Becoming a Servant

Dear Friend,

In a bolt from the blue this Sunday we’ll be hearing from the Book of Job, which has me thinking of those dedicated parishioners who are currently studying that book under the guidance of Roger Bergman. When their sessions conclude, let’s consider a public conversation with Roger and crew to share with us the wisdom they’ve gleaned (Why not?).

For now, I’ll offer this: The Book of Job is proof that 2500 years ago people just like us were tossing and turning on their mattresses at night with angst and worry, in torment and pain: “If in bed I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ then the night drags on…” (Job 7:4). And if that’s cold comfort, well, consider Saint Paul…

In his Letter to the Corinthians, Paul (no stranger to sleepless nights) gets at the matter from a different angle: his compulsion to preach the Gospel. In contrast to the friends of Job, who stood at his bed of pain with the counsel that his problems were the result of his sin, Paul offers this (in the very helpful translation by Eugene Peterson):  “I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized – whoever… I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view…” (I Cor. 9:19-22)

This text turns out to be a good description of the day in the life of Jesus offered by Mark in the Gospel. Jesus’s word is action, becoming a servant to the one in pain, even, as we hear, with “the whole town gathered at the door.” I ask myself: Where are you in this picture? Who are you connecting with, and how?

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor