A homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 22, 2024
Wis 2:12, 17-20, Jas 3:16—4:3, Mk 9:30-37
When our daughter was first breaking into the entertainment business, she did as many of her fellow performers did: She waited tables and worked other jobs at restaurants and bars.
She often covered the Early Bird shifts when she was working at Macaroni Grill. Early Birds … we all know what that means, right? Gaggles of Golden Agers.
Back then, Macaroni Grill was trying to shore up its bona fides as an Italian eatery by serving their pre-meal bread with seasoned olive oil, as legit ristorantes do. So Erin would bring out the crusty loaves and plunk them down alongside the olio d’oliva, and then head back to her station. She rarely was more than a step or two away before a patron would holler over to her: “Waitress, you forgot the butter for the bread.”
She learned quickly, really quickly, to carry a big stash of those little butter briquets in her apron.
Service, really good service, involves caring enough to know the needs of the people we serve.
Service, really good service, involves caring enough to anticipate when the people we serve will need something. To anticipate those needs so well that the people we serve won’t have to ask.
Service, really good service, the kind of service Jesus challenges us to do, involves caring enough to serve in the first place. Caring enough to serve every sister and brother we encounter. Caring enough to look for people to serve.
Caring.
Which is another way of saying Love. Charity. Selflessness. Justice. Humility.
Now, speaking of humility, we should remind ourselves that humility isn’t putting ourselves down or minimizing the impact of our achievements. When we’re praised, we should be thankful to the person giving us kudos and then be thankful to God for the gifts we used.
Humility also requires that each of us takes the time to make a mental catalog of our talents, skills and abilities. And to keep that inventory current.
Because knowing what we can do, and how well we can do it, is a key to good service.
Each of us can do something well. All of us can do many things well. We can do many things well for other people and for all of Creation. That’s clearly part of God’s Big Plan.
Serving — a true WWJD, what would Jesus do moment — is Part One.
Allowing ourselves to be served is Part Two.
It’s just as important to let someone do something kind and often unexpected for us as it is for us to want to serve someone somehow. None of us has the right to deny someone the opportunity, just as none of us would be all too happy if someone refused our offer of help.
And how we accept assistance or service from one of our fellow travelers in life is as important, if not more so, than our merely saying yes.
We’ve all heard stories about how blind dates have gone terribly wrong because one person or the other who went out to dinner was an absolute monster toward the waiter or busser or the host who told the couple there was a 15-minute wait for a table.
Talk about stomping on someone’s human dignity.
I’m confident none of us have been that person. I know we’ve seen that happen, and I sympathize with anyone who’s had it happen to. I myself have been treated that way. Nobody ever, ever deserves that.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus seems to use a little reverse psychology and the social status of the day to stop his Apostles from walking over each other to get to the front of some imaginary line. Back in the first century, being a servant was the lowest of the low, and many people referred to as servants actually were indentured or enslaved. So if you claw your way to the top, Jesus says, you’ll get kicked to the very bottom.
And yet, as his life fulfilled the prophecy of the suffering servant, Jesus elevated doing good things for others to a divine level. And he showed us that service brings life to the Law of Love — Love God, love our neighbors as ourselves.
Serving and being served. That give-and-take is such a huge part of our everyday lives that we don’t always notice. But we should.
That’s Part Three.
Part Three is being aware.
We must see people as individuals, not as nondescript faces in the crowd. Their faces and body language can hint at how they’re doing and what they may need. They may need something we can give them, or they may need us to take something from them.
And, yes, we also need to see crowds and what they need. Hurricanes and floods and pandemics and mass layoffs wallop huge numbers of people, and serving them in these times of need means similarly huge numbers of helping hands. To feed, clothe, heal, clean, babysit … whatever victims need.
Serving. Allowing ourselves to be served. Being able to see opportunities for service.
Parts One, Two and Three are, like everything, gifts from our Triune God.
