What Does the Lord Expect?

What Does the Lord Expect?

Luke 17:7-10

            Many of us have become hooked on Downton Abby—so much so that we can’t get enough.  We watch the original broadcasts.  We buy each season’s DVD’s.  We watch the background shows about the program:  the one about the castle that is used for the setting, and anything else they think will sell—even reruns.  I even remember a political cartoon based on the show right after they killed off Matthew.

            This show has given us a good look at British aristocracy in the first third of the 20^th century.  We have gained insights into how they relate to each other, to the “lower classes,” and especially to the servant class.  The family with whom we have become so acquainted treats their servants well, but we are left with no doubt as to the presence of class distinction.  We know who the masters are and who the servants are, and (except in one case) there is no socializing between them. 

            This is also the cultural situation which is the setting for Jesus’ parable of the obedient servant.  The usual translation of the parable’s opening phrase is, “Will any one of you who has a servant…?”  Sometimes it will read, “Which of you, having a servant…?”  Kenneth Bailey, a man long acquainted with the Middle East and several Middle Eastern languages (he taught there for almost thirty years) says there is a better, more accurate translation.  He begins his version with the words, “Can you imagine having a servant…?”

            For him, this translation makes more sense because the answer from the audience would be a resounding, “No!”  No one listening to Jesus could imagine any master rewarding a servant in this way.  Everyone in the crowd would have understood the master/servant relationship as surely as does every character in Downton Abby.  There would be no question as to who gets to eat first.  The master is the master and the servant is the servant.  The servant serves the master then eats.

            Bailey says we shouldn’t feel sorry for the servant.  It’s not that he’s been plowing the field or tending sheep since sunup.  The servant has had what to us would seem a rather short work day—certainly not the eight (perhaps eight plus) hours that constitute our normal load.  The servant has not been worked nearly to death.  Instead, he has put in what we would think of as about a half-day’s work.

            The truth is that no servant would expect special consideration for doing a day’s labor.  He did what was expected of him in the fields; now it’s time to do the household chores.  It is also true that, unlike our culture, where servants are rare, Middle Eastern families, except for the very poor, would likely have at least one hired person to do the more menial chores.  It is even possible that the master in this story would have put in as much work as the servant.  This certainly would be the case in, for instance, fishing families like that of Zebedee, who, even though he himself worked and had two sons in the business, still had “hired hands” to help with the load.

            The point Jesus is trying to make is that the master owed his servant no special consideration for completing his work.  The servant had merely done what was expected of him during the day.  Now he is expected to prepare the evening meal and serve it. 

            Just so should we not, when we have done everything God requires of us, expect any special consideration.  God owes us nothing for our labor.  There is no such thing as “work righteousness.”  We have done what was expected of us.  Therefore, we should say with the servant in the parable, “Nothing is owed us.  We have only done what was our duty.”