Thursday of Trinity 3

The Table of Duties

Luke 17:7-10 (ESV) Jesus said, “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

In our legal system, when a person is accused of a crime, he has a right to counsel and the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law. But when you face up to God for your sins, do you have any natural rights to claim before Him? Do you even have an inalienable right to defend yourself against His accusations that you have violated His holy Law and you are liable to judgment? No, for Solomon said: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

It is our whole duty to fear God and keep His commandments. In our day we are accustomed to speaking about this or that right, but before God, we have no rights at all, unless He gives them to us by grace. By nature, or by law, the only things we have before God are duties, not rights. Because He has created us, we are His to do with as He pleases, and out of gratitude to Him for giving us life and innumerable blessings, the Small Catechism explains, “For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him” (First Article). Before God, we have only the duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him—we have no rights.

The best we can aspire to is to be God’s unworthy servants, as Jesus pointed out in our text above: “When you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10). That is what we say if we have done all that we have been commanded to do.

Have you done all your duty, all that God has commanded to do? Of course not! We are so sinful that we cannot even claim to have done our duty, the bare minimum. The fact is, we have failed miserably and deserve nothing good from God, as we confess in the Small Catechism, “We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment” (Fifth Petition).

We deserve nothing but punishment for our failures to do our duty, but God has been merciful to His servants. He sent His only-begotten Son to become the Suffering Servant, to lay aside all His rights and privileges as God, and to become servant of all, the least, despised, rejected of men, acquainted with grief. He was put to death for our transgressions, the King dying for His subjects so that we might be spared the hellfire and instead be granted the privilege of serving in His Kingdom, now and forever.

We confess this most clearly in the Small Catechism: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. Who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true” (Second Article)

Because of Jesus and our Baptism into His death and resurrection, we are forgiven, set free from sin and eternal death, and we are redeemed to live in righteousness, serving Him—our Lord. And that is why our Small Catechism includes a Table of Duties to explain and supplement the Two Tablets of Stone, the Ten Commandments. The Table of Duties is a series of Bible passages that spell out our basic duties as servants of God who are called to live in love toward one another. It contains Certain Passages of Scripture for Various Holy Orders and Positions, by Which These People Are to Be Admonished, as a Special Lesson, about Their Office and Service.

We need this admonishment and special lesson from the Scriptures, just as we need the Ten Commandments, otherwise we would not know what our duty is; we would not know what a God-pleasing life is. And without such laws from God, we would not be able to evaluate how miserably we have failed at doing our duty, so we would not realize how desperately we need our Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and for daily help.

But God is good. He has given you this Table of Duties to learn, study, put into practice, and pass on to future generations. He has given you a Savior in Jesus to redeem you from your failure to always do your duty, who has given you the right to be called children of God, as St. John writes, “To all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

You were born of God in your Holy Baptism into Christ, and for you dear children of God, He has given you the Gospel and the Lord’s Supper in the Church to serve you with His forgiveness, life, and salvation, to strengthen and keep you in the one true faith. And He has given you the right to pray—to ask Him to make you a good and faithful servant, as Jesus commands and promises, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” He who called you is faithful, and He will surely do it.

Prayer: Eternal Lord, ruler of all, graciously regard those who have been set in positions of authority among us that, guided by Your Spirit, they may be high in purpose, wise in counsel, firm in good resolution, and unwavering in duty, that under them we may be governed quietly and peaceably; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.