The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the necessity of loving service to others in our lives as disciples on the journey with Jesus.
Serving on the journey
The reading from the Letter to Titus outlines the behaviour of those who seek to teach sound doctrine.
* [2:1–10] One of Titus’ main tasks in Crete is to become acquainted with the character of the Cretans and thereby learn to cope with its deficiencies (see Ti 1:12). The counsel is not only for Titus himself but for various classes of people with whom he must deal: older men and women (Ti 2:2–4), younger women and men (Ti 2:4–7), and slaves (Ti 2:9–10); cf. Eph 6:1–9; Col 3:18–4:1.1
Psalm 37 is an exhortation to patience and trust.
* [Psalm 37] The Psalm responds to the problem of evil, which the Old Testament often expresses as a question: why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer? The Psalm answers that the situation is only temporary. God will reverse things, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked here on earth. The perspective is concrete and earthbound: people’s very actions place them among the ranks of the good or wicked. Each group or “way” has its own inherent dynamism—eventual frustration for the wicked, eventual reward for the just. The Psalm is an acrostic, i.e., each section begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each section has its own imagery and logic.2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus uses a parable to underline that we have done only what we ought to have done!
* [17:7–10] These sayings of Jesus, peculiar to Luke, which continue his response to the apostles’ request to increase their faith (Lk 17:5–6), remind them that Christian disciples can make no claim on God’s graciousness; in fulfilling the exacting demands of discipleship, they are only doing their duty.3
Steve Scholer asks: What was Jesus really saying to his disciples and to us? Was the message that all we do for God does not require God to thank or reward us? That God is the Master and we are the Servants? Most definitely, yes!
The parable makes crystal clear that God is not obligated to save us, no matter how many good deeds we do, how many times we forgive those who wrong us, or how much we contribute to the church or to homeless shelters. Rather, it is imperative we keep front and center that our relationship with God is one of service performed with devotion, gratitude and love, and not as the price of a ticket to earn our admission into heaven.4
Don Schwager quotes “We are called to humble service,” by Ambrose of Milan, 339-397 A.D.
"You do not say to your servant, 'Sit down,' but require more service from him and do not thank him. The Lord also does not allow only one work or labor for you, because so long as we live we must always work. "Know that you are a servant overwhelmed by very much obedience. You must not set yourself first, because you are called a son of God. Grace must be acknowledged, but nature not overlooked. Do not boast of yourself if you have served well, as you should have done. The sun obeys, the moon complies (Joshua 10:12-13; Baruch 6:60), and the angels serve... Let us not require praise from ourselves nor prevent the judgment of God and anticipate the sentence of the Judge but reserve it for its own time and Judge." (excerpt from EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 8.31-32)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Titus 2:1-8, 11-14 suggests Pope Leo the Great’s other great virtue was his gift as a unifier. One of the most important ways Leo kept people united was by his gift for teaching and preaching. He was careful to “say what is consistent with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).
You don’t have to be a pope or a learned theologian to follow Leo’s example. You can dedicate yourself to bringing peace and reconciliation to the people in your life. You can work to bring unity to your fellow parishioners by speaking the truths of your faith with love. By relying on God’s grace, you can become a model of good deeds for the people around you.6
Friar Jude Winkler explores the common practice, in the 1st Century of writing in the name of great teachers like Paul. The message to Titus is that our life is our preaching. Friar Jude reminds us that the reward for service is the service itself that allows us to reflect the image and likeness of God.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that Jesus never defined love, but instead made it a command. We must love, each of us absolutely must enter into this unnamable mystery if we are to know God and know our own self!
Divine love or charity has nothing to do with feelings of “liking” one another. One key biblical word for love, agape, is not based on the myth of romantic love or good feelings about one another. It is a love grounded in God that allows us to honestly desire and seek the other’s spiritual growth. This faith, this love, this Holy Mystery—of which we are only a small part—can only be awakened and absorbed by the silent gaze of prayer. Those who contemplate who they are in God’s ecstatic love will be transformed as they look and listen and find and share. This God, like a Seductress, does not allow Herself to be known apart from love. We know God by loving God. And I think that it is actually more important to know that we love God than to know that God loves us, although the two movements are finally the same.7
Our reflection on the motives for our service will open the door for the Spirit to nudge us toward what we “ought to have done” as we surrender to the Love of God.
References
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