Since this week's readings reflected on Stewardship I sought to find an article to go along with that. I think this one did.
To Serve As Jesus Did
By Kathy Coffey
“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35).
Who in his right mind really wants to be a servant? Uneasily, we picture a butler in a British movie holding a tuxedo jacket for a wealthy, pampered boss. Is this what Jesus asks?
Perhaps our aversion to the idea of servanthood springs from the spunky independence of North Americans. Descendants of bold pioneers who broke away from an entrenched system of servitude, we stoop to no one. We serve no master!
Maybe we need to wrestle with what these words of Jesus mean today. Just as in dialogue with a friend, we pose objections and he expands his original idea.
We might protest that we dread feeling vulnerable. When our livelihood, the scheduling of our time and the work we do depend on the whim of another, we feel diminished. We’re used to being independent adults—staying in charge, controlling our lives, setting our own agendas. Then Jesus, with his startling one-liners and his heartbreaking humility, challenges us to rethink those easy assumptions.
He might gently point out that, bluster aside, we do serve in the ordinary context of our days. Even the millionaire dad has been known to chauffeur his kids to soccer games; the mom with advanced degrees still—at least now and then—cooks breakfast for the family. Every time we fold laundry, weed the garden, check the homework or brew coffee, we are serving someone.
Quiet, Simple Sanctity
Jesus might remind us how our tradition has always honored quiet, ordinary service. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote of a lay brother named Alphonsus Rodriguez, contrasting the glorious deeds of warriors or martyrs with the simple dailiness of the man’s job: Today we’d call it being the receptionist at a Jesuit institution. Years of world upheavals passed while, uneventfully, “Alfonso watched the door.”
Yet his name is preceded by an abbreviation that speaks to us: “St.” The fact that Alfonso achieved sainthood with so little drama is good news for us. Perhaps we don’t need to found religious orders, travel to remote missions or perform great exploits, either. Perhaps sanctity is as close as the kitchen door, the math homework, the soup shared in kindness, the clean laundry, the compliment, the offer of friendship.
As our imagined dialogue continues, Jesus gives not only his words but also his life to help us understand. He directly experienced what he describes: total vulnerability. He who could have come into our world as political ruler, military general, respected scholar or esteemed artist comes as defenseless child. We all begin as infants, so perhaps that’s not saying much. Then the surprise: He grows not into adult power but into servanthood. He who made the universe washes feet, serves meals and does “women’s work.”
Servants and Friends
His example of the great one becoming a servant begins radical reform of a social order built on superiority/inferiority, domination/subordination. He replaces that rickety social ladder with a paradigm where all serve each other. In Jesus’ community, the distinctions are irrelevant because all belong to one mystical body. Christ’s members energize and help each other, contributing to the health of the whole.
If we take this saying of Jesus in the context of all his words, he further refines the “servant” model by saying, “I do not call you servants any longer…I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Ah—our objections silenced by a model of human relationships we can naturally, warmly admire!
God, then, is not distant dictator, but intimate friend. Furthermore, God not only befriends, but also serves. Any stigma attaching to serving is removed because it is done in love.
Through his words, actions and vision, Jesus shows us that human life can sometimes seem as defenseless as a servant at the whim of an arbitrary master. But here’s the difference: Our childlike vulnerability places us squarely in the hands of a compassionate God who never abandons, who keeps us wholly secure. Every breath we take depends on a creator who desires only our good and loves us for all eternity. And that is indeed a mercy.
from
http://www.americancatholic.org/News...tholicIdentity
To Serve as Jesus Did - article
