“Who among you would say to your servant
who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?
Jesus called his Apostles to remember that their role was primarily that of servant. There would always be the temptation to allow service done in the vineyard of the Lord to create within oneself a sense of entitlement. If it did, the disciples could not follow the example of Jesus, washing the feet of others, and living as servant leaders. They were to guard against the tendency by remembering that they were "unprofitable servants". They were not somehow putting God in their debt by obeying his commands. The better they did, the more perfectly they completed the task assigned to them, the closer they would approximate their due of justice to God. But they could never fully close the gap between what they could do in service and what was deserved by a God of infinite majesty.
Would the delicate egos of the Apostles be ready to receive such a message? Wouldn't it be better to allow them to pamper themselves somewhat, to build up their egos with encouragement? Not if such encouragement was likely to go off the rails and result in an increasing inability to act as servants in the future. Jesus himself demonstrated a more excellent way by reminding them in word and deed that he himself came not to be served but to serve (see Matthew 20:28).
Would he not rather say to him,
‘Prepare something for me to eat.
Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink.
You may eat and drink when I am finished’?
Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded?
God delights when his children learn to serve in a way that is less and less dependent on temporal rewards. One reason this is so because it frees them to become increasingly effective and dynamic as servants. Although they do not generate any benefit that accrues to God, nevertheless God does delight to see them living in a way that is increasingly defined by gift of self, since this begins to approximate the heart of God himself. There is spiritual delight to be found in such self-forgetfulness. But paradoxically, the more we try to insist on such delight before getting on with our own meager attempts at service the less we will find it. The more we learn to be grateful to be of service at all, and the more we pursue such service in a spirit of gratitude, the more joy we will probably find.
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