01.08. Chapter 7. The Parable of Extra Service
Chapter 7.
The Parable of Extra Service Or, the Exacting Demands of the Kingdom, and the Temper Needful to Meet Them. On a certain occasion Jesus said to His disciples, Which of you is there, having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle; who will say to him on his returning from the field, Go straightway[1] and sit down to meat? And will not rather, on the contrary, say to him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunken; and after that thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank the servant because he hath done the things commanded him? I trow not.[2] So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all the things commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have (but) done that which it was our duty to do.—Luk 17:7-10.
[1] The
[2] The words
Little or no help in the interpretation of this parable can be got from the previous context. There is no apparent connection between it and what goes before, and it would only lead us out of the track which conducts towards its true meaning to endeavour to invent a connection. Critics who are ever on the outlook for traces of tendency in the Gospels tell us that the parable and the two preceding verses are connected by the Pauline bias of both. As in these two verses Jesus, in true Pauline fashion, teaches the omnipotence of faith to disciples who had asked Him to increase their share of that grace, so in the parable He inculcates the not less Pauline doctrine of the insufficiency of works.[1] We will not deny that the Pauline character of these two sections may very possibly have been what chiefly interested the evangelist’s mind, and led him to introduce them into his narrative in juxtaposition. In that case, if we were bound as expositors to have supreme regard to Luke’s motive as a reporter, we should have to relegate the present parable to the second head in our classification of the parables, and to treat it as a parable of grace, designed to teach that in the kingdom of God all is of grace, and not of debt, or that merit in man before God is impossible, the key-note of the whole being the closing words, "We are unprofitable servants." But we do not feel bound to adopt as our clue the private feelings of the evangelist. It is quite conceivable that what chiefly interested his mind in reporting the parable was its bearing on the doctrine of salvation, and that nevertheless the purpose of our Lord in uttering it was more comprehensive in its scope. As the Spirit of God often meant more by a prophecy than the prophet was aware of, so Christ might mean much more by a parable than an evangelist was aware of. In this sense there is truth in the remark of Mr. Matthew Arnold, that Jesus was over the head of His reporters. It will be best, therefore, to lay little stress either on the external connections of the narrative or on the supposed private thoughts of the narrator, and to regard this parable as a precious fragment which Luke found among his literary materials, "at the bottom of his portfolio," as a recent commentator expresses it,[2] and which he put into his Gospel at a convenient place that it might not be lost. If by this mode of viewing it we lose the benefit of a guide to the sense in the context, we have a compensation in the reflection made by the same commentator, that the very fragmentariness of this precious morsel is a guarantee of its originality as a genuine logion of Jesus.[3] [1] So Hilgenfeld, ’Einleitung.’
[2] Godet.
[3] Schleiermacher tries to make out a connection between Luk 17:5-6, and Luk 17:7-10. He thinks it was quite natural that, after saying that faith would enable them to do all things required of them, Christ should go on to teach that they were not to expect outward stimuli and privileges as a reward. ’Uber die Schriften des Lukas,’ p. 154.
What then is the doctrinal drift of this striking fragment? On the surface it wears a harsh and, if one may venture to say so, unChrist-like aspect. It seems to give a legal, heartless, inhuman representation of the relations between God and man, and of the nature of religion. God appears as an exacting taskmaster or slave-driver, who requires His servants, already jaded with a full day’s toil in the fields, to render Him extra household service in the evening, before they get the food and rest which their bodies eagerly crave. And the Master is ungracious as well as unmerciful. He doth not thank His weary slaves for their extra service in the form of attendance at table, but receives it as a matter of course. Then, finally, those servants are required to submit to this merciless and ungracious treatment without complaint or surprise, as quite right and proper; nay, they must even go the length of making the abject acknowledgment that in all their toil, day and night, they have been unprofitable servants, and at most have done no more than their statutory duty. Now we may be sure that if we could only penetrate to the heart of our Lord’s meaning, we should find it to be thoroughly like Himself, and thoroughly consistent with His other teaching. It is indeed a strange, hard saying, but it is not the only hard saying which fell from His lips; and just because it is so strange we may be sure it really was spoken by Him; and just because it was spoken by Him we may be sure that, like many other of His sayings, with a very hard shell on the outside, this saying has within the shell a very sweet kernel. Let us try to break the shell and to get at the kernel.
