Selected Sermons, Volume 3

161 On the Servant Who Came in from the Field

SERMON 161 On the Servant Who Came in from the Field ou have heard, brothers, how the Lord uses an example of human servitude to teach the requirements involved in serving God, when he says: Who among you who has a servant plowing or pasturing sheep, says to him as soon as he comes in from the field: “Come and recline at table”; and does not say to him: “Come and put on your apron and wait on me until I eat and drink, and you shall eat and drink afterwards?” Does he show gratitude to that servant because he did what he ordered him to do? I think not. So you also, he goes on, when you have done everything that has been commanded of you, say: “We are useless servants; we have done what we ought to have done” (Lk 17.7–10). 2. So you also (v.10). What is the similarity? Rather, it is a great dissimilarity! Does the human being owe to God only as much as one human being owes to another? Far from it! It is quite another relationship, the case is quite different, the obligation is quite dissimilar. God made the human being exist, he ordained that he be born, he granted him life, he allowed him to have wisdom; he bestowed upon him periods of time, he assigned ages in life, he made provisions for his glory, he opened a route for him to attain honor, he put him in charge of living things,1 and he prescribed it thus for the whole earth by a precise law and for a precise period of time. Even after these first blessings of God to humanity, which were so tremendous and great, had been lost, he fashioned again a second installment of blessings, so much greater inasmuch as they were divine, so much more precious inasmuch as they were heavenly. For later he made an inhabitant of heaven the one whom earlier he had made to be a dweller upon the 282 1. See Gn 1.26. earth, in order that he face no adversity nor attack upon him, and that no sneak might any longer invade the goods of earth and prevail over the human being;2 in order that his now secure condition would keep him safe after an unstable freedom had brought him to ruin, and in order that the human being would be free in every respect by serving only the Lord. He is indebted to the Lord for the condition in which he has been made, and he is indebted for his origin; for the fact that he has been redeemed, that he has been purchased, he certainly owes service, as the Apostle says: “You have been purchased for a price; do not become slaves of human beings.”3 And the prophet speaks as follows so as to acknowledge his condition and origin: “I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid .”4 This is what the human being owes to God; what does he owe to another human being that is like it? And, nevertheless, God seeks only that same amount, because the human being is unwilling to render anything to God, to whom he owes everything. But let us repeat the reading and put the parable itself before our eyes, and then what we have said will be clear, namely, that we do not pay any service to God, but pay all our service to the human being. 3. Who among you who has a servant plowing or pasturing sheep, will say to him as soon as he comes in from the field: “Come and recline at table”; and does not say to him: “Come and put on your apron and wait on me until I eat and drink, and you shall eat and drink afterwards ?” (vv.7–8) How familiar, how ordinary, how rooted in daily custom, and how commonplace is this teaching! If the one who hears it is a master, he recognizes that he demands the like from his servant; if the listener is a servant, he is aware of doing these things for his master. For indeed the servant, after arising before dawn, after a variety of strenuous labors all day long, and after running about all anxious and agitated, also prepares dinner for his master, and in appropriate attire serves what he has prepared. He is not haughty because he has done these things, but in his particSERMON 161 283...