Serving God Is Our Duty Not An Obligation Or Profit

Titus 2:1-8,11-14 
Luke 17:7-10

We are unprofitable servants: we have done what we were obliged to do.

Our Lord knew that the apostles will be given great gifts to correspond with their mission as foundation stone of the Church and He gives them the exhortation in today’s gospel to be humble. In other words, they are to call themselves unprofitable servants; we have done what we are obliged to do. God is God and we are just mere servants. If we are required to lay down our life for him and to suffer the truth, is God not worthy of that? If we can serve God by taking up our crosses every day and following Him, He will tell us at the end; well done good and faithful servant enter into paradise!

Service to God out of the goodness of our hearts without earthly expectations is important for our salvation. It is God’s grace that allows us to serve and we should be grateful that we can serve God in any kind of way. The vow we took, is a vow to serve the Lord until we die. Our reward will come from God when we enter his kingdom as His children. It is required that once we have done what we have been commanded, we insist that “we are unprofitable servants” to remind ourselves that “the grace of God has appeared”—which is given to us because of his goodness and not because we are useful or beneficial to God. Jesus Christ cleanses us for himself as his people, training us to reject godless ways.

Put differently, several moments in life makes us either more wholesome or particular in serving God, depending on each circumstance. Indeed, time does not always carry the same weight. When we are happy, we want to prevent the hours from ever passing. When we are near a dying person, we want the hours to go slowly so we can be near that person for as long as possible. When we are suffering, it seems that the hours stand still and never end. We should be ready to welcome whatever comes to us in times of joy, love, or intimacy. What counts is not so much how long we live, but how we lived the time, we had.

Fr Osho