“Suppose one of you had a servant
plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes
in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my
supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you
may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he
did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done
everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have
only done our duty.’” Luke 17:7-10
I
recently stumbled across this parable and have no memory of ever seeing it
before. Obviously, I must have, since I
have read Luke many times and even taught a class on it in Senior High Sunday
School, but apparently this particular passage never registered with me until
now. I suspect I know why it didn’t
register. On the surface it isn’t a warm
and fuzzy parable. As a matter of fact,
it seems pretty cold! I’m sure it made
me uncomfortable, so I hurried on to more pleasant verses. This time, however, it leapt off the page and
gave me a valuable missing piece to the puzzle of grace.
I grew up in a church that taught plenty of
action/consequence and very little grace.
My church’s idea of grace was that God would give me the ability to earn
my salvation, so, if I failed to earn my salvation, it wasn’t God’s fault. In previous blogs I have written about my
joyous discovery that Christianity was not about action/consequence – If I do
this then God will do that - but about death/resurrection – I was dead in my transgressions
and sins and God, in his mercy, made me alive with Christ. (See Ephesians 2:1-9). For me it was very good news that not only
was it going to be hard for me to earn my salvation, it was impossible, even
with help, because I was dead! And while I was dead, Christ fulfilled all the
requirements for me and then paid the penalty for my sins, so that when he was
resurrected, I was resurrected with him!
I reveled in the
fact that there was nothing more I could do to add to what Christ had already
done for me. I reveled in it, that is,
until I ran into verses that sounded like there was something more I was supposed to do to add to what Christ had
done for me, like good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (See
Ephesians 2:10); then, I would get nervous and uncomfortable. And there are enough verses that talk about
the good things Christians are supposed to do, and the bad things Christians
are not supposed to do, that I would frequently find myself nervous and uncomfortable. Then I would go back and reread the passages
of scripture that clearly taught the finished work of Christ on my behalf, and
I would feel the relief wash over me again.
I have struggled
desperately to understand the part that my behavior plays in my relationship
with God. I understood that my works
could never be good enough to save me; but, could my lack of good works, or my
bad deeds somehow “lose” me? Even those
who believe in eternal security have a loophole that says if the person goes
off the deep end they were never saved to begin with.
I have frequently
used the illustration that salvation is like a teacher giving you an A in the
class on the first day, no strings attached; and then offering to help you
learn the material at your own pace, with no fear of failure. The A represents
salvation. It is a gift, with no strings
attached; and then God tailor makes a learning plan for each one of us,
according to our individual needs.
But that learning
plan presupposes that I will learn, and by “learn” I mean become more like
Jesus; but what if I don’t? What if I
look at myself after all these years of being a Christian and I still seem very
much the same as I always have, with maybe a little more knowledge and
understanding, but not much transformation?
How much transformation is enough? How little transformation is too
little? Is there really no fear of failure? Or is the A actually conditional
after all?
This parable in
Luke sheds some light on those questions for me. There is a difference between having the A
and being worthy of the A. No matter how
quickly or slowly I learn the material after I receive the A; I will not be
able to add to the A. If I work
extremely hard and excel at the material, I cannot raise the grade to an A+. If I’m a dunce and can’t seem to grasp a
thing, I cannot lower my grade to a B, much less an F. I cannot become more worthy of my grade, or
more unworthy of my grade, primarily because no one is worthy of the grade, or
ever could be. Earning or deserving has
been completely removed from the equation.
That is the entire point. So, any
work I do is not for credit, it is simply my duty. No thanks needs to be given to me, and when I
find myself expecting a pat on the back from God, I am reminded of my true
condition – unworthy.
I don’t know about
you, but I find that to be a tremendous relief! Christ alone is worthy, so I do
not have to be! And what about the works
which were prepared in advance for me to do? God knows what kind of a learner I
am, and he created them just for me; but, whether they are great tasks or small
tasks, and whether I perform them magnificently or falteringly, they earn me no
credit or demerit in his eyes, since I have already been credited with
perfection! Because of that, I can stand securely in this state of grace and
say with a smile, “I am an unworthy servant and have only done my duty.”
