Today’s passage is Luke 12:35-48. Jesus says to be ready for his return because no one knows when it will be. When he tells the parable of servants waiting for their master who will then serve them, Peter asks if the parable is for them or everyone. Jesus tells another parable about a servant in charge of other servants who misbehaves, is caught, and punished with damnation.
Why is Peter being exclusive? Why are bad servants sent to hell?
At my first school I told my students who had good looks, good brains, and money that God would ask a lot of them in their lives.
I said it because I believed it was my place to tell them and because I self-righteously believed someone needed to tell them.
The reality was that I was jealous of all they had been showered with.
Although what I said was true, because I was jealous, I was not the one to tell them that truth.
I wasn’t interested in their salvation at all.
I wanted them to fall down and be in debt like me with none of my daydreams come true.
Giving people good advice for the wrong reasons is a sin. It’s self-righteous bullying.
Today’s passage worries me because it is a call to look at what I have been given while my usual mind is to complain about what I don’t have.
The parables in today’s passage are variations on the parable of the talents.
In both cases I often resent what God has given me because of my pride, greed and laziness.
Instead of giving thanks for both the good and the bad in my life, which means accepting my circumstances and, with God’s help, dealing appropriately with them, I want an entirely different set of circumstances that I only see the gloss of and not the troubles.
God incarnated as Jesus, whose mission was to serve the humanity of his creation, all of whom had fallen because of their sin with no hope of escaping the consequences of those sins except by faith in his saving action on the cross.
Jesus set the model of service.
All that I’ve been given is not for me but for others. I am given a family in order to serve those individuals no matter what the bad training I received.
I am given a spiritual community in order to serve my fellow members no matter how immature, stubborn and self-righteous.
I am given a school to serve the students and teachers.
When I was a teacher, it was to serve my students, my colleagues and my principal, but I didn’t do it.
I was too busy being jealous and being consumed with entitlement.
Jesus is quite clear that I will be called to account at the end of my life.
His command is just as clear: “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning”(35). Like the man who had a legion of demons in him, once they were cast out by Jesus the man sat “dressed and in his right mind” (8:35) ready for service.
That’s what I haven’t done for so much of my life, and I repent.
Application: to serve my teachers by preparing the events and schedule for the first week of their return.
Lord, inspire me each day to dress myself for service with all you’ve given me to serve those you have put in my circumstances.
