Luke 17:7-10 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say to him by and by, when he is come from the field… Are these indeed the words of Him who said, "Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends"? This is a picture of a hard, unlovely side of life — a slave's life and a slave's service, without thanks or claim for thanks. We ask, I repeat, and not unnaturally, where such a representation of Christian service fits into that sweet and attractive ideal which Christ elsewhere gives us under the figure of the family relation — sons of God, confidential friends of Christ. We hasten to say, No; but it will require a little study to discover why we may say no, and to fix the place of this parable in relation to others of a happier tone. 1. Observe, in the first place, that it is not unusual for our Lord to draw a disagreeable picture in order to set forth His own love and grace. Unjust judge. Churlish man refusing bread to neighbour! We must not be repelled by a figure, therefore. Let us try to see what facts and conditions of Christian service are intended to be expressed by this parable. The parable answers to the fact in being a picture of hard work, and of what we call extra work. The service of God's kingdom is laborious service-service crowded with work and burdens. Christ nowhere represents it as easy. No Christian can shut himself up to a little routine of duty, and say, I will do so much, within such times, and no more. So long as a man's work is merely the carrying out of another's orders, it will tend to be mechanical and methodical: but the moment the man becomes identified in spirit with his work; the moment the work becomes the evolution of an idea, the expression of a definite and cherished purpose; the moment it becomes the instrument of individual will, sympathy, affection; above all, the moment it takes on the character of a passion or an enthusiasm — that moment it overleaps mechanical trammels. The lawyer is not counting the number of hours which duty compels him to work. He would make each day forty-eight hours long if he could. He has a case to gain, and that is all he thinks of. The physician who should refuse to answer a summons from his bed at the dead of night, or to visit a patient after a certain hour of the day, would soon have abundance of leisure. Pain will not measure its intervals by the clock, fever will not suspend its burning heats to give the weary watcher rest: the affliction of the fatherless and widow knocks at the doors of pure and undefiled religion at untimely hours. Times and seasons, in abort, must be swallowed up in the purpose of saving life and relieving misery. I need not carry the illustrations farther. You see that the lower a type of service, the more mechanical and methodical it is; and that the higher types of service develop a certain exuberance, and refuse to be limited by times and seasons. 2. A second point at which the fact answers to the parable, is the matter of wages; that is to say, the slave and the servant of Christ have neither of them any right to thanks or compensation. What God may do for His servants out of His own free grace and love, what privileges He may grant His friends, is another question; but, on the hard business basis of value received, the servant of God has no case. What he does in God's service it is his duty to do. "God," as Bengel remarks, "can do without our usefulness." God has no necessary men. 3. Now, then, we reach the pith of the parable. It is spoken from the slave's point of view; it deals with service of the lower, mechanical type. Now the moment a man puts himself on that lower ground, and begins to measure out his times and degrees of service, and to reckon what is due to himself, that moment he runs sharply against this parable. That moment Christ meets his assertion of his rights with this unlovely picture. The parable says to him, in effect, "If you put the matter on the business basis, on the ground of your rights and merits, I meet you on that ground, and challenge you to make good your claim. I made you: I redeemed you, body and soul, with My own blood. Everything you have or are, you owe to My free grace. What are your rights? What is your ground for refusing any claim I may see fit to make upon you? What claim have you for thanks for any service you may render Me at any time?" And the man cannot complain of this answer. It is indeed the master's answer to a slave; but then, the man has put himself on the slave's ground. To the servile spirit Christ asserts His masterdom. He has no word of thanks for the grumbling slave who grudges the service at his table after the day's ploughing; but to the loving disciple — the friend to whom His service is joy and reward enough, and who puts self and all its belongings at his disposal-it is strange, wondrous strange, but true, nevertheless, that Christ somehow slips into the servant's place. Strange, I repeat; but here is Christ's own word for it: "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning." Here is a picture of night-work, you see. "And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately." Here are the servants, weary, no doubt, with the day's work, but waiting and watching far into the hours of rest for their master, and flying with cheerful readiness to the door at his first knock. What then? "Blessed are those servants, whom the master when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." The amount of the matter is, that for him who gives himself without reserve to Christ's service, Christ puts Himself at his service. When he accepts Christ's right over him with his whole heart, not as a sentence to servitude, but as his dearest privilege, counting it above all price to be bought and owned by such a Master, he finds himself a possessor as well as a possession. "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's." (M. R. Vincent, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? |
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