Some interpreters of note have sought an escape from the difficulties of the parable by finding in it not a prescription, but a description, of legal religion. We are told, that is, not how we ought to serve God, but how men of a legal spirit, hirelings, mercenaries, such as the Pharisaic Jews, do serve God, and how their service is estimated by God. The parable is in fact a picture of the kind of religion which Jesus saw around Him. Religious people were acting like men hired to do a certain work, in return for which they were to receive their meals. They did their ’duty,’ the things expressly enjoined, in the spirit of drudges rather than in the generous spirit of devotion, and their work so done was of little value, and not deserving of thanks: they really were unprofitable servants. And such men are pointed at as persons not to be imitated. Jesus says in effect, "Be ye not like these; serve God in a different fashion, and ye shall receive very different treatment. Men of servile, mercenary spirit God treats as slaves; serve God liberally, and ye shall be treated as sons."[1]. On this view the parable teaches the same lesson as the parable of the labourers who entered the vineyard at different hours of the day, in which those who entered in the morning and did a full day’s work, and bore "the burden and heat" of the day, are represented as being paid last, and without any thanks; while those who entered at the eleventh hour are paid first, as if the master had pleasure in paying them, and are paid as much as those who had worked the whole day. Another expedient for getting out of the difficulty, proposed by a different class of expositors, is to suppose that the parable teaches not how God does deal with any of His servants, but how He might deal with all. He might treat all in justice as worthless slaves; but that He does not we know, not indeed from this parable, but from other places of Scripture. The object of the parable is not to set forth the whole truth about God’s relations to men, but merely to negative the idea of human merit, and to beat down human pride.[2] Neither of these interpretations hits the mark. The one errs in assuming that the parable has no application to the devoted servants of the kingdom; the other in assuming that the parable gives us no information as to how God does deal with men. In opposition to the former, we believe that the parable has truth for all servants of the kingdom, especially for the most devoted; and in opposition to the latter, we believe that it teaches not how God might act, but how He does act with His servants; in other words, that it shows a real phase of the actual experience of the faithful in this present life. They are treated in providence as the parable represents. Jesus spake the parable to the twelve, as the future apostles of Christianity, to let them know beforehand what to expect, and so to prepare them for their arduous task.
[1] So Grotius [2] So Trench, controverting the view of Grotius.
We believe then that the purpose of this parable is neither by implication to condemn servile religion, nor to inculcate humility for its own sake; but to set forth the exacting character of the demands which the kingdom of God makes on its servants, and to inculcate on the latter humility only that the work of the kingdom may be better done, and may not be hindered by self-complacency. We take the extra service of the slave in the parabolic representation to be the key to the interpretation, and assume that Christ meant to suggest that something analogous to such extra service will be found in the Divine kingdom. On this reasonable assumption, the direct object of the parable will be to teach that the service of God, nay, of Christ Himself, is a very exacting and arduous one; much more arduous than human indolence cares to undertake; far exceeding in its demands the ideal of duty men are prone to form for themselves. Christ would have His disciples understand that the Christian vocation is a very high one indeed; that for those who give themselves to it, it not merely brings hard toil in the fields through the day, but also, so to speak, extra duties in the evening, when the weary labourer would fain be at rest; that it has no fixed hours of labour, eight, ten, twelve, as the case may be according to agreement, but may summon to work at any hour of all the twenty-four, as in the case of soldiers in time of war, or of farm labourers in the season of harvest, when the grain must be secured when weather is propitious. He would have His disciples lay this to heart, that they may be on their guard against impatience when they find, in the course of their experience, that new demands of service are made upon them beyond what already seemed a fair day’s work; and against such a self-complacent satisfaction with past performances, however considerable, as might indispose them for further exertion.
