Service

A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2026

Acts 6:1-7, 1 Peter 2:4-9, John 14:1-12

In early June 1973, barely 12 hours after flinging a mortarboard into the air on the lawn at CBA, I was about to wade into a newly dumped pile of steaming asphalt.

“All right, men, let’s git it!” Joe Romeo, the foreman, hollered, and we attacked the hot asphalt with our short-handled square-point shovels.

Within minutes, my new white T-shirt was transparent with sweat and my even newer Sears blue jeans were sliding down my skinny backside. I didn’t notice if my feet were hot in my boots as I danced through the blacktop, pretty much making a mess.

Then I felt a powerful hand yank me by my belt loops and toss me off the pile. “Get outta there,” Romeo growled. I snapped back, “What’s your problem, man? I’m working my ass off!”

He then said the words that shaped the rest of my life:

“You may be workin’, but you ain’t producin’, and if you ain’t producin’, you ain’t on my crew.”

I’m proud to say I worked — and produced — on Romeo’s crew for five summers and four winters, and every spring Romeo called to find out when I’d be back. (Even though the full-time laborers nicknamed me “Muscles,” because I didn’t have any.)

Since the beginning of time, we humans have had to work for God to give us our daily bread. We Americans believe that our Creator endowed us with rights that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

All too often, we gloss over the “pursuit” part. Pursuit involves work. Pursuit involves producin’.

We can pursue — work for — our happiness individually or as a family, as a society. We can pursue our happiness by using our God-given gifts and talents solo or collectively.

We can take the words of today’s Scripture passages to heart and realize that many hands make light work, especially as we reflect on Friday’s Feast of St. Joseph the Worker and on the countless May Day workers’ celebrations worldwide. United, we stand. (And that comma is crucial.)

All of us have gifts to contribute to the greater good, to the physical, spiritual and emotional benefit of every person on Earth. Yes, really: everyone.

All of us, likewise, do have physical, spiritual or emotional needs, and we are challenged to open ourselves to reveal those needs and accept help when it’s offered. And, yeah, asking for and accepting assistance can be hard.

But when we fit our gifts together into a mosaic of caring, the results are invariably spectacular and effective.

If we live for the greater good, then our helping each other in our common pursuit of happiness, in our pursuit of the dwelling places in Paradise that Jesus promises, will bring us joy and satisfaction.

If we live this way out of belief in The Way that our Messiah paved for us, then

[W]hoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these…

We all know the saying: If Mom ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

And we fix that by tackling the chores and fixing her a cup of tea.

By serving.

Which each of us was born to do. Which each of us is called to do, daily, hourly, continuously. Individually, to be sure, but even better as a crew.

Even individuals called to be leaders are servants if they do the job correctly.

There are a whole, whole lot of moms and dads and sisters and brothers all around us who ain’t happy. A whole lot. And that ain’t right.

We know what we have to do.

We are endowed by our abundantly generous Creator with the grace and skills to pursue lives of service.

To bring people into our Good Shepherd’s flock.

To do great works.

To make things right.

To serve and not be served.