~Luke 12.35-38 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.
~Luke 17.7-10 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Clearly mealtime is among Jesus' favorite metaphors for his Kingdom. In these two passages he makes an unlikely, maybe even unthinkable, picture of a master serving dinner to his servants. This weird change of circumstance would have caught the attention of hearers, both masters and slaves. He uses the incongruity to make two different points: 1) be ready at all times for the master's return, and 2) humbly do your duty without expecting commendation for it.
PS I admire Ben Hoerr for taking Luke 17.10 as a key verse in his life and his recent dramatic and unexpected change in circumstance.
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