Unprofitable

 This week in the Gospel of Luke, we encounter one of those lines in Sacred Scripture that can be challenging to us: “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we are obliged to do.” Luke 17: 10

These words from Jesus can sound harsh, they smack against our pride, they seem dismissive of all our efforts, all we have suffered in service to the Kingdom. And yet, in reality, there is a great peace to be had in them. In speaking thus to us, Jesus is not demeaning us but is rather freeing us from the anxiety that accompanies uncertainty about what we are meant to do and the awful weight of trying to earn salvation.

Service to the Kingdom, service to God and to neighbor is what we are obliged to do. This is another way of saying that it is what we were made for, what we were meant to do. There is a deep peace and a joy in doing what we were made for, in knowing that we are spending our energy, our lives on what is right and good.

There is also a peace in the word “unprofitable,” despite how negative it may sound to us. Knowing that our efforts are unprofitable eases us from the burden of trying to be profitable. I cannot earn my salvation, my actions however virtuous or heroic will not purchase Heaven. I cannot redeem myself. All of this, salvation, redemption, the hope of Heaven, is a gift. It is given because God loves me; He pays the price and lavishly pours out the blessing upon me, rather than demanding that I attempt to carry the burden myself, a task that would be impossible. No matter how good my work is it would never be profitable enough to merit Heaven and so there is no loss in it being deemed unprofitable; it was never meant to be anything else.

I must still serve, must still seek to do the good, but this is a response to God’s love not a bid for His attention. I don’t have to attempt to be good enough for Him to take note of me, to regard me favorably, He does so already. My work is for His sake, not my own, to glorify His name and to build His Kingdom. This service then is not burdensome because it is merely living as I was made to live and faithfully doing the one thing that I most deeply desire to do- to love God and make Him known and loved.