Servants of the Lord

The word 'servant', at first sight, hardly connotes a high position in today's conceited civilisation. A servant is a person who, in some way or another, depends on another one for his own sustenance. He is paid a salary for doing somebody else's work and must remain at the beck and call of the one who employs him. His own freedom is limited, and there is only a limited period of time which he can call his own.

Today, on the other hand, we have become familiar with the binomium 'civil servant', denominating a person who is employed by the government for a fixed salary. Many would consider themselves lucky if they succeeded in securing such a job. which is normally steadier and more lucrative than many others.

In a different context we are also familiar with the appellation of 'Servant of God' when applied to persons who have lived an exemplary life as good Christians and have been honoured by that title by the Church. This moreover recalls to us one of the titles by which even Popes are often designated as 'Servants of God's Servants'.

But there is more. Writing to the Philippians, St Paul applies this title to Our Lord when he says that Christ, by becoming man, "dispossessed himself and took the nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of man and presenting himself in humarl form". By the way, the Blessed Virgin Mary, when told by the angel that it was God's will that she was chosen to become the mother of the Messiah, humbly replied: "Behold the slave (doule) of the Lord."

A closer look at today's message taken from St Luke's Gospel will indicate that the word used here is not servant, which in itself does not necessarily connote anything dishonourable, but 'slave' (doulos). Since most servants in the first-century Mediterranean world were slaves in the strict sense of the word, the term 'servants' loses some of the power of the metaphor, because it bypasses the fact that, at that time and place, slaves were the property, not the employees, of their masters. Moreover, both Jesus and the early Christian writers were very much at home using slavery as a positive metaphor for one's relationship to God. In their cultures slavery was simply a fact of life. Some two-thirds of the population were either slaves or former slaves.

Jesus dared to teach that his followers were to be slaves of one another. A slave is not at all an employee of his master; he never 'earns' anything when he carries out his master's orders. So we, when we have lived our covenant relationship with God and with one another, have simply done our duty and have 'earned' nothing.

The good news, therefore, in this image of our relationship to God is that, in living the life of faith, we come to see that we have a secure role in the 'household' of God, just as a slave used to have in his master's house. Like a household slave, we belong in that household even more than an employee. What we are in reality is far more important than what we do.

What we 'do' is also very important for as Christians, as members of God's household. But more important still is what we 'are' - members of God's household, which is the Church, destined to enjoy peace of conscience in this life and an etemal reward in the other. There we shall be judged not on 'what' we have accomplished, but on 'how' we have done so: out of sincere humility, but especially out of dedicated love for our Divine Master and for his Church.