We are ordinary servants.

Way back in the beginning, when the earth was empty and void, God decided to give life to plants and animals of every kind. On the sixth day God scooped up some mud and breathed upon it and the first human being began to live. But this first person was lonely and isolated and speechless since there was no one talk to. Also, this person was destined for extinction because there was no way it could reproduce itself.

Then God created a second person from the first. And immediately the two separate persons had a longing to return to their original unity. They came together socially and created a language for communication. They came together spiritually and developed rituals to praise the God who had created them. They came together in marriage and gave birth to children who kept the human race alive.

My point is this: God is a life-giving person. God created the human person on the Sixth day of Creation. And when it looked like the human race might die out, God found a way to give it new life. God created a second person who became me, one with the first and formed a family so that life could go on.

But the first family had lots of problems. The family could not provide for its needs. It could not provide enough food for itself and it could not care for its medical needs. The first family was heading for extinction. So God created more families with the expectation that a community would be formed with one family raising cattle and another family raising fruits and vegetables and another family caring for the health needs of the community.

With that development the human community thought that it had everything that it needed to survive - and it did. It was able to survive, but only on a physical level. The human community was filled with pain and chaos because it was filled with lying and stealing and adultery and murder. Then God said, “I will help my people move beyond this painful existence. I will call them to transform their human community into a faith community and I will give them my divine commandments which will lead them away from those behaviors which cause so much pain.” And so it was. God formed a faith community by giving the people the Ten Commandments to steer them away from harmful behaviors.

When they became a faith community, when they became the People of God, they found that their lives were filled with peace and contentment, and they were deeply grateful. They built a beautiful Temple and created elaborate worship services to give praise and thanks to God.

As the years went by, they found the Ten Commandments to be helpful, but they also found some gaps. The Ten Commandments did not tell them how to care for the homeless and people who were sick and women who were pregnant. So, God sent special messengers called prophets. And these messengers said, “God wants you to provide for the needs of every human being because every human life is sacred from the moment of conception to the moment of death.” These words were very helpful because they guided the people in areas that were not covered by the Ten Commandments.

Several centuries later, The People of God said, “We have peace in our lives when we follow the Law and the Prophets; but still, something is missing. We have peace, but no sense of joy. When God heard this, God said, “I will send my Son to show you how to have joy in your hearts.”

Nine months later Jesus came into the world and thirty years later he delivered a clear and concise directive: “What you need is a change of heart. Give your love to those who cannot possibly pay you back. If you do that your hearts will be filled with joy.”

During the days of his public ministry, we see Jesus practicing what he was preaching. We see him embracing and blessing the children - the little ones who cannot pay him back. In other situations, we see Jesus embracing and blessing the sick, the weak, the powerless, the lepers and those who are dying. These are people who cannot reward him or pay him back. Jesus is teaching his followers that whenever they see the dignity and goodness of each person and respond by serving them without expecting a reward, their hearts will be filled with a joy that is so great that it cannot be measured.

Now let’s move on to look at this question: “What does the story of God’s People tell us about God?” First of all, it reveals to us that God is active and creative at every moment in history and God is always moving in to give people New Life. Secondly, God is always reminding us that we are made in the divine image and that we are called to be life-giving persons.

Now responding to that call is complex. We are called to be persons who are caring for life; but there is more to it than that. We are also called to be families which are caring for life and communities which are caring for life. God created individuals, then families and then communities. We are individuals caring for life when we show respect for the dignity of each person from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

We are families caring for life when we reach beyond our family circle and take our families out to serve those who are sick and those who are in need. We are families caring for life when we welcome foster children and adopted children into our family life. We are faith communities caring for life when each parish community sees itself as a “Community Caring for Life.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about serving others and the attitude that we should have as we serve them. We should take on his approach to life. We should be servants. We should seek to serve rather than try to be served. Like it says in today’s Gospel: We are ordinary servants. We are just doing our job. We are not seeking rewards.

I will close with a short summary. Today is Respect Life Sunday. We are called to be persons who are caring for life and protecting every human life. We are called to serve those who need our help. And we remember that Jesus calls us to be servants.

He calls to serve as He did……….To serve without seeking reward.