First Friends Meeting
Luke 17:7-10
‘The Spirit of Service’
Doug Gwyn

We’re continuing to listen to the parables of Jesus. It’s been an interesting journey. When we think of the parables of Jesus, we often think of the feel-good ones, like the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan. But many of these little stories have had confusing and disturbing overtones – not just for the people who first heard them, but for us today. The passage Charles has just read for us is really not quite a parable. More a ‘what-if’ than a proper story.

And it’s not a very attractive ‘what-if’ either. Jesus says more-less what if you had a slave, a servant? Of course, very few of his listeners would have had servants. But he simply says, this how you would probably treat your servant. This is the way servants are normally treated. Let’s say the guy’s been out plowing and tending your sheep all day. You won’t say, oh, thanks so much! Now, come in and take a load off. I’ll fix you a nice dinner. No, you’ll say, OK, now get busy and fix me my dinner. Of course, Jesus is probably just describing the way it typically worked between masters and servants. But it grates on us. It’s a very unattractive thing for Jesus to say. Come on, this is our Blessed Savior, the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith! We don’t want to hear this from Jesus!

And he concludes with a surprising twist. He says, it’s the same with you. “When you have done all that you were ordered to do, [you will] say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” This sounds even worse to many people. It sounds like going through life with a bad self-image – “a worthless slave” – I can never do enough to work myself out of that tag. And God is a ruthless task-master who will never be satisfied. But I think Jesus is working with a delicious irony here. There’s something we can recognize in this from our own experience. And it’s not about carrying a bad self-image to the grave.

This parable has passed through my mind several times since Margaret Inglis passed from us. I may have mentioned before my amazement at hearing how many social services Margaret had started around Richmond during her years as a social worker. It takes so much work and patience to get things like that started. And Margaret did that on top of her regular social work. I expressed my amazement to her while she was still living. Margaret just answered very quietly and simply, “I was just seeing to things that needed to be done.” She wasn’t being coy. Her modesty was genuine. To her, these were just things that needed to be done, and she was in the right place to make them happen. She had come to the end of a long life of compassion and service, and her only comment on it was pretty much what Jesus predicted. And this was not someone wracked by chronic low self-esteem.

Margaret has been an outstanding example to all of us. But I think each of us learns something of the same truth she witnessed that day to me. Each of us, sooner or later, finds that calling, or vocation, or purpose in life that takes us beyond ourselves. It may be parenting. It may be your work life. It may be community service, or through work for First Friends. For most of us, it’s some combination of things. But in each case, there’s some powerful inner compulsion that has made you some kind of servant. It’s not an ego-driven compulsion to be admired, although a little recognition along the way helps. It’s not the compulsion of a bad self-image, forever trying to earn the love and acceptance of others. No, it’s this drive to do this thing for its own sake, and for the sake of those it will help. And over the years, you knock yourself out, you wear yourself down, you pour yourself out. It’s not about earning praise, gaining acceptance, or placating shame or guilt. It’s “just seeing to things that needed to be done,” as Margaret put it.

Of course, it’s true: people do sometimes knock themselves out for the wrong reasons. Only you know for sure, in your heart, whether this inner compulsion is a healthy one or not, whether it’s giving you life, or sapping your life. But when it’s the right spirit that’s driving you, where does that energy come from? What is that inner compulsion? Years ago, I read an article on preaching by Morris Niedenthal. I think it captures the heart of that matter very well. Niedenthal was warning preachers to watch for the syntax of their sermons. He says there are two basic grammars in preaching. The grammar of the law and the grammar of the gospel. The grammar of the law is conditional. It goes, “If A, then B.” In the laws of nature, we say, if such and such happens, this will be the result. Or in moral law, if such and such happens, then this should be the penalty or the reward. We need the grammar of the law to know wrong from right, to predict outcomes, etc. But Niedenthal warns that in preaching, this can become the language of burden. We’ve all heard it – if you’re a real Christian, then you’ll do such and such. If you really love the Lord, then you’ll give more to the Church, or whatever. It becomes the law of demand, of never-ending obligations. It lays burdens on us, without giving us any power to carry them. It also leads us to compare ourselves with each other, and to judge one another.

Jesus said, I didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. How did he do that? Niedenthal points out that again and again in the language of Jesus we notice a different grammar. The grammar of the gospel, of liberation, of empowerment. It’s not “if A, then B.” It’s because A, therefore B.” It’s not a conditional statement, its an indicative followed by an imperative. That’s pretty abstract. Let me offer a couple examples. Remember the woman caught in adultery. After Jesus disarmed and dispersed the mob that was about to stone her, he turned to the poor woman and asked her, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” And she answered, “No one.” Jesus replied, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” In announcing, “Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus has released her from a terrible situation, and released enormous energy of relief and new possibility. And in the same breath comes the imperative, “Go and sin no more.” It gives a new direction in life for all that good energy to flow.

Or there’s that leper who came up to Jesus and said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” That’s a conditional statement – “If A, then B.” Jesus touched the man and said, “I do choose. Be made clean” (Luke 5:12-13). Jesus made the healing power available to him – but the man had to be healed. He had to move into that reality. And he was immediately healed. Then Jesus told the man to go show himself to the priests, as Moses commands, so he could be officially certified as clean and re-enter human society. The law doesn’t go away. But Jesus empowers us to fulfill it in new ways.

That’s why, in the final analysis, the gospel is not really a spiritual teaching. It’s not really a set of spiritual techniques for enlightenment (techniques are still in the grammar of the law – “if you do such and such, then you’ll be enlightened.”). It’s not a philosophy or a secret wisdom. The gospel is quite simply the Good News. It begins with the Christmas message, with the angel saying to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid; for I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people…Peace on earth and good will toward all.” The Good News culminates with the messenger at the tomb that tells the women, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look there is the place they laid him. But go, tell the disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:6-7).

That Good News is for all of us. It sometimes takes us a long time to really hear it. We have to hear it in the circumstances of our own lives, in the idiom that makes most sense to us. But when we finally do – when the Good News becomes our Good News – it releases powerful new energy. Energy to do wonderful things in God’s creation, to be a servant of the Lord’s redeeming love to all creatures. Your channel of service will be unique to you. To other people it may look like a real burden. And for them, it might be. But it’s not their channel of service. It’s yours. And to you, it’s like Margaret said – just seeing to some things that need to be done. From the outside, God can look like a terrible taskmaster. From the inside, God is Love. And God is the Power to make that love visible here and now.