Such being the drift of the parable, there is of course no intention revealed in it to represent God in an ungracious light. Christ’s purpose is not to teach in what spirit God deals with His servants, but to teach rather in what spirit we should serve God. Doubtless the language put into the master’s mouth does convey the impression that the demand for additional service arises out of a despot’s caprice rather than out of a real necessary occasion. But any one acquainted with our Lord’s method of teaching knows how to interpret this sort of language. Christ was ever very bold in His representation of God’s apparent character, knowing as He did that God’s real character could stand it, and knowing well also what a hard aspect the Divine character sometimes wears to our view As in the parables last considered He drew pictures of a selfish neighbour and an unjust judge, meaning these to represent God as He appears to His people when He delays answers to their prayers; so here He depicts God not according to the gracious reality of His character, but according to the stern facts of Christian life. As on other occasions Jesus spake parables to teach that men ought always to pray and not faint, showing how importunity would ultimately prevail; so here He speaks a parable to teach that men ought always to work and not faint, schooling themselves into a spirit of severe dutifulness which yields not readily to weariness, nor is prone to self-complacent contentment with past attainments and performances, seeing that such a spirit is demanded by the course of providence from all who serve the Lord. The doctrine implied in our parable, that the kingdom of God makes very exacting demands on its servants, is not one that will startle any one familiar with our Lord’s general teaching. How many words He uttered bearing the same import! "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." "Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." "If thou wouldst be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and come and follow Me." "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and He that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." These are hard sayings; so hard that we are strongly tempted to exercise our wits in polishing off their sharp angles, in discovering some way by which, without setting them aside as Utopian, we may ease their pressure on the conscience. One way of doing this was very early found out. It was to convert those sayings of Christ, which seem to require renunciation of property and abstinence from domestic ties, into "counsels of perfection," as distinguished from positive commandments obligatory on all. Let all who would be perfect, who would take honours, so to speak, in the Divine kingdom, part with their property and practise celibacy. It is not necessary to do these things in order to have admission into the Divine kingdom; but those may do so who choose, and if they do it will be put to their credit. As for the common herd of Christians, all they need to mind is the keeping of the commandments of the Decalogue in their plain, obvious sense. In this way Christianity was made easy for the multitude, and those who went in for a higher style of piety had the pleasure of thinking that they were doing more than was commanded, and were therefore very far indeed from being unprofitable servants. Voluntary poverty and celibacy were the extra service after the day’s work of commonplace morality and religion was over, and, as such, received a higher rate of payment, in the form of praise and honour in earth and heaven. A most ingenious and plausible theory, but not true. Monkish asceticism is not the extra service of the Christian life. The over-time duty consists rather in extraordinary demands on God’s servants in exceptional times and unusual emergencies; when Christian men, already weary, must continue to work though sentient nature demands repose; when old men, who have already served God for many years, cannot enjoy the comparative exemption from toil which their failing powers call for, but must toil on till they die in harness; when liberal men, who have already given much of their substance for the advancement of the kingdom, are called on to give still more—it may be to give their all; when young men have to renounce the felicity of domestic life "for the kingdom of heaven’s sake," that they may be free from family cares and find it easier to bear hardship when it is restricted to their own person, and falls not upon any loved ones. In ordinary circumstances such extra service may not be called for. The servant after he has done his day’s work may at once sit down to meat and enjoy rest; the veteran soldier may retire on a pension; the man of wealth may retain his means; the young man may marry. But when the emergency arises which calls for extra service, then the extra service is obligatory on all. That such emergencies do arise every one knows. Extreme emergencies, times of persecution, for example, are rare; but minor emergencies are frequent; in fact, it may be said that to every Christian there come opportunities which test his patience and his obedience: times when, if he be half-hearted, self-indulgent, or self-complacent, he will say, "I have done enough;" but when, on the other hand, if he be of a dutiful mind, he will say, "I may not look on the things which are behind, or speak of past performances; my Master bids me gird myself for further service, and I must run at His call."
