“When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we are obliged to do” (See Luke 17:1-10).
Ouch. The servant has come in from working all day and is now expected to prepare his master’s dinner, wait on him, and only then get to eat after his master has finished. What will help us to relate to Jesus’ teaching is to remember who Jesus is.
He is the Son of God who was sent by his Father. As St. Paul put it in his Letter to the Philippians: “Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6). Jesus accepted the role he was given to play every step of the way even unto accepting that he would die on the cross to save us.
He expects no less from us. I would much rather be a slave to Jesus than Satan or my own fallen nature. During my retreat this past summer, I imagined the scene in which Jesus went back to his hometown and was rejected. I imagined myself in that scene as it got violent to the point where they attempted to throw him headlong down the hill, but he escaped. I followed. And as I caught up to him, his face seemed to radiate joy.
I questioned him about it, and he shared that he wasn’t happy about his own hometown crowd rejecting his message, but he said his joy came from doing the will of his Father no matter the cost. That had an impact on me and my own relationship with God which has been more often on my terms than his. I have been surrendering more of my will to his since then.
The image of the servant working for his master in today’s reading works because Jesus preached what he lived. He did not grasp at his own divinity, he fully assumed his humanity with all the finite limitations and sufferings that went along with it, as Paul said, “he took the form of a slave.” Even when he suffered, he did so with joy in knowing that he was following his Father’s will.
Jesus is helping us to remember that God is God, and we are not, and we need to resist the temptation of mixing that up. There is so much grace and blessing that God wants to share with us, but we can only do so with our hands empty and open to receive. If we are grasping at and clinging to what we want, we are not able to receive. We have to let go and trust.
We can share what we seek with God as Jesus did in Gethsemane, but we also need to be willing to say with Jesus, “not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). For God is the master and we are his servants. When we do what he asks us to do, we will find healing, fulfillment, meaning, and the same joy that Jesus experienced in following his will.
Photo: St. Vincent De Paul Chapel, St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 