I have come to serve, not to be served

A word from Deacon Ed

Dear Church Family, 

The King of Kings will soon come as a peasant child.  He will be born of parents who are simple and Holy.  His birth will be in a stable and His crib will be a feeding trough for the animals.  His life will be dedicated to leading the Jewish people to Yahweh, but he will be an outcast among the rabbis, Pharisees and Sadducees.  His closest twelve friends are men from the lowest working classes.  One of His closest female friends is a prostitute.  He will die the death of a criminal outside of the walls of Jerusalem, as an outcast.  His bloody and battered body will be taken from the cross and buried in a borrowed tomb.

This is Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.  The pure and spotless lamb who came to lay down His life as a sin offering for all mankind at the request of His Father.  In today’s Gospel he warns against the Scribes and Pharisees who create rules and obligations for the people to obey, but live their own lives in prideful ways.  Jesus ends His preaching by exhorting His followers to serve one another.  If we are to be His followers, we must do so humbly.  No one of us is any greater than another.  “The greatest among you must be your servant.”  In other scriptures Jesus says, “I have come to serve, not to be served.”  Our goal in this life, as directed by society, is to become rich and famous.  We are supposed to work hard to get the best for ourselves and our families, no matter the cost to our soul.  But Jesus through His life showed us that greatness is to be achieved by serving others.  We have many great examples in our faith.  St. Francis of Assisi gave up a life of luxury to serve God.  St. Peter Claver worked among the imprisoned slaves to bring relief and humanity to them.  St. Maximillian Kolbe, when in a prison camp during WWII, offered his life many times to take the place of another who had been chosen to die.   St. Teresa of Calcutta worked to save the lives of the most wretched poor and sickly who lay dying in the gutters of India.  And let us not forget St. Damien who worked among the lepers in Molokai.  Nothing more needs to be said than the words of Our Lord, “The greatest among you must be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Let us all seek to serve one another.

Deacon Ed