Title: The Essence of Discipleship
master and servant
During his three years of public life, Jesus met many people, ate and drank with them, socialized, healed various diseases, and gave many teachings on the nature of faith and religion as well as the teachings of parables about the kingdom of God. Some of these teachings are easy to understand, but some are not. Even the disciples of Jesus complained that they could not understand the words of Jesus, so it is understandable. Now, two thousand years later, it may be impossible for us to understand the Word correctly today. The gap of the past two thousand years is too far away, but it is also because the history of distorting those teachings is too deep. The words we read today are not easy for us to follow, and moreover, there is a possibility that they will be distorted. Let's put aside for a moment some fixed frame of our religious experience, which we call 'a priori', which we need to confront directly with the word itself.
The servant has been farming or shepherding all day, and comes home in the evening, but the owner does not tell him to ‘let’s eat first’. Rather, he had to cook dinner for his master, wait for the master while he ate, and only after all household chores were completed could he do his work. Judging from the fact that the owner in the text did not have a separate servant for the household, it seems that he is not that rich. If there had been a separate servant who did the housework, the servants who had been working in the fields or fields all day would have been able to rest for a while.
Jesus commented on this parable: There is no reason for the master to thank the servant just because the servant obeyed this master's unreasonable command. Even though it is a servant, it is difficult to understand Jesus' comment that there is no reason for the master to be grateful if he served his master almost like a machine. Dogs need to be cute, and cows need to be fed on time, but are you saying it's okay to treat humans like this? As mentioned above, in ancient societies, the relationship between master and slave was common sense. Of course, institutions and laws made this possible, but human consciousness itself was so entrenched that the master did not feel any remorse when he treated the servant arbitrarily. Of course, there were some special cases where the slave was regarded as his own child or brother, but in general, the master took for granted the inhuman suffering that the slave had to endure.
slave ethic
Jesus concluded this parable this way: “You too, after you have done everything according to your command, say, ‘We are little servants. I just did what I had to do’” (10). Even if the servant came home from work all day long and waited for his master for dinner, the master did not say a word of praise or thank you at all, even though he might be a little annoyed, he would unconditionally humble himself, just like a servant should have. Jesus said that we should have this attitude before God. This teaching has been presented as a Christian virtue for many years.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with this teaching itself. Rather, in the sense that human pride has reached the ends of the heavens, the attitude of humbling oneself like a servant is a religious attitude that we Christians must learn. Considering the fact that Jesus always emphasized humility in other places, and that He humbled Himself to the point of dying on the cross, we should humble ourselves to the end, not boasting, even though we have worked hard to reach the selfish level.
Warning to the Pharisees
Today's teaching, which sounds almost like a slave ethic, is persuasive only for certain situations and people, rather than for all of us in general. In other words, this teaching is a warning to those who objectify and relativize the belief that is an absolute event, not that the Christian faith is a slavery. They were soon Pharisees.
existential joy
To view today's text as a warning to the Pharisees who are engrossed in thinking about achievements and rewards and punishments is a passive interpretation of the Word. It is not negative in a negative sense, but in that it is the dark side of the Word. Now we have to look at the positive or bright side of this verse. The relationship between master and slave may not seem bright no matter how you look at it, but if we turn our spiritual perspective down a little, that world will come in. What is it?
If we look at the attitude of the master who did not thank the servant for his labor in today's text, we can recognize this fact accurately. The work done by the master to the servant is the act itself that makes the servant experience salvation. Since it is absolute and decisive, no other compensation is required. We have nothing in this world that we deserve other than the fact that God is with us. If he thinks that we should receive some kind of reward, and if he thinks that Christians should go to heaven and receive a greater reward than others, he does not know God. From this point of view, there is nothing more urgent and more urgent for us to pursue than to enter the world of God. Is your life happy and enjoyable enough just to exist in God like this without receiving any reward? Do you have that kind of spirituality? That is the essence of discipleship in Jesus Christ.