But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. 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 unbelievers. (Luke 12:45-46)
When you read this passage, what sort of person do you envision? In the past, I’ve tended to think the servant was a horrible person, the sort who would strike others just for the fun of being abusive, and who neglects to do his job but instead sits at the table and mockingly pretends to be the master.
On the other hand, one of the recommendations given to authors is that they create villains who don’t see themselves as the villain of the story. They see themselves as the hero. In fact, the best villains supposedly want the exact same thing as the hero, but the villain chooses to seek that end in a way that the reader thinks is wrong. Think of Professor X and Magneto. Could the villain in today’s passage think he’s the hero?
Could the servant have been trying to do a good job? Could it be that the other servants have been neglecting their tasks, and perhaps even have been abusive of the one who was trying to do a good job? Could he have awakened one day and decided he’d had enough? Could his beating of the other servants been his attempt to act on his master’s behalf? Could his sitting down and getting drunk have been a celebration - if not for having done his master’s will, then at least in doing something to benefit his master? So much of the time, Jesus spoke against the Pharisees, and this is a Pharisee’s story. This is what the Pharisees were trying to do.
Even if the other person is abusing you, even if the other person is a villain and you’re trying to do something you think is good, if you do it in the wrong way, you’re the villain. It goes back to the old adage that two wrong don’t make a right.
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