Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
In our Gospel today Jesus teaches us not to call anyone on earth rabbi (teacher), father, or master, because we all have one teacher in Jesus, one Father in heaven, and one master in Christ. Yet it is absolutely ordinary to have people in our lives we refer to as our teachers, men in our lives—even priests!—we refer to as fathers, and we all have addressed men in our lives as “Mister” which is a corrupted form of “master.” Are we living in disobedience to the Lord? Of course not; even Jesus, in telling the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, refers to Abraham as “Father Abraham,” and the disciples of John the Baptist referred to him as “rabbi” (John 3:26) and yet John the Evangelist is writing this: would he not, heeding Jesus’ teaching, refrain from doing so? Of course not.
What Jesus is getting at here is the importance of truth: it is true that the man who raised me is my father precisely because he fathered me. It is right for us to address our priests as “father” because that is who and what they are supposed to be for us spiritually: “I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel,” (1 Corinthians 4:14-15). Our teachers indeed educate us, and the custom since the mid-16th century has been to refer to an adult male—who usually is the head of his own household—as “master” because he is the master of his own house. But there are those who have mastered a craft, earned a master’s degree, and so on who may also rightly be called “masters.” Yet the scribes and Pharisees Jesus speaks of in our Gospel do have authority that ought to be respected and obeyed, but His followers were not to imitate their example. These men expected to be called “teachers” but did not teach, “fathers” but did not father, “masters” but had no right to the name. Therefore His disciples would not insist on such titles, would not seek honors and glory for their leadership and ministry, but would rather serve their people in such a way as to point to the Teacher, Father, and Master of us all: they are ministers and representatives of a Teacher, a Father, and a Master greater than themselves. Any titles put upon them should come not only from the people they serve, but should be deserved, should be rooted in the truth.
In other words, our teachers and masters should be called so by their subjects because of their likeness to our Rabbi and Master, Jesus; those called “father” by those they have cared for should be called so because of their likeness to our Father in Heaven.