Of Debts and Debtors

Luke 17:7-10, Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, "Come at once and recline at table"? Will he not rather say to him, "Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink"? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty."

I think there is something in contemporary Westerners that balks at Christ's example here. Americans in particular prize equality and "giving a man his fair share." If you've worked hard, you deserve recompense and you shouldn't have to bow and scrape to anyone to get it! Of course, for most of humanity both outside the West and across the span of history such egalitarianism and "square deals" have never been prevalent or even popular, contrary to what Westerners tell themselves.

Though these ideals doubtless have their virtues, they have too their latent "poisons" as do all things consumed in large quantities. The worst effect of a whole-hearted embrace of rights and dues is an inoculation against grace! In a world where everyone "deserves" this or that, the concept of grace is foreign and even loses its potency. (Of course, grace was as alien to those in Christ's day as it is in ours which is why grace will be the wonder of eternity.)

You don't see much praying happening on the silver screen but on the few occasions I have, I've noted a common refrain, last repeated in Mary's prayer for Matthew in Downton Abby season two: "If I've ever done anything good, do this for me." You have to admit this is commonly our attitude toward God. Even when we're doctrinally savvy enough to never actually voice those sentiments, they still roil deep within our hearts. Often, all we have to do is look at our response to God when something happens to us we don't think we deserve. Accusation. Anger. Rebellion. And my favorite, an attempt to "get back at God" as though anything we do could hurt Him more than it does us. How often have you responded to your "unfair" circumstances with "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord"?

I love the corrective to our skewed hearts Christ gives us in this passage. Having lived as God has called us, we dare not think we are doing God a favor! God hardly owes us something because “we’ve been good.” Let those anxious to speak of debts and "just" deserts first gaze deep into the mouth of hell, our rightful home.

Yet even were we to have never fallen and have lived a life in perfect harmony with God's precepts, we would still only fulfill the role of a servant to his Master who needn’t thank His slave for doing as he was told. Perfect lives, were they at all attainable, are merely what God expects from us. And there is no way to exceed perfection and thus put God in our debt. Far from it, because we are fallen creatures and the expected standard of perfection wasn't even a dream for the apostle John, our failure to meet God's requirements only earn us damnation. And still we have the arrogant audacity to exact pretended debts from a God to whom we are deeply indebted for any good thing we enjoy in life!

How wonderful to serve a God who keeps no record of our debts, who like the prodigal's father joyfully throws good money after bad when his errant son returns with nothing in his hands but the scars of a failed past and the muck of a swineherd. Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily, I'm constrained to be!