A son at college was seeking to apply pressure for more money from his dad. In a letter home he wrote: “I can’t understand why you call yourself a loving father when you haven’t sent me a check for three weeks. What kind of love do you call that?”
The father wrote back, “That’s unremitting love!” [1]
We smile at that. Some of us may even chuckle, though not out loud, because we have all been there. But who has ever really defined love that way? Unremitting. We usually think of it in completely opposite terms—total giving. We call is unconditional love. We certainly think of God that way. That’s the way Jesus revealed Him—a God who gives and gives and gives until He gives everything, even His life, out of love for us. That’s the reason the word of Jesus in our text today is a shocking one. “When you have done all those things which you are commanded, say ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have only done what was our duty to do.”
This is one of Jesus’ least familiar sayings, and it’s one of his most confusing, and one of his toughest. It doesn’t let us off the hook. One preacher, Terrence Johnson, was so frustrated with this parable and saying of Jesus as he sought to prepare a sermon on it, that he ended up writing Luke a letter which became his sermon. “Dear Luke,” he said:
You’re a terrific writer, and through the years I’ve become more appreciative of your Gospel (along with your second volume, The Acts of the Apostles). There’s a wonderfully human touch to your writing, even in the midst of the mysterious. Your story of the birth of Jesus is a masterpiece; and our churches have listened to children read it for many Christmases. Your inclusion of the parable of the Good Samaritan is a literary jewel. And the resurrection appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of the most intriguing and touching of the post-resurrection stories.
I like your Gospel, Luke; but I’m having some real difficulty with your little parable about the farmer and his slave. It’s not exactly a heart-warming story, nor is it a mountain-peak experience of Bible reading. How could you write something like that?! Look again at how you end it, man: “When you have done all that is commanded you say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ Now doesn’t that sound like a real downer!” [2]
Well it does, doesn’t it? This passage is not easy and simple to deal with, but it offers much-needed lessons to us.
I. First of all, the parable Jesus tells, and his harsh words of teaching, is a word about duty.
We have difficulty with the story because of the harshness of the slave system in Jesus’ day. Also, our neck stiffens in anger at the churlish, calloused master who never says “thank you.” His servant had been plowing all day in the field—literally “slaving.” He came in at sundown, his back aching, the rest of his body numb with weariness. But there’s no acknowledgement of what has been done. Only another duty laid upon him. He must now prepare his master’s supper and wait until his master has eaten before he can sit and rest his weary muscles and renew his strength by whatever food is left.
A harsh picture of the severity of duty. It’s against that backdrop that Jesus speaks to us. “So you, also, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have only done what was our duty to do.’” No wonder we bristle and bow up our backs at such a word.
But let’s get beyond our seething distaste for the inconsiderate master, and speak a good word for duty. I believe that’s what Jesus was doing.
For most, duty is not a pleasant word. Many frown at it as it relates to morality. A school boy on his examination paper wrote this, “The Christian religion allows a man only one wife. The system is called monotony.”
One supposes that that’s one of the reasons for the failure of many marriages. So we’ve done something about it, by developing a so-called “New” morality, where separation and divorce has become commonplace. It is as though every generation thinks it can change the moral structure by majority vote.
So duty is not a pleasant word. It’s not pleasant because we’ve come to the place in our society when an all too common motto is “What is the least I can do to get by?”
The labor movement is a good illustration of the deterioration of the understanding of duty. Let us acknowledge that the labor movement was one of the most needed revolutions in modern history, and probably contributed as much to the transformation of modern culture as has any other movement. But the bazaar limits to which labor unions have gone is a great threat to society which should be committed to the common good.
The blunt truth is that we are the creators of a society where patters of behavior, moral standards, and spiritual ideals have been undermined by negligence, cheating, corruption, lying, stealing, and immoral acts on the ground that everybody is doing it and on the basis that any kind of worthwhile end justifies the means.
Jesus is telling us in this harsh word that there is an oughtness to life. There are demands that are placed upon us which allows no letting up in discipline. There is a sense in which we can never say, “Thank God, I’m finished with that. I can now rest. I deserve a rest.”
So duty is not a dirty four-letter word. It’s a word whose meaning desperately needs to be recovered in our day.
II. A healthy sense of duty would save us from two debilitating sins—the sins of self-pity and self-righteousness.
If we don’t have a good perspective on duty, it’s easy to fall into self-pity and/or self-righteousness.
Isn’t it easy, mothers, to slip into a slew of self-pity because of all the demands that are made of you by your children and keeping the home going. You don’t use the same words, but you affirm the thought: “A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.”
And fathers don’t escape either. We’re moving toward a damaging self-pity when we begin to say things like, “I’d hoped the children would more appreciative, that they would be self-supporting by this time.”
We’re all victims of it. “What’s the use?” we say, “the people in Washington get away with murder, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Why should I keep on paying these taxes—what good is it doing?”
We would be saved a lot of emotional energy if we could keep a right perspective on the fact that we have duties as citizens; as members of our congregation, we have duties. Performing those duties doesn’t mean that we are going to receive any kind of special consideration. Therefore, what right have we to say, “I’ve done everything right; why should this happen to me?”—or, “I’ve done my duty, what have I done to deserve this?” We get to the point of extreme pity when we begin to think and say, “It seems the more good you do, the worse off you are.”
Closely akin to self-pity is self-righteousness. A right perspective on duty might save us from self-righteousness.
