On the Servant Who Came in from the Field
You 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 1 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, 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 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; 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. " And the prophet speaks as follows so as to
acknowledge his condition and origin: "I am your servant, and the son of
your handmaid. " This is what the human being owes to God; what does he
owe to another human being that is like it?
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