12 November 2019
Memorial of Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr
Yesterday, Jesus commanded us to forgive, that we might not forfeit the life He gave us from the Cross: the life He sacrificed to forgive our sins. Today He speaks of “unprofitable servants” who have done only what they were supposed to do. In other words they do their work for no reward, expecting no thanks, no repayment, because the nature of their life is simply to serve.
And so it is in the Christian life.
We are baptized as children of God, as followers of Christ: if we are to be faithful to the new life given us in this Sacrament, then we serve God in hope of no reward save Heaven which is, in itself, less a reward and more so the promised result of dying in fidelity to God. If we die as a faithful child of God, where else would we go but to the Father’s house, where His children belong? What a danger it is to do anything holy, anything for God, and expect something in return. “I prayed this novena faithfully, yet God did not answer my prayer.” “I’m angry with God; I did so-and-so for Him, and He did nothing for me.”
Brothers and sisters, God is not a banker! Nor does He owe us anything; did He owe you your existence? Did He owe you salvation? Was there a sort of contract such that He owes you the sustenance of your being in this world? No: God is not so legalistic as that. Satan is, but God is not: God, on the other hand, is radically generous. He created us for no reason other than the fact He loves us; He was under no obligation to create a single thing. He sent His Son to redeem us out of the sheer goodness of His Heart, not because He had a responsibility to do so. Do not mistake my message; I am not saying that God is apathetic, nor is He dispassionate. Rather He is so radically generous that we are sometimes completely oblivious to it, and so we begrudge Him the seeming failures we might encounter when trusting Him, forgetting all the while the incredible things He has done for us already, for which we ought to be just as radically grateful.
If you consider only one thing—the death of Christ on the Cross for your sins—that God has done, would it not be completely appropriate to dedicate the entirety of your life to serving God, just as God did so in this climax of salvation history? Has not our loving Master already paid us in full for every labor we could possibly do for Him? Imagine being hired for a job and your employer pays you your life’s salary up front: God has done so! And so we serve Him not for any reward, but in humble gratitude for what He has done, hoping that at the end of our labors, having served Him first in all things, we might witness what Jesus speaks of earlier in Luke’s Gospel: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them,” (Luke 12:37).