Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (3)

Title and Theme

Love or Duty?

Are we serving God out of duty for “wages” or out of love? The first is not bad, but the second is much better, for it draws us into intimacy with Jesus and his Father through the Spirit.

Outline and Text

Job, in this down time in his life, expresses a common feeling

Life is “hard service”

The human being is a wage slave, “a hireling who looks for his wages”

One’s days pass by and “come to an end without hope”

If God is not in the picture, one is utterly without hope, for who will pay the wages? And even if they are paid, they just continue meaninglessness

If God is in the picture, one might say with Job, “God, you owe me one” or “God, where are the wages” or “God, you made a mistake”

We can feel that way in religious life as well - the grind goes on, and there are never enough to get all the jobs done - where are the ecstasies?

Paul transcends this point of view

It is not that he is without duty: “necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

He had a God-given duty to preach the gospel with all of its attendant risks and sufferings.

He owed this to God, for God had rescued and called him

And God owed him wages, the support necessary to carry out the orders

But Paul transcends this through love

First, “that in my preaching I may make the gospel free of charge, not making full use of my right in the gospel.”

Thus Paul took up collections for Jerusalem, but never for himself. He did not charge fees. He preached and catechized and everything else he did without a word about costs, supporting himself through his own craft or going without. This was love for those to whom he preached and, of course, love for God, going beyond

Second, Paul subordinated his interests to those of those to whom he preached

“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more”

He lived as a Jew among Jews so as not to hinder Jews coming to Jesus

He lived as the “weak” among the “weak” - those who felt that all meat was tainted by its association with idolatry or those who drank only water to avoid drunkenness.

These were real restrictions, and only examples of two among others, that Paul took upon himself out of love, to reach others with the gospel

Now look at Jesus, our core example

He comes to Peter and Andrew’s home tired after his time in the synagogue

Either as a warning or because of their concern, they tell him Peter’s mother-in-law was sick.

I have seen the tiny house, now under a cantilevered Franciscan church and enlarged about 80AD into a village church, and it was small. She was within eyesight.

Jesus does not say, “I’ll see to her after dinner,” but immediately goes over, takes her by the hand, and she arises, whole (some gospels says Jesus rebukes the fever, which would indicate it was demonic)

We are not told why she immediately starts bustling around the kitchen area, serving. It did prove she was well, but was she just “doing her duty” or was she expressing her love and gratitude to Jesus? Perhaps a bit of both.

Then the town gathers, bring their sick, and Jesus does not say, “I’m tired and it is night. I’ve had a long day. Come back in the morning.” No, he is love embodied, so he heals them.

But the next day he is up early, praying, staying close to the Father.

The disciples want him to come back to town and more or less set up a healing center. Life would be easier. The ministry would be centralized. They could put an addition on the house. It made good sense.

He says that it is not about his wishes or their wishes or, least of all their comfort, but about the Father’s loving will: “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out.”

So they head off on the risky preaching tour that would sometimes see them without enough bread, sometimes see them in storms at sea, sometimes meet with rejection, but always would be an expression of love to his Father and to those people to whom his Father had sent him.

Eventually it would end in the supreme act of love on the cross

This dichotomy, Sisters, is always in our range of possibilities

It is not wrong to serve God out of duty

He has done a lot for us and we owe it to him

He will care for us as we do our duty, so there is some security there - his type of security

And he will pay wages in the end

But it changes everything when we live out of love

Then we will be searching deeper and deeper into his loving will

Then we will be seeking out ways of expressing our love for him and for those whom he loves in our actions

Then we will be going beyond, not because we have to, not because we want to get God owing us something, but because we want to express our love by being more committed to what he loves

And that is why we pray, for by getting in tune with his heart we will know how to express our love for him in ways that are actually in tune with his love for the world

Readings

Old Testament

The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition Chapter 7

1 “Has not man a hard service upon earth,

and are not his days like the days of a hireling?

2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow,

and like a hireling who looks for his wages,

3 so I am allotted months of emptiness,

and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

4 When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,

and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;

my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.

6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and come to their end without hope.

7 “Remember that my life is a breath;

my eye will never again see good.

Epistle

The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition Chapter 9

16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in my preaching I may make the gospel free of charge, not making full use of my right in the gospel.

19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Gospel

The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition Chapter 1

29 And immediately he left the synagogue, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever, and immediately they told him of her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them.

32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together about the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35 And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him pursued him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Every one is searching for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Notes

I think of St Gertrude’s prayers (built on and including those of Mechtilde) in which she prays before and after every action of the day, every undertaking, and at each separate act during mass. In other words, the whole day becomes a love relationship with God through prayer.