Sunday Septuagesima
Text: Luke 17.7-10
songs available:
Glory to thy name, O God of peace, AeC 261: 1 - 3
Lord, hear my prayer, AeC 143: 1-4
You want me to thy service AeC 427: 1-3
7 "If one of you has a servant plowing or herding, tell him there on his return fields: " Come immediately put you at the table! ?
8 Do tell him he not rather: "Prepare my supper, adjust your outfit to serve me until j 've eaten and drunk, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink you. " ?
9 Is this the gratitude that slave because he did what he was ordered? I think not.
10 You, likewise, when you've done everything that was ordered, said: "We are slaves unpretentious us have done what we should do. " "
Dear servants of the Divine Master,
When I read the text before us to preach this Sunday, I first had a cringe, because our versions generally reflected the end of this episode by Conviction: "We are slaves [or: servants ] unnecessary. "
What about a sentence that contradicts its context? How to cope? How to find an application where you do not bite the tail?
It is true, there are biblical passages that we remain unclear, which we will explain that in the afterlife. But preach on the text as the result of our most versions, it simply contradict what God says elsewhere in the Bible, including the above and following this finding in our text.
So how are we often come to this unusual translation? - Because in Greek there are two homonyms - ἀχρεῖος (Achreios) - one of which means: "useless" or "nonessential" ; against each other by means "unpretentious" .
Let us therefore three questions:
WE
an unprofitable servants?
two servants unnecessary?
or
3 servants unpretentious?
... which is not the same thing.
X X X 1 X X X
Are we
unprofitable servants ?
We've all heard this verse as: "We are unprofitable servants! " (v. 10). It is sometimes repeated, probably without having taken the trouble to look at its context, without having bothered to think about all of our text.
then used this text to be whipped, like Martin Luther in his cell of the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, before he discovered the liberating Gospel of Christ, the Gospel release and propel a "service" we do not want to still qualify for "useless" !
Let our text a little closer. We are in the presence of "a slave who tills" , which "herding" and "prepares and serves dinner" its master. (V. 7-8).
Anyone who has some knowledge in agriculture and livestock will it is not "useless" to plow and tend their herds. Besides, what master squander his fortune to purchase and maintain slaves just for them to do unnecessary things, which are useless?
And anyone who has already returned tired and hungry from work, will also know that it is not "useless" can sit at the table and get enough to regain strength .
Indeed, servants or slaves of our text indicates : "We fai t what we should do . " (v. 10) They did what they had been loaded. All the parables - to take only the parables - that show What's servants perform a useful, even important. Developed, moreover, that the servant was not punished and expelled is useful, because he sat on his talent, because it would have been useful, but did not.
Do you think God is responsible for unnecessary things, for fun, as if we were his toy? No, the apostle Peter tells us that God has made us "living stones" to offer spiritual sacrifices , pleasing to God through Jesus Christ " (1 Pet 2.5).
And Paul invites us: "Be, by love serve one another! " (Ga 5.13) Certainly not because it " useless " !
Spouses who help each other to carry out their business of living together, parents raising their children, people who do their work honestly, our commitment to the Church and mission, all this would "useless" ? Of course not! But the Lord does not send us there
Paul can speak of his "utility" (1 Cor 14.16) as the recipients of his letters (Acts 18.27; 2 Tim 4.11; Phil 11) .
And when Jesus says we are "Light of the World" and "salt of the earth" It speaks well of our utility in the world!
When Peter says: "You are a chosen people, royal priests, a holy nation, a redeemed people e to proclaim the praises" of Christ (1 Pet 2.9) when ... Jesus commands us: " go and make all the nation s disciples ! " (Mt 28:19), we charge there, there service " useless " ?
No, your commitment in married life, in family life, for the sake of your family and friends in the life of the church or charity in the world of work, in short, your life redeemed and sanctified n is not "useless" , but fruitful as it has the approval of your heavenly Father, and is blessed by him.
ask ourselves then second:
X X X 2 X X X
Are we
servants unnecessary ?
It's not quite the same as being unnecessary. I take an example that will soon affect you.
