"Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?  

(Luke 17:7)

You may know that before I retired I was a teacher for thirty-eight years. I was also, though, a union rep. Part of my job was to keep reminding managers that the couldn’t just keep loading tasks onto teachers without regard to their contractual hours. I also sometimes had to advise colleagues - especially younger ones - that they couldn’t be on-duty twenty four - seven: that they needed time for themselves. Generally teachers do go and beyond their contractual duties and do things like school trips, school shows, clubs and all the rest of it because they have a sense of vocation but it was my job to remind them and management that voluntary means voluntary. 

So you can imagine I come to this passage with its talk of slaves coming in from the fields and being put to more work - effectively being on duty 24-7 - with a degree of trepidation. I kind of feel the union rep hackles rising. But context matters here. Jesus was teaching in the 1st Century and we have to make sense of his teachings in the 21st Century. In his time slave-ownership was commonplace and he was trying to communicate ideas in commonplace terms that people of his time would understand. Things have moved on a bit since then and the word ‘slave’ has unhappy connotations.

So let’s think about servants who are ‘on duty’ all day every day. When I was speaking to younger colleagues they used to tell me that they were trained to think they were never not a teacher. Part of me wanted to disagree - the union rep part - but I kind of knew what we meant. As Christians we are never not servants of God. He is supposed to be able to call on us at any time and in any place to do his work. Work from which he gains nothing. God doesn’t need anything. The service he sets us to is for or benefit, for the benefit of our neighbours, our society and for the world around us.

We gather here on a Sunday for what we call a service and maybe there’s a temptation to think that when we’ve rocked up here and sung the songs, said the prayers put the money in the plate, and listened to the interminable ramblings from the preacher we’ve fulfilled our contractual obligations. And I have to tell you that when I was attending communion class back in the Eighties it was strongly suggested to me that that was what being a member of the Church was all about.

So maybe - just maybe - we’ve locked the idea of service into buildings like these and what goes on inside them. Maybe we’ve come to imagine that Christianity is simply a set of beliefs we assent to and recount when we come to places like this. Maybe we look at places like this that are closing across the country and become discouraged. Maybe we sing the hymns about one day every tongue confessing that Christ is Lord and wonder if that will ever happen. Maybe we are like the disciples who asked for more faith and Christ says that if they had just a little faith they could uproot a mulberry tree and cast it into the seas. That reminded me of a saying: if you pray to God to move a mountain, don’t be surprised if he hands you a shovel.

We are servants of God 24-7. Why? Because Christianity isn’t simply a set of beliefs or a creed to be recited or a bunch of things we do in a church. It’s a life to be lived. It’s a way not just of living but of being. It’s a way of being reshaped through the redemptive power of the Cross of Christ and being reborn with each new day to be what we are meant to be - servants of God doing his work in the world and as children of God made in his image to show the world, or at least the little bit we come in contact with, his love and his will for what he wants this world to be.

That is what we are for as the Church of Jesus Christ - to play our part in God’s reshaping the world to make it a place more like the Kingdom of Heaven: a world where love conquers hate, where generosity defeats selfishness and greed, where human beings turn to each other as brothers and sisters regardless of race or culture or sexuality, where arms are laid down and we study war no more. And yes these days that seems a long way off. And yes the Church is going through hard times. But that’s the point about the mulberry tree and the sea.

We are not called to success but to faithful service. There was one time Mother Teresa was asked in an interview how she could possibly succeed in feeding all the poor of Calcutta. She answered that she wasn’t called to succeed but to serve however she could. That’s what we are called to do. To serve - not just in here but in the world out there by bearing witness to the love of God for humanity and a the world; a love so extravagant that he sent his own Son into the world to serve humanity and die for us.

We are called to faithful service. To live as children of God offering forgiveness to those who hurt us; offering love for our enemies; offering kindness in a world that often doesn’t care. We are called to faithful service. To be a beacon of hope in a world of despair; to be light to a world to a world of darkness; to hold always before our eyes a world reborn and reshaped by love and to plant seeds of that love where we can.

Father may we be faithful servants. Grant us faith enough to play our part in your purpose at any time and in any place. Make us always know, all day, every day, that we are your children.

Preached at Baxter Hall Eastriggs and Annan Old Parish Church

Complete Service