We serve b/c we are servants

32^nd Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Dominic, NOLA

Our Lord is sounding a bit. . .irritated. . .with the disciples. They've asked him how many times must they forgive their brother. Jesus tells them. Seventy times seven. Taken aback by his response, the disciples say, “Lord, increase our faith!” Apparently, Jesus hears this plea as a request for a reward, a prize for doing nothing more than what the disciples are duty-bound to do. He answers their prayer – in no uncertain terms – with a biting analogy. The sharp point of his analogy is this: servants serve b/c they are servants. They do not serve b/c they expect a reward. Jesus asks, “Is [the Master] grateful to that servant because [the servant] did what was commanded?” Think long and hard about your own service to God – in worship, in works of charity, in prayer, in giving alms. Do you expect a reward for doing what you have been commanded by God to do? All that God commands us to do is commanded for our benefit. Nothing we do – not worship, not ministry, not alms-giving – nothing we do or say benefits God. Our obedience to His commands is our reward, our benefit. Waiting for God to thank us for our service is folly. Doing what He commands is wisdom. “Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love. . .”

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There are no fools in heaven

32^nd Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

Are you wise? Or, are you foolish? What's the difference? According to Jesus, the wise live their lives prepared to enter the Kingdom at a moment's notice. The foolish live moment to moment gambling that the next moment isn't the moment they will be called to judgment. We could interpret Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish virgins as a scare tactic, one designed to frighten us into a constant state of paranoid readiness. You've probably seen the billboards: “If Jesus returns right now, where will you spend eternity?” There's certainly an element of “you had better get ready and stay ready” in the parable, a kind of “Jesus is going to jump out of the clouds and catch you by surprise.” However, if we can go to the foundation of the parable, we find a slightly less paranoia-inducing truth: every decision we make, every word we utter, every thought we think, everything we do prepares us or does not prepare us to enter the Kingdom of God. The wise know this and live accordingly. The foolish choose evil and call it good. And as our Lord makes clear, there are no fools in heaven.

Say you wanted to try being a fool. How would you go about becoming foolish? It's really very simple. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us a foolish man acquires his folly by “. . .plunging his sense into earthly things, [by which] his sense is rendered incapable of perceiving Divine things” (ST II-II.46.2). Preoccupied with the things and thoughts and actions of the world, an otherwise wise man can become foolish by making worldly things, thoughts, and actions his principal occupation. IOW, when he forgets that his primary goal in this life is to serve God and prepare for the Kingdom, he chooses evil and calls it good. The vice of mistaking evil for good twists the conscience over time and drops the fool into deeper folly. In sophisticated theological circles we refer to this process with the phrase: “Stultus facit peccatum.” “Sin makes you stupid.” Sin must make us stupid b/c sin results from a deformed intellect informing the will that an evil act is in fact a good act. The foolish virgins, knowing that the Bridegroom could return at any moment, chose not to prepare properly for his arrival. This is no accident. They didn't “forget.” The didn't “fail to anticipate.” They chose not to be ready. When they plead with the groom, “Lord, Lord, open the door for us!” He replies, “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”

There are no fools in heaven b/c the Lord knows no fools. Avoiding folly in order to grow in wisdom is fairly straightforward. With every word, every deed, every thought ask yourself: does this word, this deed, this thought prepare me to live in the Kingdom of God? Ask yourself: does this word, this deed, this thought bind me more tightly to the world or to Christ the Bridegroom? Keep foremost in your heart and mind your deepest desire to find your perfection in the One Who created you and saved you. Keep front and center your longing for peace, your hope for resurrection, and your need to see the Father face-to-face. Do not grieve like those who have no hope, believing their beloved dead are dead forever. We will all die. But we cannot be dead in Christ. Only a fool chooses to live his or her life as if these few years on earth are all there is to living. Only a fool chooses to attaches himself to the passing things of this world and call himself content. We are made for eternal life. And while we live in the world, we live in wisdom, knowing that Christ the Bridegroom loves his Bride and will never abandon her. Choose wisely. Live wisely. There are no fools in heaven.

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Ignoring Jesus' command to love

NB. Another late post. . .oh, and you really need to read this one in an ironic tone!

St. Martin de Porres
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
NDS, NOLA

We should ignore Jesus’ command to love one another. (Oh, “loving God,” by the way, is fine b/c that’s mostly an abstract sort of thing that doesn’t really require us to do much beyond saying that we love God. It’s not like the God-lovers glow or anything). OK. Back to the reasons to ignore Jesus:

First: Love is messy and it makes you act stupid: as a passion love is fine, but when indulged it turns the lover into a hopeless mess and promotes really dumb decision-making. Take Jesus, for example. Because he indulged in loving us, he ended up a bloody mess on a whipping post and nailed to a cross. He could’ve stopped the blood bath at any point, but he didn’t. He died for us instead. 

Second: Love is expensive: show me one act of love that is free, and I’ll show you some land on Grand Isle that’s guaranteed not to flood. Love always has a price. What’s the point of willing the Good for others when it will likely lighten your wallet, cost you a gallon of gas, or force you to spend several minutes of your life doing something charitable. Again, just look at Jesus. Was his act of love for us free? Well, OK, free for us! That’s fine. But it cost Jesus his dignity and his life. Expensive, indeed.

Third: Love requires us to focus too much on others: it would seem that the basic point of love is to fawn all over other people, wait on them hand and foot, and pretend to be all about their needs and their hurts. It’s all about them, them, them! What about me?! I have my needs and my hurts and my wants and me, me, me. . .Perfect example of this problem: Jesus tells his little band that if they want to be first they have to serve others! What is that? What kind of logic is that? To be first I have to be last, willing to sacrifice prestige, place, honor, and power in order to SERVE!? Jesus does this for us – again – but look how he ended up. Great for us. Not so great for him.

Fourth: You have to lie when you love: not that lying is a problem when you have to do it, but loving is doubly difficult b/c to keep people liking you you have to tell them what they don’t want to hear. You can’t “love” if you make people uncomfortable or if you say unpleasant things to them. It would seem that charity requires us to lie in order to keep the peace. Being peaceful is more important than speaking the truth. Obviously! Didn’t Jesus say that he came to divide with a sword, to both cut the bonds of sin and to split apart families and friends? Is that what love does when it forces you to tell the truth? Who thinks that’s good? He spoke the truth and ended up dead. Not a good example of peacekeeping.

I’ve given you four good reasons why loving one another is a problem: love is messy and makes you do dumb things; it is expensive; it requires you to focus too much on others; and it makes you lie. All good reasons to forget about love. And this is why Jesus doesn’t just suggest that we love one another or hint at the possibility of loving one another. He commands us to love. Commands. Do it! Love is the greatest commandment b/c our relationship with God depends on it. We cannot understand what God is saying to us through the prophets if we fail to love. And we cannot know what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, and excellent if we will not love. What’s worse: we cannot know anything of Goodness, we cannot imitate God, we cannot become Christ if we will not love.

It’s a command. Not an argument or a suggestion or a Facebook meme. It is a command, an order. And if you will be more than you are, if you will be made perfect in the Father’s love, you will love – Him, us, yourself and you will rejoice in the Lord always b/c He loved you first. . .and loves you still.

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