I think, I hope, I am even Naturally, my ministry among you is not "useless" , otherwise the Lord would not have known of you and would not have linked his blessing to the announcement of his Gospel and the administration of the sacraments which he charged me with you.
And if I thought my ministry was pointless among you, I despair, I depressed, I would not have the strength to continue. Do not worry: it's far from the case.
But some time in a few years now, my Master happen to me, I replace it with another to minister among you useful. I am useful but not essential. God just use someone else instead of me.
And this is true of all of us. God has placed us where we are. It has "redeemed, so we were his property and that we live in His Kingdom to serve" as "father, mother or child, master or servant," (Luther, Small Catechism ), Department Head, laborer or artisan, pastor, deacon, elder or parishioner without specific title.
Everywhere, God has placed us so that we are useful. But stay humble, do not believe that we can exercise some sort of blackmail on God - as employees sometimes do on employers (the opposite also exists, but it's not the point). Do not believe that God can not do without us. Nobody is irreplaceable - Jesus Christ, of course except in the work of our redemption.
Let us be thankful to God that he did not want to do without us, that we had bought, called to his service and that we employed in useful services that we can visit family, church, work, in society.
Be grateful to him: he is going to find our "pleasant through Jesus Christ" (1 P 2.5) while we are very little compared to him and he could happen to us. Well no! it does not.
It is not like the master of our text "no recognition" for the services it renders the slave (v. 9). Instead, God is a Master who complimented us and who, in his great goodness, we are told, for example: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful [...]. Come share the joy of your master. " (Mt 25.21-23)
Praised be He!
Mansion last question: If God is useful, though not essential,
X X X 3 X X X
Are we
"servants unpretentious" ?
Back to the story. Jesus takes the comparisons in the society of his time. It does not give an opinion on slavery. It uses relationships in the social system of his listeners to make them understand something.
Today, he would take the examples in our society, so that in two thousand years, we do not perhaps understand better how it was possible in our time as leaders earn up to 400 times the minimum wage (up to 4 and a half million Euros). The difference is not it even greater between the master and his slave then?
It is true, there is a fundamental difference between the slave of the day and employee today : The slave belongs to the master. Again, we will not get into a debate about whether to be a minimum-wage earners who find it difficult to feed his family, a homeless man dying of hunger and cold, or a slave who has something to food, clothing and living with his family.
The debate can be interesting, but this is not the subject of our text.
The point of comparison is that the master bought his slave. We on our part, we confess: "I believe that Jesus e, [ ...] redeemed me, me, lost and condemned by delivering me [...] that I belong to it and I live in his kingdom to serve e [...] . " (Martin Luther, Small Catechism ).
offusquons We do not have what Jesus bought for us were his property. If it had not, we would have remained linked to Satan and eternal damnation.
belong to a master like him who loves us more than life, who suffered damnation for us so that we do not have to know who paid for that God is reconciled with us and accepts us in his eternal family, that we interfere? Then we would not understand.
No, it fills us with gratitude to him, it prompts us to use to show our gratitude. We do not earn or deserve forgiveness and salvation, we do because we had already granted the pardon and the hello.
We do not serve to present Then a bill, telling him about our claims, to make him understand that we have pretensions.
What could we claim again that we have already received? Paul tells us: "The grace of God given you in Christ Jesus. In him you were overwhelmed with all the wealth [...] . Thus, you do no gift. " (1 Cor 14-7)
No, it does not come with the idea of wanting to assert claims for the service that we have thanks and honor to give back to our beloved Savior.
Moreover, we can not even claim, as the slave of our text, that "we would have done what we should do" (v. 10). An employee can tell his boss: "I did what you asked me to do. "
On the spiritual plane, " what we should do " - " be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect " (Mt 5.48) - we do imperfectly. We therefore have little merit to make. This is our Master, who was perfect for us.
In this sense, our personal history is quite different from that of the slave of a master of the time. Our Lord became a servant to fix our imperfect.
And thanks to his intervention, our service - certainly useful, but still imperfect - is however "pleasing to God" .
Staying humble certainly, but full of joy, because the service that the Lord asks of us is useful in his kingdom and the world!
Whether we attend and bless us in His grace!
Amen.
Jean Thiébaut Haessig
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