Unprofitable Servants

This is a parable about employment, and Jesus expects everyone listening to take the master's side.

It answers a request. And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. He gives them the mustard seed and the sycamine tree, and then, with no pause, this.

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 expected answer is nobody. The man comes in from a full day behind a plough and is told, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me. He cooks, he waits at table, he eats last. Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow 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. Unprofitable is an accounting word. Nothing has accumulated on the servant's side of the page that could later be produced as a claim. The sentence removes a ledger, and says nothing about the man being worthless; the master is satisfied with the work.

Which makes what he said five chapters earlier almost impossible 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 girding himself and serving is exactly what the later parable says no master does. Both sentences are his. The servant may never claim it, and the master may do it anyway.

There is a piece of faithfulness you have been quietly waiting to be noticed for. Say the servant's line over it once, out loud, in your kitchen: we have done that which was our duty to do. Then start tomorrow's.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 137 is Children of Peace (Isaiah 54:13).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two