You have heard, brethren, how the Lord requires divine service by the example of human servitude, saying: 'Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say to him when he returns from the field: Come at once, sit down to meat; and will not rather say to him, Prepare wherewith I may sup, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterward you shall eat and drink? Does he have thanks toward that servant, because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So also you, when you shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do' (Luke 17). So also you. What is the likeness? Nay, it is far unlike. Does man owe as much to God as man owes to man? God forbid.
For there is another order, a different cause, an unlike relation of faith. God made man to be, bade him be born, gave him to live, granted him to be wise, bestowed on him also his seasons, distributed the ages, granted him glory, opened to him honour, set him over the living creatures, and appointed him lord over the whole earth by a fixed law and term: and when such and so great first benefits of God had been lost by man, He restored second benefits so much the greater as they were divine, so much the more excellent as they were heavenly. For after being an inhabitant He gave heaven to him whom before He had given as a dweller among earthly things, so that no assault, no adversary, no serpent lurking in earthly things among good things, might any longer creep upon man; and that a condition now made certain might preserve him whom an uncertain freedom had lost;
and that man might be free of all things, by the sole servitude of the Lord, to whom he owes the condition in which he was made, owes his origin: that he was redeemed, that he was bought, he owes assuredly servitude, as the Apostle says: 'You were bought with a price; be not made the servants of men' (1 Cor. 7). And that the prophet might confess his condition, his origin: 'I am thy servant,' he says, 'and the son of thy handmaid' (Ps. 115). These things man owes to God; what such thing does man owe to man? And yet God seeks even so much; because man is unwilling to render anything to God, to whom he owes the whole. But let us take up the reading again, and set before our eyes that very similitude, and what we have said will then shine forth, that we owe no servitude to man, but the whole to God. 'Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, who, on his return...'
'...when he returns from the field, will say to him: Come at once, sit down; and will not rather say to him, Prepare wherewith I may sup, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterward you shall eat and drink?' How familiar, how homely, how drawn from daily use, how common is this teaching! If it is a master who hears, he acknowledges that he demands such things of his servant; if a servant, he recognizes that he renders these things to his master. For the servant, after the vigils before dawn, after the varied and hard labours of the whole day, after the trembling and anxious runnings to and fro, both prepares supper for his master, and, girded, serves up what he had prepared:
he is not puffed up because he has done it, but doing each thing with devotion he trembles, and sets before his master manifold foods, seasoned with all the art of every savour; while he himself is perhaps to taste a half-cooked and unsalted little supper: proffering frequent cups, he varies the goblets, changes the wines: for the longer chatter of a very long banquet he stands fixed, stands unable to be moved, stands in a servitude which is not permitted to grow weary. And when the master already spends part of the night in sleep, passes it in repose, the servant gathers, tends, attends, sets out, arranges, puts away, and so lingers among necessary things that he reserves for himself nothing, or little of the night, for food and slumber.
After all these things, unless he keeps vigil until the morrow, and forestalls his sleeping master, he, weary yet untiring, will rise early to stripes, to present punishment; yesterday's labour brings him no relief: for whatever the master does about his servant—unjustly, angrily, willingly, unwillingly, forgetfully, deliberately, knowingly, unknowingly—is judgement, is justice, is law; the wrath of the commander is right to the subject, and the state of servitude has no voice against the master's pleasure. If, then, even the servant feels what he owes to man by serving thus, the master too, by ruling, is taught and understands, with such a teacher, what servitude he owes to the Lord of lords. This Paul fulfilled, who wrote the titles of his servitude thus:
'Even unto this hour we hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted with blows' (1 Cor. 4). And elsewhere: 'I make my body black and blue, and bring it into servitude' (1 Cor. 9, according to the Septuagint). The good servant supplied his own chastisement, who, treating himself thus even to bruising, continually scourged himself: nor did he loosen the reins to his body, lest, the flesh relaxed by indulgence, he should fall into the servitude of another. But, O man, what you exact from your servant, render to Him who made you a master. You who always sleep, and exact from your servant tireless vigils, keep vigil at some time for your Lord, who watches for you without ceasing; assist your Lord fasting even for one moment, whom your servant always attends at meat; forgive the innocent servant, whom your Lord indulges even when he sins;
grant pardon meanwhile to him whom your Lord always forgives. Surely, if you have done anything good, believe that you have paid a debt to the Lord, not conferred a benefit. 'When you shall have done,' He says, 'all the things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.' When is man of himself profitable for divine things, who is thus unprofitable to himself for human things? Let man consider the evils of his heart, the vices of his flesh, the surges of pleasures, the storms of desires, the crags of angers, the shipwrecks of crimes, and then whatever is profitable in him he will give to God, and whatever is unprofitable he will reckon to himself.
