[Readings: Ti 2:1-8: 11-14; Lk 17:7-10]
By Radhika Sharda
My two young boys, after playing with their toys, almost always leave their mess behind them, and when I remind them to clean up after themselves, they then try to negotiate with me, saying, “What will you do if I clean this up?” Or another variation: “You have to buy me x if I do this for you!”
I always laugh in reply, telling them that their work of cleaning up isn’t for me but for them, and indeed cannot be bartered since it adds nothing to me. The truth is that I could clean up their mess in a fraction of the time it takes them! Moreover, the work they do offers no bonus in the ledger of our relationship. It is, quite simply, what they ought to do.
Herein lies the pearl of today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke 17:7-10. The good servant who comes in after a day’s work in the fields does not sit and ask to be served food. He does not even ask to sit on equal footing with the master. Rather, he remembers what he ought to do, which is to serve first, and partake of the meal later when the work has been done. The time for sharing together in the meal in friendship will come only after the servant has done what he ought to do, out of love and respect for his master. Put simply, friendship is tasted only after walking the path of servitude.
As strange as this little parable may seem, it offers a vital antidote to the stumbling block of pride in one’s spiritual life. Let us consider the servant who comes in after the day’s work and sits down, expecting to be served. Such a person suffers from entitlement, the belief that he deserves some good because of his own worth. Certainly we all carry this sense of our own merit with us, even in the spiritual life. Yet here, Jesus reveals to us the reality that we do not really deserve any of the good we have been given. The good servant cries out, “We are worthless servants,” realizing that he claims no real worth in himself, but that he is first and foremost the slave of his lord; any good he achieves, any profit he attains, flows only from what he has been given. His worth as a person is not his own to claim, but is the special gift of his relationship with the master. Serve first, for you are nothing in and of yourself, and only then shall you be given.
This story also tells us the value of self-forgetfulness. The path to real friendship with the Lord lies not in keeping account of what we have “done” to please Him, but forgetting it all cheerfully, giving it all away in the folly of love. Our ego has a tenacious memory, holding on to the all the good things we have done as a credit to ourselves. Jesus urges us to cast aside that secret and often distorted book of accounts, for it amounts to nothing. Let it all go, he tells us, and persevere happily in serving the Lord.
Our faithful service to the Lord adds nothing to Him, but transforms us into the souls He desires us to be. Consider again the example of the parent-child relationship. As parents, we desire that the law of responsibility becomes ingrained upon the child’s own heart, rather than an external command. So too, the Lord invites us into the transformation of our own hearts, through the practice of humble service. It is not easy, but bears lasting fruit in the soul. Only when we see life through the lens of our own nothingness, of pure-hearted servitude, do we begin to walk the path of intimate friendship with God.
