“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew wrote a lot about the weeping and gnashing of teeth, didn't he! I had no idea how often this showed up in his gospel until this month, writing about these parables.
I don’t know about you, but we had a rule in our house. When Dad approached the door, everyone got busy. If you weren't busy when he came in that door; you soon would be and you would be working on things you really didn't want to do. I believe my father had a list of things that needed to be worked on running in his head at all times; he was simply waiting for one of us to be idle so that we could be put to the task. Saturday morning were not television watching / cartoon seeing mornings for us. At least not until we had completed the tasks Dad had set for each of us. I generally finished in time to watch American Bandstand at noon, but not much before that. When he was around, we stayed busy.
But, then there were those times when he had to be gone overnight … generally a Friday night and Saturday in Des Moines for some meeting. We stopped working. We woke up late on Saturday morning and did nothing. But, trust me … one half hour before he was to arrive home, everyone scurried to clean things up and find ways to look productive before he got there.
Jesus is talking to those who believe that every day in their spiritual life is a Friday night and Saturday morning without Dad around to keep them in line. When everyone was asking, “What would Jesus do?” the question really should have been, “What would we do if Jesus was here watching us?”
That’s not a bad question to ask yourself every morning as you plan your day.
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