Slaves of God

SLAVES OF GOD

Luke 17.7-10

'We are worthless slaves; we have only done what we ought to have done'. Luke 17. 10.

Alex Gordon is the Provost of Inverness Cathedral in Scotland. George Howe is the Archdeacon of Westmoreland and Furness in the Lake District. And Peter Ramsden is the Bishop of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

But in the 1970s, they were all young theological students who used to help me, in a downtown parish in Plymouth, to run a children's holiday club for some 150 children for two weeks each year during the long summer holidays.

While the Very Reverend, the Venerable and the Right Reverend are their respective titles of address, I remain just a plain 'Reverend.'

In the solitude of my heart, I ask myself, where did I go wrong?

Likewise, when I look back at over forty years in the priesthood, and note that I have challenged and encouraged over a dozen youngsters to be ordained to the priesthood of the church, I find myself asking, where is my reward?

And again, what about the material contribution I have made to the life of the church? I have organised the reordering of the interior of two churches to meet more adequately the worshipping and social needs of the parish. I have organised the restoration of the exterior of a thirteenth century church. I have modernised the interior and enlarged an international seafarers centre in Australia, to meet more adequately and economically the needs of the changing pattern of the shipping industry. As a curate, I was responsible for the building of the then, largest open youth centre in the North West, in the city of Liverpool. I have served on over a dozen different diocesan committees and raised in excess of a million pounds for various projects. But where is my recognition?

I have not looked for a bishopric. I have not sought an Archdeaconry. An Honorary Canonry, or Prebendary Stall, as they are called in this diocese, would have been rather nice as a reward, but it has not come my way.

Ambitious? No. Fulfilled? Not really. Proud? Maybe. Jealous? I hope not. Rewarded? No.

Alas, 'rewards' do not exist in the Christian life, as our gospel reading for today makes clear.

Jesus tells us a story, originally directed towards the Pharisees, who thought that they could earn favour from God by scrupulously observing the religious laws of their day, about a slave and his master.

'Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field: 'Come here at once and take your place at table'? asks Jesus.

And he continues, 'Would you not rather say to him, "Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink.”? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?’ he asks.

So Jesus concludes, 'So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, should say, "We are worthless slaves we have only done what we ought to have done."

Now this may sound rather hard to our contemporary ears. However, we must remember that we are dealing with the relationship between a slave and his master in the first century and not the twenty-first century.

Slaves were considered to be part of the goods and chattels of the house. They had no life of their own. They were literally owned by their masters and expected to fulfil their commands without any 'rights' or 'privileges'.

In a similar way, Jesus was a slave to God, his heavenly Master. He was a person who gave of himself totally in order to fulfil the commands of his Master, taking no thought for himself. He obeyed without question expecting no reward. No wonder St Paul, reflecting upon the life of Jesus some years later, concluded in his letter to the Christians living in Philippi that Jesus 'emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.' Philippians 2.7

And it is the same Jesus, the slave of God, whom you and I have chosen to follow. At our Baptism we had the letter I of self crossed out when we were marked by the sign of the cross. We gladly and cheerfully surrendered our lives totally to fulfilling the will of God, our heavenly Master. We became slaves of God.

We did this gladly and cheerfully, as we considered the love of God for us, which exceeds anything we desire or deserve.

A love which knows no limits. A love which is total. A love which is free. A love which sees through our pretence, our faults and our failings. A love which forgives 'seventy times seven', and which persists, even though we may turn our backs upon God and spurn his love towards us.

How else can we respond to such a love than by gladly and cheerfully surrendering our lives to God as a slave surrenders his life to his master.

As lsaac Watts puts it in his well known hymn, "When I survey the wondrous cross", which describes his love for us:

'Were the whole realm of nature mine

that were an offering tar too small,

love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all.'

In the face of such love, how dare we even think about demanding special favours from God? How dare we expect special privileges? How dare we look for rewards for our service to Him?

After all, 'we are worthless slaves; we have done what we ought to have done.'

So let our prayer be that of St lgnatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits in the sixteenth century:

'Teach us, good Lord,

to serve thee as thou deservest,

to give and not to count the cost,

to fight and not to heed the wounds,

to toil and not to seek for rest,

to labour, and not to ask for any reward,

save that of knowing that we do thy will,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.’