Tuesday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 8, 2022

Luke 17, 7-10

Jesus said to the Apostles: “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ”

Speaking to his Apostles in today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord explains the life of the true disciple: it is one of continual service.  He speaks of a slave (doulos) who comes in from the field or the pasture and once in the house, the master sets him to serving him at table.  Likewise, the disciple of Christ performs a wide variety of service, signified here by work both indoors and out.  Nor is the master absurd in expecting this of a slave already tired out from the day’s labor.  As the Lord points out, it would be absurd for the master to serve the slave.  The social positions are fixed firmly not only in the law of the time but also in the minds of the people living then.  The slave is not run to death, however.  The master tells him that he may eat and take his rest after he has served him at table.  

The slave in ancient times acted so as to preserve his life and so obeyed orders.  That is, he acted largely out of fear.  The disciple of Christ acts out of love, and does no more than imitate his Master, who worked relentlessly for us throughout his life, but especially in the last three years of his life.  Even on the Sabbath, when others took their ease, the Lord healed, exorcised, preached in the synagogues, and disputed with the Pharisees as he dined with them.  We might well say that the Lord acted as the slave of the human race.  Thus, we can understand today’s Gospel Reading in a completely different way: that it is the Lord who is plowing the field or pasturing the sheep — sowing the seeds of the Gospel and governing his flock of his Church — and he comes in, exhausted, but he has made us his masters and so we sit down at table and are served by him before he takes his rest.  That is, he feeds us his Body and Blood.  After we have eaten and left the dining room, he spends the night in prayer, as he so often did after a long day of preaching and performing miracles.  This prayer, this communing with his Father, is his food.  Let it be ours, as well.