Unprofitable servants
- Gary Fritsch
- Nov 10
- 2 min read
In our world, we are very used to having bible verses slapped on a poster or t-shirt or internet meme. Usually, they will be paired with an inspiring photo of nature or someone overcoming it (climbing a mountain seems quite popular). These can be great, but often, they cherry pick a particular phrase without considering the whole picture of the bible. In today's Gospel, we get a phrase that you will never see on a poster, meme or t-shirt (except here): we are unprofitable servants.
The bold reality is that we really don't deserve anything from God and neither can we earn anything from Him. A tremendous man, Abram, thought thousands of years ago, that He could earn a relationship with the God of the Universe and so he was bold enough to enter into a life and death covenant with the one and only God. God allowed AbraHAM (because God would make him the father of many nations) and his descendants to learn for thousands of years that they could never be on even footing with God. They could never love perfectly like Him or be completely faithful like Him.
The Father sent His Son, Jesus, not as a reward for their efforts, but as a remedy for them. We just need to acknowledge our inability to do it on our own. We are indeed unprofitable servants. Jesus tells the Apostles, when they ask 'who can enter the Kingdom?' - NO ONE - for man it is impossible! But all things are possible with Christ. As we grow in our ability to recognize what we are (sinners) and who we are (children of God) we actually can grow closer to that perfection, a perfection that we will only ever realize in Heaven.
Stay close to the one who redeems, serve Him unceasingly, be grateful to do all that He has commanded. When we fail to do that (which we will because of what we are) we can rely upon His forgiveness because of whose we are and who He is.
Shout out to my Good News Bible Study group who inspired me with the 'unprofitable servant' t-shirt idea.
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