CreationFoundation
-- Home Page/Contents
28--
TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN . . .
Luke 12:35-48 "Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from a wedding banquet, that when he comes and knocks they can open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them.
And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."
Then Peter said to Him, "Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?"
And the Lord said, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has.
But if that servant says in his heart, "My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
And that servant who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been entrusted, of him they will ask the more.
Each parable adds a few more brush strokes to our understanding of the Kingdom of God, and here the master who delays his return from the wedding feast evidently represents Jesus, and the waiting servants his disciples throughout the centuries -- and the household in which they serve would seem to signify the organized body of the Christian Church.
Although many hoped for the kingdom to come at that time (Acts 1:6-7), the fact that the master's return is delayed so long into the night that the servants need lamps burning suggests that Christ's coming and the end of this age could also be greatly delayed, as it has been in fact, until a time when it is not expected (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, 2 Peter 3:9-14).
If the servants in the parable are the disciples of Jesus, then who are these more senior servants or stewards who become complacent and give up watching and waiting because the master delays his coming, and so neglect their responsibilities to the other servants -- abusing their positions of authority, becoming consumed with mundane matters, even getting drunk and dealing harshly with the male and female servants beneath them? Whoever they are, the warning Jesus addresses to them is stern indeed.
Notice also, however, the warning to all disciples that to whom much is given, from him much will be required, which seems to imply, as do some other parables, that Jesus' expections of his followers are differentiated according to their natural abilities and the opportunities afforded them.
Notice too the distinction once again made between the disciples of Jesus and the rest of the world -- as Peter asks if this parable is addressed to the disciples or to all people.
Peter may well have this very parable in mind when, some years later, he also warns church leaders of the danger of abusing the trust placed in them, saying: "Be shepherds of God's flock that is under you care . . . not greedy for money but eager to serve: not lording it over those entrusted to you; but being examples to the flock (1 Peter 5:2-3).
Paul also appears to have this section of scripture in mind when he says that the return of Christ and the accompanying "day of the Lord" will come as a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2).