Sunday Meditation: Me, the Unprofitable Servant

On the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year C, the apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith.  And Jesus tells them they only need a little bit of faith to do miracles.  But then that leads him to something else, to what it means to be a humble servant of God.  Why does one lead to the other? 

 

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."

The Lord replied,

"If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

 

"Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here immediately and take your place at table'? Would he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished'?  Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded?  So should it be with you.

When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'"

~Lk 17:5-10

What may confuse you in the parable is that the worker out in the field is asked to do more work when he walks in, and the worker, we are told, would prefer to do more work.  The expectation would be to have the worker “take his place at the table.”  Jesus expects more work, not a reward.  But that is the twist of the parable.  The Master of the house is God and we should be willing to do more and more work for the Lord, and have the humility to not be rewarded.   

Fr. Terrance Chantier of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate explains the passage.

I liked this from Fr, Terrance: pride has “I” in the center while trust has “U” in the center.  Lord, please increase not just my faith but my humility.  Perhaps what Jesus detected from the apostles was a show of spiritual pride when they asked Him to increase their faith.

I chose for the pastoral Pope Leo XIV from this day’s homily which was coordinated with a celebration for the Jubilees for World Missionaries and for Migrants.

I have become impressed with Pope Leo’s homilies.  You can read it here.  There are so many heartfelt ideas in this homily.  Let me quote a couple.

“This is a salvation that is fulfilled when we take responsibility and, with the compassion of the Gospel, care for the suffering of others; it is a salvation that leads the way, silently and apparently without success, in daily words and actions, which become precisely like the tiny seed of which Jesus speaks; it is a salvation that slowly grows when we become “unworthy servants”, namely when we place ourselves at the service of the Gospel and of our brothers and sisters, not seeking our own interests but only bringing God’s love to the world.”

And the first line of his concluding paragraph: “I entrust all of you to the intercession of Mary, the first of her Son’s missionaries, who went in haste to the hill country of Judea, carrying Jesus in her womb and putting herself at the service of Elizabeth.”  If there was ever a perfect example of an unprofitable servant, it was our Blessed Mother,

 

Sunday Meditation: “When you have done all you have bee commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'"

 

The wonderful “Servant Song” for our hymn.

 

 

What do you want of me, Lord?

Where do you want me to serve you?

Where can I sing your praises.

I am your song.

Sunday Meditation: The Servant of All

On the ongoing journey to Jerusalem, Jesus teaches the apostles many lessons.  In today’s Gospel passage, He teaches them the lesson of true leadership. 

 

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him,

"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."

He replied, "What do you wish me to do for you?"

They answered him, "Grant that in your glory

we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."

Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking.

Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"

They said to him, "We can."

Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared."

When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.

Jesus summoned them and said to them,

"You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt.

But it shall not be so among you.

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;

whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

~Mk 10:35-45

It is interesting that the Gospel reading skips over the few lines before the passage.  There Jesus tells the apostles for the third time that He will be handed over to be abused, scourged, and crucified.  And James and John, oblivious to what He truly is referring to, jump up and want to be exalted.  The apostles in the Gospel of Mark are regularly portrayed as dimwitted. 

This is just a perfect homily for this passage, from Fr. Peter Hahn from Saint Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church in Lancaster, PA.

 

Now, if you want an even deeper insight into this passage, Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P. provides one through the Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology, “an online, open access resource providing readers with a contemporary presentation of the teaching of the Catholic Church.”  

Fr. Cajetan, I believe, is also with the Dominican House of Studies.  Jesus is not just telling the disciples, don’t be like the typical rulers.  He is saying they have to go beyond even that.  You have to be a suffering servant ruler, because a suffering servant ruler reaches people from the inside, from their conscience.  That is pretty profound.  How many of today’s presidential candidates would be a suffering servant ruler?  None. 

 

Sunday Meditation: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

 

This week, let’s listen to John Michael Talbot’s “See My Servant.”

 

 

Just so beautiful. 

Sunday Meditation: Receiving One Child

The journey for Jesus and his apostles continues through Galilee.  Here the apostles do something very disagreeable to Christian sensibility.  They try to become superior over each other.  Jesus slaps this down right away, and he admonishes them by telling them that service and sacrifice is what makes one great in God’s eyes.  He tells them again He will be put to death, and juxtaposed to this prophesy He shows them the true meaning of service.  He takes a child and says those who receive such a child is that who is great.

 

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. 
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”  But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  But they remained silent.
They had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.  Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” 
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

~Mk 9:30-37

I think this was the passage that inspired me to adopt, or at least it confirmed my decision to adopt.  Children are extremely important to Jesus.  Elsewhere Jesus will tell the apostles that unless they need to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom of God. 

To get the full understanding of this passage, I like Fr. Geoffrey’s explanation again.

 

So the Messiah must not be understood in terms of a conquering king, but as a suffering servant and an innocent child.

 

Sunday Meditation: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me”

 

I am going to go with this beautiful Communion song, “I Come With Joy (A Child Of God).” 

 

The first stanza captures today’s themes perfectly:

 

I come with joy, a child of God,

forgiven, loved and free,

the life of Jesus to recall,

in love laid down for me.

What It Really Means to be a Priest, by Mary Pezzulo

I don’t promote other blog posts very often, but I came across this wonderful post that I think all Catholics should read.  It’s by Mary Pezzulo and her blog is called Steel Magnificat and the title of this post is called “In the  Person of Christ the Servant.”  Now let me preface this by saying that Mary and I are complete opposites when it comes to political issues and events in the news.  I have her blog on my subscription because she can really write a touching human story, either from personal experience or just in general.  Today she wrote a wonderful post on what it means to be a priest, dispelling some overly idealized conceptions of theologian or speaker and getting to the heart of the priesthood. 

Longing for an aesthetic experience at Mass, wishing to stick it to the insufficiently orthodox, loving to read and talk about theology, wanting to “be a change” in the Church, wanting a soap box to stand on, wanting to own the libs, wanting to make Mom proud, because you haven’t found a wife, because you’re good at Latin, because you like bossing people around, because you have good leadership skills and want to put them to work, because you used to be a Protestant minister but you’re a convert now and still want to preach sermons: these are all wrong reasons to want to be a priest. You should only seek the priesthood if your greatest desire is to be a servant.

You’ll have to have to go read her blog to get her entire point.  She is really spot on.