But let us return to our theme, so that it may now become plain why the Lord admonished His disciples. That Christ might send His apostles to peoples languishing under manifold suffering, He gave them power of the Spirit, He gave them authority from on high, He gave the grace of healings, whereby, going about, they restored sight to the blind, running to the lame, hearing to the deaf; and, that I may not detain you with each case, they gave health to all the afflicted. Whence, returning, they gloried, saying: 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Thy name.' But the Lord tempered their joy, saying: 'Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you; but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven' (Luke 10).
Therefore, lest through pride they should lose what they had gained by toil, and should attribute to themselves what they had obtained from God, He recalls them to humility, which is the mother of doctrine, by such an example: 'Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say to him when he returns from the field, Immediately go, and sit down to meat; and will not rather say to him, Prepare what I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?' After their finished labors, and their great and many proofs of virtues, the apostles seemed sufficiently useful to themselves; but they did not know that they still dwelt in the mire of the flesh and the slime of this body, and that they were useless. Yet they are found out when Judas betrays, Peter denies (Matthew 26), John flees, and all forsake Him (Mark
chapter 14), so that He alone, in whom and from whom all usefulness was, might be seen. But in saying, 'And afterward thou shalt eat,' He admonishes the disciples that after His ascension they should straightway long to be joined to the Lord in that heavenly blessedness. For indeed here He approves that they will leave all things, and He girds them for the endurance of the passion, and perfects them for the labor of His ministry. For the apostles then ministered to Him as He reclined for as long a time as, amid the kitchens of sinners and the hearths of the Gentiles, they were preparing the supper of the Lord upon the tables of the Church in perpetual memory. What this supper is, the faithful one knows; whoever knows it not and desires to know, let him become faithful. You have heard, brethren, today what the heir asked of the Lord concerning worldly goods.
'Master,' he says, 'tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me' (Luke 12). A headlong and reckless greed believed that One to be an arbiter of worldly strife, a cognizer of this age; and it wished Him to become the author of division, who had come to restore the unity of the human race. 'Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' Here it was not the master that was sought, but affection. 'Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' When he says, 'tell my brother,' he prefaced it with what should counsel charity, what should appeal to nature, what should knock at affection. 'Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' He cannot say to the brother, 'Divide,' who taught through the prophet: 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity' (Psalm 132).
'Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' What greater inheritance, what better inheritance, than the bond of divine charity? For inheritance sometimes perishes, but charity never, as the Apostle says: 'Charity never falls away' (1 Cor. 13). But someone says: 'Then does charity never perish, is it never violated?' Plainly never, for if charity is, it endures; if it does not endure, it is not. As a barren tree, which in springtime, when it whitens all over with blossom, yet gives no fruit but deceives; so is the charity that is supposed to be and is not: shaken by the waves of occasions it vanishes away, and thus wounds the anxious and deceives the incautious. But let us return to what we began. 'Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.'
A worldly inheritance brings strife to posterity before it confers wealth; before it divides the goods, it splits the heirs; before it hands over to each their due portions, it cuts up the successors themselves and casts them into parties. Therefore this is no inheritance, but a battle; and it is a stepmother of sons, not a fortune. He enriches his sons who leaves to his sons the fullest charity. But you, whoever you are who accost the Lord with such a petition, you provoke the Lord, you drag the Lord to a lawsuit, with whom the Apostle teaches and shows you that your inheritance is held in common: 'We are heirs,' he says, 'of God, and joint-heirs with Christ' (Rom. 8).
