Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 137 · May 17
Unprofitable Servants
“So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”
This is a story about a job, and Jesus expects everyone listening to take the master's side.
It comes as an answer to a request: "And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith." Jesus tells them that faith as small as a grain of mustard seed could uproot a sycamine tree and plant it in the sea. Then, without a pause, He tells them this story.
"But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?" The answer everyone expects is that nobody would. The servant has come in from a full day behind a plough, and he is told, "Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me." So he cooks, he waits at the table, and he eats last. Then Jesus asks, "Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not." "I trow not" is old English for "I think not."
"So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." The Greek word behind "unprofitable" can mean useless or unworthy, and here servants say it after doing everything they were told, so the point is that they have earned nothing extra. Nothing has built up on his side of the account that he could bring out later as a claim on his master. The sentence takes away his balance sheet. It finds no fault with his work. He has simply done what he owed.
That makes something Jesus said five chapters earlier hard to hold beside it. "Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." A master tying on an apron and serving his servants is exactly what the later story says no master does. Both sayings come from Jesus, and they fit together. The servant may never claim that honour as his right, and the Master, out of His own kindness, gives it anyway.
Perhaps there is some faithful work you have been quietly waiting for someone to notice. Say the servant's line over it once, out loud, in your kitchen: "we have done that which was our duty to do." Then let go of the claim and start tomorrow's work, knowing that your Lord has already promised to serve His watching servants at His own table.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 137 is Children of Peace (Isaiah 54:13).