29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Cycle
B
October
18, 2015 9:00 and 11:00am Masses
Saint Margaret Parish,
Bel Air
Servant and Slave
I often
enjoy asking high school seniors what colleges they are looking at and what career
they are interested in pursuing.
Naturally,
I often hear UMBC, HCC, Loyola, and on it goes.
And I hear about careers like computer science, physical therapy,
business, and on it goes.
I have
never heard anyone say “I want to be a
servant” or “I want to be a slave.” In our day and age, that would be ridiculous.
But,
today Jesus talks about being a “servant”
and even being a “slave.” I have been thinking about one way, maybe not
the only way, but one way that Jesus’ words speak to all of us.
Be Responsible
My
thinking is that Jesus’ words – “servant”
and “slave” – call us to be
responsible.
In our
day, I see Jesus asking us to assume a sense of responsibility for the earth
and for human life. And to do this, we
need to be aware of the interconnectedness of things – of how what we do
affects other things.
For the Earth
So, Pope
Francis recently issued a long letter addressed to everyone in the world, not
just Catholics.
Its
English title is “On the Care of Our
Common Home.” Isn’t that a beautiful
title?
“On the Care” – taking care of – “Our
Common Home” – the home that belongs to all of us, all of humanity. Francis is calling us to be responsible for
the earth.
To do
this, we need to be aware of the interconnectedness of things. For example, polluting our atmosphere with
harmful emissions seems to have harmful effects on the oceans, on agricultural
land, and on climate.
Or, our
over-consuming uses up the earth’s resources faster than they can be replaced. It may threaten the future in ways we may not
even realize.
So,
being “servant” or “slave” means being responsible for the
earth and seeing the interconnectedness of things.
For Human Life
And
then I am thinking that we need to be responsible for human life.
Again,
we need to be awake to the effects of what we do. For example, when we lash out at a family
member at home or a salesperson at a store, we diminish human life.
Or, when
we imitate the disrespectful level of conversation that we often see on TV talk
shows, we diminish human life. Or, when
we treat certain persons with disdain because they are different from us in
some way, we diminish human life.
In
these examples, we are in effect treating others as expendable. So, we need to be awake to the reality that the
disrespect of one person or group contributes to a disrespect of human life in
general.
That in
turn creates a culture of disrespect – a culture of disrespect – and then the
next step is violence and even the taking of vulnerable human life. So, not to focus on these “smaller,” everyday
behaviors that create this culture is a real mistake.
Being “servant” or “slave” means being responsible for human life and seeing the
interconnectedness of things.
Conclusion
I want
to conclude with this.
On the
one hand, Jesus’ words about being “servant”
and “slave” call us to look beyond ourselves. He calls us to look to the good of others,
from the unborn to the very elderly, from America to Zambia.
He calls
us to be responsible for the earth and for human life. At the same time, Jesus’ words call us to
look within ourselves.
They
call us to ask: What can we as individual persons do? Maybe it is as simple as resolving to recycle
paper, glass, plastics, and any materials that do not have to be wasted.
Or maybe
we need to resolve to listen a lot more and try to understand the perspective
of certain persons and not demonize them.
The idea: look inside, not at others and what they do, but look at
myself and my life, and see what I can practically start to do today.
This
will be the way to be “servant” and “slave.”
It will be the way to be responsible for the earth and for human life.
