Luke 17:7-10
What would you do if someone gave you enormous power – real power? Would you know what to do? Would you use it responsibly? Would it, after a time, change your character? Would it change your friendship network? Your spirituality?
There is a famous story about ordinary people who ‘accidentally’ acquire enormous power, and it’s The Lord of the Rings. First Bilbo, then Frodo, acquire the Ring of Power, which gives its wearer the ability to accomplish small and great things – from disappearing whenever the Sackville Bagginses approach, to destroying entire armies and bending the will of world leaders to one’s own will.
Some of Frodo’s friends confess that, if they had the Ring, they would use its power for good. But in using the Ring, as Gandalf discovers, it begins to use and control you, and subvert your will to the will of its evil maker.
But Bilbo and Frodo are hobbits – small in stature, modest in nature, and humble in character – despite their penchant for large and frequent meals. They have no grand, strategic use for the Ring. And, in the providence of Middle Earth, Frodo is the ideal Ring-bearer, faithfully carrying it, and ultimately destroying it in the unquenchable fires of Mount Doom. And yet, on the lip of the pit, he too struggles.
Power and the pride that so easily accompanies it are dangerous. They easily subvert and corrupt. Jesus knew that well, and taught his followers to steer clear of them. Jesus loved to wrap his teaching in a narrative. He especially loved to couch the indicative of doctrine, and the imperative of action, in the form of parable.
To emphasise the importance of growing spiritual maturity, for example, he told the parable of the Sower (Lk 8:4-15). To impress on his audience the value of mercy and grace in an ugly “dog-eat-dog” world, he told the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). But what is Jesus doing in Luke 17:7-10, when he tells the little-known parable of the servant and his master?
Like other parables, this one does not present a detailed or comprehensive view of God’s character or ways. Here the image of God is of an austere master who expresses little compassion or warmth or generosity toward his servant. This image needs to be set alongside the many other images of God in the Bible – God as a loving Father, a kind shepherd, a wise master, a patient friend, a gracious redeemer.
The story, as Luke has it, comes immediately after verses 1-7, in which Jesus is teaching his disciples and gives them three significant challenges:
Jesus has inspired his audience to pursue great faith; he now moves on to suggest what great faithfulness looks like. He sketches an image well-known to those who are listening: an image of a servant (or slave), perhaps working alone on a small farm and in the house of his master. And he asks three rhetorical questions.
First, would the master invite his servant, tired and dirty and smelly after a long day’s work ploughing and shepherding, to sit down at his right hand and share the master’s food and drink (v 7)? The disciples would have replied, “Of course not!” To do so was to act against social convention. It would imply equality of status between master and servant. It was the way one might honour an important visitor.
Second, Jesus says, “Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’?” (v 8). The disciples would say, “Yes, of course!”
Third, Jesus asks, “Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?” (v 9). To this the disciples would almost certainly reply, “No!” A master would never do this: to do so would make the slave a patron of his master, or place the master in the slave’s debt.
We are unfamiliar with the conventions of master-slave relations in Judea in the first century AD, but as John Nolland explains,
After a man has done a hard day’s work in the fields, his wife may indeed feel a reciprocal obligation to have a meal ready and waiting for him on his return. But a slave, like a farm animal, is there to work. He should not be starved or mistreated, but he is doing no favour when he works: he was purchased for that end … When the needs of the day were all met, then he could stop and see to his own needs.[1]
Then Jesus applies the story (v 10): “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” That’s a slap in the face, designed to discourage pride and put us in our place!
Now in case you are thinking that this analogy of slave/master should not apply to our relationship with God, let me remind you of the New Testament teaching. Romans 6:23 is well known as a concise summary of the benefits of salvation in Christ: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” But the preceding verse, equally wonderful in its promise, is less well known: “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
Although we may not like to acknowledge it, the human condition requires that we be mastered by something or someone. We are not our own – we have our responsibilities, our duties, our obligations, our allegiances. We may serve hell or heaven, John or Kevin, life or death, good or evil, God or the devil. But we fool ourselves if we think we serve ourselves.
Those who follow Jesus have been freed from the bondage and tyranny of sin to serve a new and very different Master – one who is holy, just and merciful, but one who also makes demands on us and requires total obedience to his will, communicated to us through his written word. There is no place for personal power and pride in the life of a slave.
This simple story told by Jesus expresses four important, difficult, related truths:
But on the other hand, God is not human; and God is no human master. The Bible teaches that God is extraordinarily gracious, treating us as trusted friends, regarding us as adopted children. God provides resources for us; he refreshes us; he trains and equips and empowers us to serve him well. And God does indeed reward faithful service in abundant ways, both in this life and in the life to come.
If I were to ask each of you privately, I am sure each of you could tell me personal stories of God’s faithfulness and generosity toward you. And I could share similar stories with you.
Back in Middle Earth, Frodo is accompanied on his quest by Sam Gamgee, his faithful companion. If I were given a task like the one Frodo was given, or sent on a quest of the magnitude of Frodo’s, Sam is the kind of companion I’d want to take with me for conversation, and support, and encouragement.
Sam is a gardener, lowly even by hobbit standards. All he really wants is to be back in his beloved Shire tending his taters. But Sam realises that Frodo is being slowly, tortuously annihilated by the overwhelming burden of carrying the Ring of Power, and there comes a time when Sam feels obliged to take the Ring and place it on its chain around his own neck. Here’s how J.R.R. Tolkien describes the moment:
[Sam] felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself …
Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched … And then all clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale … became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be …
In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm, but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden … The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, and not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.[2]
What saves Sam is his humility. He knows who he is, and where he fits. He knows his purpose, and his place, and his limits. And this knowledge saves him. And, as the plot unfurls, his hobbit-humility conspires with proximity and providence to save the world.
To be humble is to let go of power, and power is attractive and addictive. It promises to deliver so much of what we think we want; whereas humility seems to offer so little. But that is the genius of humility.
May God grant us the hobbit-sense to understand the temptations we face, the courage to choose the way of wisdom, and the opportunity to be the face of Jesus, the voice of Jesus, the Servant King – in the warm corridors of power, in the cold streets of dis-grace, behind our politely closed suburban doors, and among the people of God here at Canberra Baptist Church.
Sermon 585 copyright © 2008 Rod Benson. Preached at Canberra Baptist Church, Australia, on 9 March 2008. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: Today’s New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).