Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. "Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is long delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant's master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. (Mt 24:42-51)
‘Stay awake’, ‘be prepared’, ‘be faithful’ and ‘be prudent’ are the suggestion given in this passage for a follower. Of these the first two are external attitudes and the rest are internal attitudes. External attitudes are always for the arrival of the master and it could be at anytime. The other two attitudes are for always. Being awake and prepared will show that the follower is always thinking of the master and his activities. Such a servant is rewarded with greater responsibility.
Delay in the arrival of the master can make the servant evil and negative. The servant destroys himself by eating and drinking and begins to beat up the other workers. He loses himself and the others. The servant does not realize that the delay only shows the postponement of the arrival and it never means the denial of the arrival. The master will definitely come.
Unfaithful and imprudent servant will be counted as a hypocrite. He will spend his life weeping and wailing. The reward is greater responsibility and acceptance whereas the punishment is being thrown out and rejected and counted as a hypocrite. The reward and the punishment will reveal the relationship that exists between the master and the servant.
