Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
One of the several insights that came to me through this embodied prayer is that “I matter and I don’t matter.” Both of these paradoxical statements are true about me.
I matter to the God who loves me a great deal. You do too. We all do. And, my egoic false self, whom I often think I am, does not matter in the grand scheme of things. At times, God might think that egoic self is cute, at best, but not essential to who I am in God’s eyes.
I am called to emulate Jesus’ self-emptying so as to be more willingly, more fully, more completely God’s lover.
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Jesus’ parable in this morning’s gospel evokes this self-emptying. But it is difficult for modern hearers to interpret. There is a lot of interference with what Jesus might want us to take away from this parable.
I would venture that one conclusion we could draw from this parable is that we need to do God’s work in all humility and as our self-evident duty. I can get firmly behind that message as a Christian and as a monk.
But the missing piece for me in this parable is love: love for God, love for ourselves and love for our fellow beings. It is in response to God’s loving us and out of love for God that we feel impelled to do God’s work in the world.
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The interference with Jesus’ main message here comes from two scandals for modern hearers. Literally in Greek, the word scandalon signifies “the means of stumbling.”
In interpreting this parable, we stumble on Jesus’ apparent unquestioning acceptance of the institution of slavery.
We also stumble on the parable’s master apparently qualifying us as worthless. Is that master a simile for God? That isn’t a necessary interpretation of the parable. But Jesus seems to indicate that we are to identify with the so-called “worthless slaves.”
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If Jesus walked the cities and towns of our world today, would he still use slavery as an image for humble listening and obedient cooperating with God? I don’t believe so.
But in his days, the relationship between a master and his slaves was a readily understandable image. It was an everyday resonant image. Just as his many agrarian images resonated with the experience of his hearers.
It’s not enough, but it seems to me that Jesus is not defending or praising slavery per se in this parable.
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The other means of stumbling is to be qualified as worthless people. That can be revolting for most modern persons. But particularly so for those of us who have had to claim our self-worth and attempt to have it respected. Our worth is easily neglected by dominant groups of society whose self-interest it does not serve.
This is particularly true for women and persons of color in our society. But there are more groups of people whose worth is not upheld by the dominant cultures. How can non-privileged groups hear this parable today?
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I believe today’s parable must be interpreted in light of Jesus’ complete teaching through his life and passion.
On which side of the parable is Jesus standing; that of the ungrateful master or that of the reliable, compliant and unappreciated slave?
Towards the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus emphasized the loving element of our relationship with God.
In John 15:14-16, he says:
You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
We are not servants, or slaves, any longer. We are chosen friends of God. And God takes off his dinner clothes to take the role of a slave to wash the feet of his disciples. And this to the great dismay of a scandalized Peter.
In light of passages such as this and in light of Jesus’ passion, we know that Jesus stands on the side of the servants, of the slaves.
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It is out of loving friendship that we are to be worthy servants of God and one another. We are to serve out of gratitude and love. Abba God loves us as God’s children, not as slaves.
Our love, our self-giving, and our self-emptying come from a place of safety, dignity and self-respect. We have self-worth and we serve in love.
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I think Jesus’ parable of this morning insists on our not claiming pride and superiority for doing what Love commands us to do.
Are you a servant leader in your life and in the world? Very well. You are doing Love’s duty, nothing more.
Love calls us all to that same duty. And God loves you, no matter how well or haltingly you are doing your duty. And God is at your feet, serving you, loving you.
Can you resist answering that Love?
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One of our post-communion prayers enjoins us “to love and serve [God] with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord.”
Let’s do that in all humility.
Amen.
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