus’ parables, we discovered there both challenge and encouragement: challenge to the self confident and to those who like to advertise themselves to others; encouragement to those who are honest enough and humble enough to realise that they need God’s mercy if they are to be reconciled to him - something, says Jesus, we all must do, regardless of any social or intellectual advantages, lest by failing to do so, we disqualify ourselves from Heaven.
This week we encounter a parable, the Parable of The Obedient Servant, with a significance that far outweighs the attention it usually receives. I think in part at least that is because the parable serves as a stark and sobre reminder to the disciples - and therefore to you and to me - about our position and responsibilities vis-a-vis our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: it is certainly a clear rebuttal to any who have too pally an idea of their relationship with God.
There is a tendency in some churches these days to avoid the reading or discussion of some of the more challenging passages of scripture like this one for fear that they will make people feel uncomfortable about themselves and about their relationship with God, perhaps even causing them to leave and to seek a church where they may hear only an interpretation of the ‘good news’ that comforts and consoles them; one that simply confirms them in their prejudices about themselves and in their delusions about the kind of God they are prepared to worship; a God for the modern man or woman who doesn’t ask too many questions about their lifestyle, behaviour, or priorities.
This parable, however, is a sobering reminder that duty calls; and that we must have no expectation of special merit or reward simply because we have done our duty. Luke includes it, I think, because some people and even some churchgoers still today, think that by their service of God they can somehow expect some special reward or dispensation from him. I have myself heard from the mouth of more than one churchgoer, echoing the words of Louis XIV on hearing of the defeat of his army by Marlborough at Blenheim, ‘How could God do this to me after all that I have done for him.’
But whilst this parable is indeed a sobering challenge to any thoughts of special merit on our part for what we do for God, a closer examination and understanding of its cultural background in the Middle East reveals some truths that are all too easily missed in a superficial reading or understanding, truths which do indeed serve to encourage us in our discipleship of Jesus. Jesus’ first audience were his disciples, some of whom may well themselves have had servants or slaves (the Greek allows for both translations), and he is appealing here to the common Middle Eastern understanding of the master- servant relationship. V7. He expects the answer ‘Of course not!’ Now I realise that some modern clergy will quote parables such as this one to support their argument that much of the bible is no longer relevant to modern people because society is now so different from Jesus’ day: but actually it is in a profounder understanding of the servant-master relationship, not its irrelevance, that we are able to appreciate more clearly our own relationship with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. There are two aspects to note here.
Let me deal with the less obvious one first, the one disguised by the gap between our culture and his, though less so perhaps to those Downton Abbey afficionados among you who, for all the very real inequalities and differences between ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’, recognise nonetheless the genuine concern of compassionate souls from ‘upstairs’ for those in difficulties ‘downstairs’. Of course, if you believe that all ‘upstairs’ were incapable of compassion, and the shortcomings of all ‘downstairs’ to have been the direct fault of those ‘upstairs’, then my parallel may well not help you.
Certainly in Jesus’ day, the master-servant relationship implied the servant’s acceptance of authority and obedience to that authority but also – and this is the vital thing for us today to understand here - a security, sense of worth, and meaning that was deeply felt on the part of the servant who served a great man.
Now perhaps that does all sound nonsense to the modern mind and to the modern worker who has just been laid off on account of the whim or gambling instinct of some investor in the City of London; but to the Middle Eastern servant, the benefits of working for a noble master were enormous. This is the first aspect of our relationship with Jesus this parable teaches us.
That relationship is very much an appropriate model for the Christian’s relationship to Christ, especially so when we consider, with the benefit of hindsight, that our Master was prepared to lay down his life for those servants whom he came to call ‘friends’: friends indeed; but friends who understood so very deeply what it was he had done for them, so that there was never any question of making claims upon that friendship; only a desire to serve him.
The disciples, then, you and I, are called to identify with the servant of the parable. Now we need to bear in mind here two phrases in particular in order to be able to understand the second aspect of the relationship conveyed by this parable: ‘special merit’ v9 and ‘nothing owing’ v10. The parable speaks of work accomplished and its results. After all of this work, is the Master indebted to the servant? Has he, the servant, earned any special merit? Is anything still ‘owing’ to the servant? It is a question that in Jesus’ day would have produced a resounding ‘no!’ in response: of course the servant, having only done his duty, can expect no special favours. But I do not think that such a response would be so automatic these days, even in some churches: sometimes there is, instead, a sense that well, actually, I do deserve special thanks or mention for what I have done for God or for the Church. (I am assuming here, of course, we agree that everything we do in and for the Church we do for God.)
I know it is natural to want to be thanked, to be appreciated for what we do: however, in my time as, first, a churchwarden and then a parish priest, I have witnessed the dangers and the damage that, believe it or not and strange though it may seem, a preoccupation with being thanked and thanking can bring. For some individuals, it really isn’t good for their souls! For others, it is their wealth that allows them to do things for the church and for God, things which others cannot do, and therefore makes those others feel inadequate.
I won’t labour this point; but I do find it so refreshing, as well as a sign of spiritual maturity, when I receive a hushed word or a short note from people asking me not to thank them publicly. Just to illustrate how ridiculous it can get, one clergyman told me of how his churchwardens and PCC were so concerned to thank people for their contributions to some small fund-raising event that they actually spent more on the ‘thank you’ cards and their postage than they raised for the charity!
You see there is a very real spiritual danger to this ‘need to be appreciated’; and I think our Lord knew this only too well, which is why he warned his disciples about the dangers of expecting special merit or mention for having done, well, simply one’s duty.
But of course this parable will not make any sense to those who cannot see that the reconciliation, the salvation, won for them by Jesus through his atoning death on the cross, does demand from anyone who has truly appreciated the cost of their freedom in Christ much more than just a sigh of relief, a token ‘thank you,’ or occasional appearance in the pew. Jesus speaks here and elsewhere in terms of duty and of service, not only because that is a fitting response but because it is also a liberating one. ‘His service is perfect freedom’; and we will not discover this unless and until we take on the responsibilities of our calling as his disciples. You can imagine how such thinking strikes the modern man and woman with their rights-based priorities and agendas - as shockingly as Jesus’ question here about the servant – ‘can you imagine?!’ No, the disciple is not to be envisaged as an employee who can work and expect payment; rather, a slave for whom the master accepts total responsibility but who also enjoys total security and who, at the same time, takes up his or her cross out of a sense of duty and loyalty and thankfulness, and not in the hope of gaining rewards. Clearly this parable is talking again about salvation and good works, but also about the related topic of motivation for service and its results. It is a demand for the renunciation of all ideas of self-righteousness or the earning of favour with God through good works.
Will we not be rewarded in Heaven? Are there not elsewhere in the Gospels passages where rewards are mentioned for the faithful? Yes indeed! Jesus promises rewards - to those who are obedient without thought of reward. You can understand, I’m sure, how alien so much of this and Jesus’ teaching elsewhere must sound; so alien, so unfair even to many people today. That is because they have not appreciated the spiritually parlous state in which they live, nor accepted the gift of freedom so costly won by Jesus for them.
And no one can truly appreciate the peace, the joy, and the opportunity to become more truly human, more like Jesus, until they put behind them any thoughts of merit or special mention and simply offer themselves for duty, knowing that in Jesus, and in him alone, they will find any peace, joy, fulfilment or self-esteem worth having. It is a tough message; but it is also a liberating one for those who will take him at his word, take up their cross and follow him to freedom.
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