‘Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink”? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”’ (Luke 17.7-10, NRSV)
On Sunday I was standing outside church as a list of names were read, a bugle sounded, and everyone stood in silence for two minutes. When the two minutes was over, many people came to lay wreathes of poppies at the foot of a stone cross. Then we all walked together through the village. On the face of it, that is not a normal way to spend your day.
But, unless you pay absolutely no attention to what time of year it is, and you know nothing about the UK’s history, you know exactly why we were doing that. I have told you a very brief story about what I did on Sunday, but you understood it, because you know the background, you know how the tale begins. Without that knowledge, the story is very odd.
I suspect that our gospel reading today is a tough one for many of us to listen to and understand, for much the same reason. For all the church’s talk of sin and the fall, we know the story doesn’t begin there. The story that our gospel fits into begins in Genesis 1, where God creates humankind in his image, and declares that they are very good. It is the foundational truth of our existence that grounds our self-worth as humans. And so if you know the beginning, if you start your understanding of faith there, Jesus’s words are jarring. “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to do.’”
And I think his words should be jarring. They are jarring because they challenge our understanding of who he is, and what he thinks of us. That, in itself, is not the problem. The problem comes when we dismiss them. When we brush over them because they are difficult to understand.
So, let’s think a bit more deeply about them before we move on.
First, and in saying this I am not excusing slavery in any form, it is worth recognising that slavery in Jesus’ world was quite different from our modern day conception. It’s estimated that more than a third of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves. Slaves were often educated, some slaves would rise up the ranks, and be given important jobs in their masters houses (much like Joseph). Being released from slavery, rather than dying in servitude, was common after a length of service. And because of the potential upward mobility, people would sometimes sell themselves into slavery. But, the imagery is important, because slaves could not demand favours for doing their duty. It was simply what was expected.
Second, we need to trust our reading of other passages as well as this one. Jesus is asking his apostles to put themselves in the positions of slaves, and although he uses the language of ‘worthless,’ it’s clear that both he and they don’t think they are worthless. Earlier in Luke (12.35-38), Jesus talks about slaves that are blessed because they are ready when their master comes, and in that brief parable, the master returns home and then serves his slaves. The tables are turned. And the apostle Paul as he writes, frequently begins his letters by referring to himself as a servant or slave (our Bible translations often soften it by using ‘servant’). He claimed the title slave and found it profoundly helpful. He called himself the chief of sinners, but he knew the saviour that gave his life for that sinner, and that’s where his worth came from.
Here in this situation, the apostles Jesus is addressing have just asked about faith, and we know what is coming. They will see phenomenal miracles and an expansion of God’s work as the Holy Spirit works through them. They will see people healed, demons driven out, and the church grow in number faster than they could imagine. They will be tempted, surely, to see the work God accomplished through them, and be proud. To see themselves as all-important, to see this new movement as all about them, and to think that God owed them something because of it. Perhaps that pride is what Jesus is guarding against…leading them to a sense of humility, of knowing their rightful place before the God who created and called them.
Of course, surely Jesus is not speaking to us too is he? Well, let’s not be so sure. Many of us have been around church for a while, and many of us have volunteered and served and done a whole host of things that were, and are, important.
Perhaps we have felt the temptation to see what we do as invaluable.
Perhaps we have been tempted to see our service as the glue that holds the place together.
Perhaps we have served…but served grudgingly, and not out of gratitude for the grace we’ve received.
Perhaps we have found our self worth in what we do…rather than our creator’s love.
Perhaps…
So, if you see yourself in the ‘perhaps,’ may you come to know your true worth, as a person created in God’s image, may you find your true worth as someone for whom Christ died, and may you serve him as a duty and a joy, in all humility, because it is to him we owe our very lives. Amen.