Again, aren’t we all guilty? We do what is expected of us and perhaps more. We teach Sunday School, we sing in the choir, we work on Habitat Housing, we serve in the youth ministry—we feel good about what we are doing. We even feel righteous. What right has the preacher or a committee chairperson to ask me to do anything else, to add to the commitments I’ve already made. Then boom! We’re confronted with Jesus’ word: “When you’ve done all those things which you are commanded, say ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what was our duty to do.’”
Maybe this is the reason we don’t like this hard saying of Jesus. It opens up our feelings of self-righteousness, and it condemns our smug attitude of thinking that we measure up to the kingdom’s demands. I ask you: Is there any way that any one of us, by any amount of effort or obedience to the will of God can establish a claim for a reward? “It is a blessed thing for a man to call himself an unprofitable servant; it is an awful thing for the Master to call him one.” [3]
Do you see the difference? To call ourselves unprofitable servants is to judge ourselves as well we might—it is to acknowledge, as Paul said, that there is “none righteous, no not one”, for “we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
III. That leads to a final thought this word of Jesus calls us to pursue. Everything on the surface seems harsh and severe and demanding, so you may be surprised that I would offer this final word: Here is a mighty call to faith in the grace of God.
I believe this for two reasons. One, remember the context in which the story is set. The disciples have made the request in verse 5: “Lord, increase our faith!” It is then that Jesus uses the image of the mustard seed, showing how important it is for us to have faith, and the mighty things that result from faith.
The second reason I believe it is a mighty call to faith in the grace of God is that we are driven by this word to know that nothing we do can satisfy the righteous demands of God.
A seminary student was invited to preach one Sunday, and she was given one of the most difficult parables of Jesus, the one about the farmer who recruited workers and paid all of them the same thing at the end of the day, even though some had worked eight hours, some four hours, and some only an hour or two. It’s not an easy lesson—that workers who work only one hour gets as much pay as those who had toiled long and hard all day long.
The way this seminary student interpreted the passage is that God’s love and grace is offered to us without regard to worthiness or unworthiness. That’s the paradox of the gospel, seen in sharp contrast of the vineyard owner’s treatment of his workers and the attitude of those workers. The vineyard owner chose to meet the needs of the last workers just as he met the needs of the workers who toiled all day. Therefore, all the workers were able to feed their families at the end of the day. No one was mistreated. And so it is with God. It is not our merits, or what we do that forms the basis of God’s love for us—it is our need and our response.
To illustrate the whole matter of unmerited grace, I share the story of a three-month-old baby, Nathan, who was diagnosed with a congenital problem called nystagmus, a visible condition where the eyes make repetitive, uncontrolled movements. The pediatric ophthalmologist said it would always be that way. Further examination revealed Nathan also had Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, a very rare defect in which his optic nerves were only half the size they needed to be in order to see normally.
“What did that mean?” his parents asked. “Oh, well, of course,” he went on as though he was discussing the weather, “he’ll never be able to see normally. It’s an uncorrectable problem, and he’ll probably have to go to a special school. But don’t be too worried; sometimes it’s only minor and they can go to regular school and sit in front of the class and things like that.”
“And things like that?” his mother thought, “Are you crazy?! This is my son you’re talking about.”
The battery of tests performed on Nathan only confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis. A while later, his parents followed up with a doctor in another state. After dilating his eyes he said, “Great, these optic nerves look nice and pink and healthy.” “What?!” his mother asked, “Say that again!” She suggested the doctor read the first doctor’s report more closely, after all, he had used words like “thin” and “white” to describe the optic nerves. Well, the doctor was amazed, because what he saw and what the first doctor reported were on opposite poles. And not only that, but the nystagmus that supposedly would never disappear had diminished remarkably.
Of course, in the world of medicine, there must be confirmation as well as explanation. So a third doctor looked at the infant and agreed that there was no Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. Both doctors were baffled at the drastic difference. On the surface it appeared the original doctor made a mistake—a very good doctor, highly regarded in medical circles. But you see, when Nathan was first diagnosed, they told friends and family who in turn told their friends and family and soon they were receiving letters from all over the world saying that Nathan was being included in the daily prayers of many, many people.
There is a divine mystery here that we cannot fathom in human terms. We cannot reduce God to a human scale, nor can we assume that because events such as this do not happen all the time, they don’t happen at all.
I told this story for a reason. I believe this baby received God’s grace—and it had nothing to do with merit! For I know that if merit was the deciding factor in life, I would not be standing before you today, nor would this child’s eyes have been healed. Because my life is as stained and tarnished as anyone else’s. And what great work could little Nathan have done at his young age that could possibly have deserved God’s grace? That’s the beauty and the paradox of Grace: God does not demand that we earn his blessings. The grace and love of God transcends our human ability to understand. But even without understanding we are called to accept the gift of grace, freely given, and rejoice.
So that’s it!—the core of the Gospel—it is not our merit that releases God’s grace. It’s not even our need, because all of us stand in the same need. It is the awareness of our need. The acknowledgement that we are “unprofitable servants”, deserving nothing. So we place ourselves wholly into the merciful hands of God and we find ourselves saved and held up by his great unmerited love.
1. John W. McKelvey, “Mixed Motives,” Pulpit Digest, January-February 1981, p. 62
2. Rerence E. Johnson, “By Grace”, Master Sermons, Vol. 9 & 10, Oct 1978, p. 479
3. Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Baker House, Vol 9, p.123