Babysitters and the damned

 This week's verses are Matthew 24:45-51:

“Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom the master finds at work when he comes. I tell you the truth, the master will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave should say to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves and to eat and drink with drunkards, then the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not foresee, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jesus is teaching his disciples here about staying alert. It's a similar topic to last week, where the doomed protagonist backslides into a bit of debauchery and selfishness and then ends in certain doom. But there are some surprises for us too.

The first surprise is that the believer is portrayed as a slave who is in charge of caring for the other slaves. It's an interesting description of the church. We belong to a certain Master who has purchased us for a high price, and we primarily take care of other people in the same situation. He's talking about the way we care for each other. He's not talking about the way we do outreaches and programs.

The spirit of Cain tells us that we don't have to be our brother's keeper. The priest in the parable of the good Samaritan makes the same mistake. It's not intuitive to us that someone else's problem could be our problem too, or that meeting their needs would be our responsibility too rather than solely theirs. 

The wicked slave doesn't see himself as the caretaker of the other slaves. He only thinks "Oh, I have all of this money now, and nobody's around to intervene if I settle some things. I'm in charge now. This is my world." He gets drunk and beats the other slaves. As one does.

Legalistic people look at verses like these and think "Well I don't touch alcohol, and I don't hit people, so I'm good. Doesn't apply to me." They couldn't be farther from the truth. What Jesus is talking about isn't alcohol specifically, and food specifically, and specifically beating people. Those are just some symptoms.

Instead, Jesus is talking about self-indulgence at the expense of charity, and self-righteous conflict. A slave who is beating another slave is a slave who is trying to enforce his own justice, defending his own rights, getting revenge, or trying to get ahead. 

That same person who has never touched a drop of alcohol, and who has never lifted their hand in anger, could be just as wicked as the wicked slave. Maybe their drug of choice is sports-watching, online streaming, and political rants on social media. Maybe instead of hitting people, they're a passive-aggressive backstabber or a gossip. It's less about what the wicked slave is doing wrong than it is about what he is not doing right.

What makes us turn into that wicked slave? What makes us so often miss out on being the one caught doing the right thing, the good one, the one who is put in charge of the Master's possessions? Why do we always seem to be the one who screws up and deserves to be cut in two? What is the big lie that leads us off the righteous path and towards the path to the outer darkness?

Jesus tells us: But if that evil slave should say to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time.' We tell ourselves God is not coming back anytime soon. We convince ourselves that he won't catch us in the act if we just do this one selfish thing, if we just spend a little me time, if we just get that sweet revenge on that person who deserves it, who is probably secretly a racist or something anyway.

What is also surprising is where Jesus tells us those people will end up. They will end up with the hypocrites. The word for "hypocrite" means "actor." In other words, these people are fakes. And when we drop the mask when it's clear we won't get punished, we are revealing ourselves as fakes too. 

Are we devoted to our Master, or are we just devoted to escaping punishment? Are we looking out for each other, or do we just want to be a little bit better than everyone else? What do we say and do on a Sunday, and what do we say and do when nobody is looking? (Is there ever a time when nobody is looking?)

What advice would you give to that wicked slave, if you could turn back the clock to before that fateful night when he was condemned? We could say "don't do it, man" but we already have the Bible telling us that. We could remind him of how lucky he is to be in the position he is in, of who his master is, and so on, but we already know that too.

If we told the slave when the master would come back, the only thing he would learn is what time to put the mask back on and start acting again. To be the one who is doing the right thing even when nobody is looking, we have to actually become the thing we are pretending to be. And for that, we need the Holy Spirit to change us from within.