Be a humble servant to be greatest in God's Kingdom - Homily for 31st Sunday, Cycle A

The closing words in today’s Gospel is how Jesus defines greatness in the Kingdom of God: The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,  but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Being humble or a servant may not define greatness by the world’s standards, but Jesus teaches us how greatness is achieved in the eyes of God.

The Scribes and Pharisees practices were quite contrary to the way of greatness that Jesus described. They may preach God’s word, but their actions don’t show it. The essence of what Jesus was telling the crowds and disciples about these religious leaders was:  Do what they say, but not what they do.  

    The Scribes and the Pharisees were the so called “Proclaimers of the Word of God and keepers of the Law.” They were in positions of religious authority to lead the people, but their hearts were far from God. They were all about seeking honor, praise and reaping the benefits from their positions of authority. Jesus admonished these leaders for being self-serving rather than serving the people of God. The Pharisees wore religious garb to remind people of their special positions. The phylacteries were boxes that contained God’s word worn on their foreheads and their upper left arm. They would enlarge these to be more noticeable. Their outer cloaks had tassels on four corners of the garment. They lengthened these to appear more pious. They added complexity to the Law of Moses adding many additional rules which numbered 613. This was a constant burden for the people to keep track of all these rules. They also relished prestigious titles such as rabbi so people would take notice of them. This was totally contrary to what these leaders were called to do.  Their role was to foster a relationship between the people and God, but they hindered it and were only concerned about honor for themselves. Jesus taught the people that the Father in heaven and the Christ, were the ones to be given honor, not to the Scribes and Pharisees.

       It can be disappointing when we have leaders who don’t practice what they preach. We see this all the time in business and political leaders. We’ve sadly experienced it in some of our own religious leaders. To keep from being discouraged, we need to keep in mind that most of our bishops, priest, deacons and religious, truly desire to humbly serve God’s people in the model of Christ the servant. They desire to help bring people to a loving relationship with Jesus, to administer the sacraments to bestow God’s graces, and to lead the people in loving their neighbor by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless and visiting those in prisons.

I’ve personally had some disappointments over the past few years with some Church leaders.  There have been a few things that have helped me to keep from being discouraged. Saint Paul words from the second reading summed up very well what has helped me:We too give thanks to God unceasingly, that in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received not a human word but the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe. By daily giving thanks to God in prayer for his Church and praying with God’s Word daily has helped me to give me encouragement. Our bishops, priests, deacons, and religious need our prayers of gratitude to support them in their lives of humble service to bring people the gospel of Christ.

Another thing that has helped to encourage me are countless stories of humble service through the lives of the Saints.  This past week we celebrated All Saints Day where children dressed up as their favorite saints and processed into Mass. This reminded me of

one of my favorite saints, Saint Lawerence. He was a Roman deacon under Pope Saint Sixtus II. Four days after this pope was put to death, Lawrence suffered martyrdom. As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church, and the distribution of alms to the poor.  When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, he sought out the poor, widows, and orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he had on hand, selling even the sacred vessels of the altar to increase the sum.  When the prefect of Rome heard of this, he imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure, and he summoned Lawrence asking that these treasures brought to him. Lawrence replied to the prefect, “The Church was indeed rich. I will show you the valuable part. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory.” After three days he gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned, and widowed persons and put them in rows. When the prefect arrived, Lawrence simply said, “These are the treasure of the Church.” The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would suffer martyrdom. He had a great gridiron prepared with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it.  After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, legend has it the Lawrence made his famous cheerful remark, “It is well done. Turn me over!”

The work of St. Lawrence continues even to this day. Last weekend my wife and I went up to our hometown of Griffith, Indiana and had dinner at a restaurant owned by a friend from

high school. I had not seen my friend in years, and it was good catching up with him. He shared with me that he had been really stressed out over the last few years finding employees to work for his business. The next day he sent me a text which said. “It was good to see you and Linda last night.  Remember to ask God to help your old buddy and send me several good cooks so I don’t have a heart attack.  In response to his text message, I did an internet search to find out who the patron saint of restaurant owners was.  It was Saint Lawrence.   

I took a picture of St. Lawrence that was hung on the wall in my office and sent a novena prayer to my friend to request for St. Lawrence’s intercession in prayer to help with

this business. I received the following text from him last night:I have to tell you what happened after you sent me the prayer.  All this happened shortly after you texted me the prayer.  We needed a dishwasher and at 9am a guy that just moved in down the street asked if we were still looking for a dishwasher. The night before he came in to pick up a pizza and saw my help wanted sign on the door.  He came in and I hired him on the spot. He’s been working out well so far.  Then the same day I had a cook who had worked for us previously and was a good worker at one time but started to slip at work when he got into heavy drinking.  He texted me and said he went away for a while to get help and said he has stopped drinking.  We hired him back and so far, so good. The Power of Prayer. Thank you, Ron!

St. Lawrence’s story, and many other Saints stories serve as models to encourage us, to be humble servants so we can be greatest in the eyes of God. As we continue today in being strengthened through the Eucharist let us strive for greatness as Jesus taught us, in being humble servants.   Let us also pray in gratitude in support of our religious leaders to be models of humble service for us in word and deed to help lead us in doing the same.