You Gotta Serve Somebody

Parashat Mishpatim (Sh’mot/Exodus 21:2–24:18)

Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, Shuvah Yisrael Messianic Synagogue , Plainview, New York

Today’s parasha, Mishpatim, examines a variety of mitzvot including laws about treatment of slaves, damages, loans, returning lost property, Shabbat, the sabbatical year, holidays, and uprooting idolatry. 

In our drash, we only get to pick one of these themes. Let’s look at slavery. 

Our parasha mentions two kinds of slaves. One was Hebrew slaves (Exod 21:2) who exchanged their freedom to pay a debt or to escape poverty. Their period of servitude was six years, unless they chose to remain slaves longer, even for life. The second kind of slavery mentioned was that of Hebrew women who, due to poverty in their families, could be sold as slaves (Exod 21:7–11). If  these women became wives of their masters or his sons, there were special measures in place ensuring that they were treated with dignity and not as discardable property. 

In Vayikra/Leviticus 25:44–46, we read of yet a third category of slaves, those bought from other nations or captured as prisoners of war. In the case of women in this position, they were allowed a month to mourn for their families from whom they were separated, showing that even under these tragic circumstances, Torah sought to preserve human dignity. 

But slavery is not simply old news. In fact, all of us are slaves.

The Bible says it, and Bob Dylan sang it years ago: “It might be the Devil or it might be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.”

Chances are, you don’t like that idea. In fact, human experience continually proves that we find this idea offensive and intrusive. 

The root of that offense is what Paul calls “the law of sin” — a kind of reflex living in us which I term the “Oh Yeah? Principle.” This names our insistence on maintaining autonomy at all costs, as manifest in a rebellion against being directed or restricted, even by God. And when he tries to direct or restrict us, isn’t it true that our response is sometimes, if not often, “Oh Yeah?”

The testimony of scripture recommends not going that route. Sefer Mishlé, the Book of Proverbs, puts it this way, “There can be a way which seems right to a person, but at its end are the ways of death” (14:12). Dylan was right, our choice is a binary one: the Devil or the Lord, life or death. Sefer Mishlé strikes this chord again, saying, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining ever brighter until full daylight. The way of the wicked is like darkness; they don’t even know what makes them stumble” (4:18–19). 

Our way through this binary morass is lit by a paradox: It is by serving as a slave of God that we find our deepest freedom. Saint Augustine of Hippo touches upon this, referring to “God, ‘whom to serve is to reign.’” The Anglican liturgy picks this up referring to God “whose service is perfect freedom.” And John Donne, 16th–17th century, pointed us toward the words of Paul, saying, “I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free. Nor ever chaste except you ravish me.” 

Like Donne and Augustine, Paul commends the path of slavery as the road to freedom. 

In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, he says, “The fact is, you don’t belong to yourselves; for you were bought at a price. So use your bodies to glorify God.” 

Notice, Paul is not calling us to be servants of God. Servants receive a wage. He calls us to become slaves of God, bought with a price. 

In 1 Corinthians 7:21-23 , Paul sketches the different classes whom the Spirit brought to Yeshua-faith in the Roman world, before naming the class into which God has placed us all throughout time: 

Were you a (Roman) slave when you were called? Well, don’t let it bother you; although if you can gain your freedom, take advantage of the opportunity. For a person who was a slave when he was called is the Lord’s freedman; likewise, someone who was a free man when he was called is a slave of the Messiah. You were bought at a price, so do not become slaves of other human beings. (CJB)

Notice, when God calls us to himself, he calls us to live as his slaves, bought with a price.

The word in Greek for slave is doulos. The word for servant is diakonos. 

John MacArthur reinforces the difference for us:

There are six or seven Greek words that mean “servant” in some form. (Diakonos is the most prominent of those words). Doulos never means “servant.” A servant is someone hired to do something. The slave (doulos) is someone owned. Big difference, huge difference, and yet all through (almost every translation of) the New Testament the word (doulos) “slave” is masked by the (English) word “servant.”

Servant or Slave?,” Grace to You, August 26, 2010, https://www.gty.org/library/sermonslibrary/ GTY129/servant-or-slave

Paul outlines for us two consequences of our being slaves of God. First, our bodies do not belong to us, but to the Holy One. Because we are bought with a price, we must glorify God in our bodies, which belong to God (1 Cor 6:20). 

Second, because we were bought with a price we must not become slaves of other human beings (1 Cor 7:23), and that includes not becoming wage slaves, as many employers expect. Our relationships with people should not curtail our availability to God. We belong to him and are answerable to him first in all things.

Being called slaves of God rankles our contemporary sensibilities. It tweaks the sin principle living in us. But Yeshua told us that the only choice we have is to whom we will be enslaved: “Yes, indeed! I tell you that everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. So if the Son frees you, you will really be free” (Yochanan 8:34, 36), Yeshua sets us free to become slaves of God. Or, as the Lord said to Pharaoh through Moshe, “Let my people go, that they may serve me” (Exod 8:1).

If we would know the freedom to which God calls us, we must remember we are not hired, we are owned.  We have been bought by the kindest of masters with the most precious of prices, the blood of his Only Begotten Son. 

Our Yom Kippur liturgy has the last word here, reminding us who Adonai is, and who we are. 

Like the clay in the hand of the potter—
he expands it at will and contracts it at will—
so are we in Your hand, O Preserver of kindness,
look at the covenant and ignore the Accuser.

Like the glass in the hand of the blower—
he shapes it at will and dissolves it at will—
so are we in Your hand,
O Forgiver of willful sins and errors,
look to the covenant and ignore the Accuser.

So who are you gonna serve? 

“It might be the Devil, and it might be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.”