Song of the Servant

Gospel: Matthew 24: 42-51

What is the role of a servant?  In today's Gospel portion it is a simple set of tasks.  The first is that we feed others when they need to be fed.  The second is that we work together within our common home, treating each other with dignity and respect.  The servant in this story did neither of these things and so received a harsh judgment from the master upon his return to the house.  It seems a rather set of simple tasks to feed others and work cooperatively with others, right?

And yet we find innumerable reasons to allow others to starve in our world.  We find a host of apologetics for mistreating the poor, immigrants, migrants, refugees, foreigners, and the marginalized of all kinds.  The world is littered with the casualties of our callousness, alongside the rubbish of our religiosity that would cover over our neglect of this simple set of tasks the Lord has entrusted to us.  Woe to us upon the master's return.

Every single human being is a child of God, made in God's image and likeness.  Every person is a fellow servant and pilgrim on this earth.  We are to walk alongside each person as our equal, to provide food for them on the journey, to live together in mutual cooperation in our common home.  The Christian is not greater than anyone else, and how often does the Christian demonstrate the exact opposite in how we treat other people!