Here among you as a shepherd

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary may cause us to consider our reward for a righteous life. The Book of Wisdom brings us the image of the being in the hands of God at death. The section of this book is entitled the Destiny of the Righteous. Friar Jude Winkler comments on the concept of life after death which was present at the time. The Greek notion was the separation of a soul from the body. The righteous are understood by the author of Wisdom to have lived a disciplined life trusting in God which may have been seen from the outside as disaster or punishment. The style of the Luke in writing his Gospel often uses a literary technique to have us accept momentarily one idea or image and then reverse our direction and show us his message. We agree, even though, as suggested by Maureen McCann Waldron ofCreighton University, we have little cultural understanding of slavery that the slave returning from work is not served by the Master. However in this parable, Jesus may be the Master who does just that! Maureen McCann Waldron writes about the joy in living with an attitude of service and how our relationships with others are so much richer when we aim to serve. She cites recent words and action of Pope Francesco as showing a direction which in which we are led by Jesus. Friar Jude reminds us that we are asked to Love, God and neighbour. The discipline we adopt to aim ourselves in that direction brings the daily reward of acting like God. We can stand with the psalmist and praise God for the rescue He provides from sin through helping us to live as He directs. “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done” (Luke 17:10)