This One is thus your heir, this One is your brother, who by the lot of being born, by the condition of growing up, by the order of living, by the departure of dying, in all things willed to be found like unto you. For though He was both the sole heir of God and the only Son by nature, He willed and made you a partaker with Himself, you a joint-heir with Himself by grace, you who were wretched and subjected to the utmost servitude. You shall therefore possess, and you shall be able happily to possess what is bestowed, if you remain in the Father's court, if you are held in common in the divine inheritance. The divine portion can be given but cannot be divided, because it is heavenly, and he who gives it loses it not, and he who receives it stores it not up for himself alone.
Wherefore, O man, why do you call this One to division, why do you, wretched, invite this One to a dispute, why do you ask a share from Him who has sought out and conferred upon you the whole? At least, being now taught by experience, cease, and let it repent you to have asked such things. For you received your portion of the principal substance, and, having received it, as a wanderer, a vagabond, a profligate, a glutton with the profligate, you lost it (Luke 15). Hence an exile from paradise, hence disinherited of the inheritance, hence banished from life. Man, Christ says to you, 'What you have obtained from Me and through Me, without Me you cannot possess, for without Me what you would be you have already seen.' Knowing this, He so besought the Father on your behalf, ungrateful though you were toward all: 'Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me' (John 17).
And because not even this could suffice you for your safekeeping—for when you were with Me in paradise, and yet outside Me you perished—I added, saying: 'Father, as Thou in Me, and I in Thee, so may these also be one in Us.' I, that I might have the Father's goods, proceeded from the Father, yet from the Father I have in no wise departed; and therefore I will that you have so much in Us as We ourselves are, and We remain in Us. Cease, therefore, either to divide heavenly things, or to litigate over earthly things while I hear, lest Him whom today you hold and have as a kindly bestower, you afterward feel as a most severe judge. But now let us hear what the Lord answered: 'Man,' He says, 'who has appointed Me a judge or a divider over you?' 'Who has appointed Me a judge?' And where is that which You said, Lord:
'The Father judges no man, but has given all judgment to the Son' (John 5)? Or 'a divider over you'? And who shall divide the just from the unjust, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25)? If the judgment of man is owed to You, and through You the division of the whole age is to be solemnized, how do You say, 'Who has appointed Me a judge or a divider over you?' All judgment is indeed, and was, and shall be, in Christ's power; but then He had come not to judge but to be judged, not to condemn the guilty but, innocent, to be condemned by the guilty. In man He was acting God, in the servant the Lord, that He might be a bondservant of time who was both the Maker and the Cognizer of the ages. Rightly therefore He answered: 'Who has appointed Me a judge or a divider over you?'
And who could appoint Him a judge, who appointed and restored all things? Christ could not be an arbiter at the arbitration of a litigant, who is the sum and the power of all judgment. But why did that quarreler not object: 'Since your brother did not invite you, why have you thus petitioned? Do you not know that he is not a just mediator who is chosen by one party only?' Yet He did not say these things; but He stood there hated, that it might be lawful for Him who was judging to recede from the sentence, but not lawful for the brother. And because Christ had come to correct, not to condemn the guilty, He removes the tinder of quarrels by His precept, saying: 'See, beware of covetousness.' This is to say:
Let covetousness be cast away, and there will be no strife over inheritance. Covetousness, brethren, denies parents, divides brothers, separates comrades, dissolves friendship, shuts out affection: whoever has it within himself will belong to no one, will not even be his own. Covetousness, brethren, as the Apostle said, is the root of all evils (1 Tim. 6): which, when it has begun to take root in the heart, so scatters the ornaments of character as a noxious tree, entangled with deadly roots, loosens and scatters the monuments of the ancestors.