Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord, and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. Ephesians 6: 5-8.
These verses have troubled me, made me uncomfortable, since I first took on a serious study of the Bible. And there is good reason. First, I don’t like the idea of slaves at all. Like many, I see the word, with all its horrible connotations, and everything else in this part of Paul’s letter seems to disappear. Second, there is a history of men using these verses, not only to justify the ownership of God’s people, but to tell those people that their sufferings were not important, giving the false notion that many rewards await, that they will be, like their masters, rich and not working.
The truth is we are all slaves. As Christ points out, we cannot serve the world and God at the same time. In other places, Paul encourages us to throw off the yoke of slavery to the flesh, and enter into the focused service of God. Doing so is, any Christian should be able to tell you, a lifelong struggle, as we so often shift our allegiances, sometimes unawares.
But what troubles me today is that word enthusiasm. It reeks with the smell of all that blind positive thinking pseudo-philosophy: fake being happy because people respond better to good attitudes than truth. It makes me think about that second objection, that a human being in service should not only do what she or he is told, but do it with a smile, even if being abused or mistreated.
On the other hand, we are all slaves. We who love Jesus accept servitude, and the love and service go together. The problem, I find, is in reading this in terms of reward and punishment. If I do well, I’ll be rewarded; if my earthly masters do poorly, they will be punished. That is a way of seeing our relationship with God as it intersects with our relationships with others. Yet, to do so is to imagine ourselves as always imperfect creatures whose happiness is tied to a corruptible, flawed and difficult to please Master. It is to see God as whatever human authority seems to have the most control over our lives.
The Lord who told his disciples, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” also said, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Spiritual life may not be about the work we take up, but the burdens we are willing to put down, not so much to earn favor with Our Lord, but because He has earned favor in our hearts.
Holy Master and Lord of all, kindle in us your Spirit. Blow upon the nearly cool embers in our hearts that we may know your presence and take on the joy of giving to You. In Christ’s Name, Amen.