We can now see how appropriate is this parable as a representation of an actual experience in the life of godliness. The parable is true at once to natural life and to spiritual life. In societies where slavery prevails the slave is treated as the parable represents—as one who has no rights, and who therefore, do what he will, can be no profit to his master, and can have no claim to thanks. The assertion implied in the phrase "unprofitable slaves," so far from being an exaggeration, is rather a truism. The emphasis is to be placed on the word slaves: they are unprofitable because slaves; unprofitableness is a matter of course in a slave. And as slaves deserve no thanks, they receive none; and so long as they are slaves in spirit it is best they should not. This may seem a harsh statement, but we can cite a curious illustration of its truth from a recent book of African travel. The writer, giving some of his experiences in connection with his servants, says, "Afterwards when travelling with Arabs I found that we had treated our men with too much consideration, and they in consequence tried to impose on us, and were constantly grumbling and growling. Our loads were ten pounds lighter than the average of those carried for the Arab traders. And since they do not employ askari (soldiers, servants, donkey-drivers), their pagazi (porters), besides carrying loads, pitch tents and build screens and huts required for the women and cooking, so that they are frequently two or three hours in camp before having a chance of looking after themselves. With us the work of our porters was finished when they reached camp, for the askari pitched our tents, and the task of placing beds and boxes inside was left to our servants and gun-bearers."[1] [1] Lieutenant Cameron, ’Across Africa,’ vol. i. pp. 107, 108. The parable may be transferred to the spiritual sphere with one important exception. It is not needful or desirable that the servants of the kingdom be treated in the thankless manner in which Arab traders deal with their slaves. For God’s servants are not slaves in spirit, they are free men, and their service springs out of entirely different motives from those which influence slavish natures. And this observation leads us to notice the temper needful in order to compliance with the exact demands of the kingdom. Of what spirit must they be who shall prove themselves capable of rising to the heroic pitch when called on?
Two virtues at least are indispensable for this purpose—patience and humility. Patience, lest when the demand for new service comes we be unwilling to respond, and so either refuse the service or do it in a grudging humour; humility, lest we think too highly of what we have already done, and so be ignobly content with past performances and attainments. Of the two vices, impatience and self-complacency, the latter is the more to be feared. There is doubtless in all a tendency to grow weary in well-doing; but when the sense of duty is strong the temptation will be resisted. The word of God will be like a fire in the bones, and will make it impossible to refrain from action. But the spirit of self-complacency is specially to be feared just because its tendency is to drug conscience, deaden the sense of duty, lower the very ideal of life, and make us think we have done exceeding well when we have done very indifferently. There is no enemy to all high attainment so deadly as self-satisfaction. On the other hand, and for a similar reason, there is nothing more favourable to progress than a humility which expresses itself thus: "We are unprofitable servants." This may seem servile language, not fit to be used by a spiritual freeman, however humble. But it is not servile language. It is true of slaves that they are unprofitable, but it is not true of them that they confess themselves to be such, except it may be by way of a mere façon de parler. It is only the freeman who makes such a confession, and in the very act of making it he shows himself to be free. And whence springs this confession of the free, self-devoted spirit? Is it out of an abject sense of personal demerit, or an exaggerated sense of Divine majesty? No, but rather out of a sense of redemption. It is a deep sense of Divine grace which makes a man work like a slave, yet think little of his performance. The French have a proverb noblesse oblige, which means that rank imposes obligations; so that a true noble does not require to be told his duty, but is a law unto himself. In like manner, it may be said of a true Christian that the consciousness of redemption obliges, grateful love constrains, taxes energies, time, possessions very heavily; has the greatest possible difficulty in satisfying itself—in truth, never is satisfied; makes one work like a slave, refusing to be limited by hours and fixed measures and proportions, and yet pronounces on all actual performances the verdict, ’unprofitable,’ ’nothing to boast of.’ And thus it appears that our parable, though on the face of it ignoring or even denying the gracious character of God, and turning Him into a slave-driver, has for its unseen foundation the very grace which it seems to deny. Nothing but a belief in Divine grace can make it possible for a man to work with the devotion and the temper required of him by the service of the kingdom. A legal relation between God and man never could achieve such a result, never could make a man in spirit and conduct a hero. Legal relation can make men unprofitable servants; but it cannot make them supremely profitable, yet all the while so humble that they can honestly think and call themselves unprofitable. That moral phenomenon in which the extremes of devotion and modesty meet can be found only where God is conceived of as a God of love, freely giving, not severely exacting; in the lives of men like Paul and Luther, and the genuine offspring of their faith. Said we not truly at the commencement, that if we could only break the shell of our parable we should find it contain a very sweet kernel? The implied doctrine is that the kingdom is a kingdom of grace, and that devotion is the cardinal virtue of its citizens; a devotion rendered possible by the grace of the kingdom, and necessary by its imperial tasks.