When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.—Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming, Part 6, Chap. 3
Yesterday, of course, was the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Cycle B). The theme running through the
readings was of strife, envy and jealousy; the only counter to these problems
is to humble oneself and become a servant to those whom one wishes to rule.
However — and this might be grounds for censure — the
selected Gospel text (Mk 9:30-37) isn’t the one that occupied my attention at
Mass. Rather, another one floated into
mind, a text that has had a lot of personal meaning:[The Lord said,] “Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’” (Lk 17:7-10).
It’s worth noting that the Greek word translated in most
versions as “servant”, doulos, has
the primary meaning “slave”. In fact,
that’s how the New American Bible had it translated when it was originally
published. It was re-translated back to “servant”
with the 1986 revision, which is a pity; translating doulos as “slave” brings a lot more to the theological party.[*]
“We are worse than useless slaves, for we have done no more
than what was required of us.” That’s
how it went, if my memory doesn’t play me false. Doing the bare minimum is not a guarantee of
a passing grade.
Or, at least, that was the initial impression.
I still think that’s an accurate read of the text. In April of last year, I wrote a post that
touched on the futility of minimal goodness.
I submit that, even from a non-Christian perspective, “good enough” isn’t. It’s an excuse to slack off, to be “less than we can be”, to hang on to vices and failings — not because we believe they’re not really vices and failings but because we take pleasure in them, and to give them up would be to (ugh) suffer. Because there’s no objective benchmark for “good enough”, there’s no justification for giving less than 100% ... even if you don’t believe in sainthood.And if you do ... well, as Patrick Coffin of Catholic Answers Live says in his sign-off: “What else is there?” Why not the best?
But, in a sense, it’s also Jesus’ way of pointing out the
futility of rules.
All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus (Rom 2:12-16).
The parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-37) shows us the
law written on the heart, for Jews held Samaritans to be worse than Gentiles —
they were apostates, with whom the antipathy was mutual and long-standing (back
to the Two Kingdoms period). The priest
and the Levite used the constraints of the Law of Moses to evade an act of
mercy, possibly (as Martin L. King, Jr. said) from fear that they too would be
robbed and killed: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”[1] And so the victim remained Someone Else’s
Problem. The Samaritan became the man’s
savior because his concern was not
the Law of Moses: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
The mere avoidance of evil, the refusal to do harm to
others, is not enough. Moving beyond the
rules means moving beyond one’s self — the demands of pride, ego, appetite and desire
that are summed up in that cheerfully brutal catchphrase “looking out for Number
One” — and placing the needs of others
first.
This is where the passage from Luke dovetails the passage
from Mark in yesterday’s Gospel: to become saints, we must first become
servants. To become servants, we must
lose the “all about me” attitude. We
must place our own needs second to others, even when doing so may make our
lives uncomfortable or place us at some risk.
Like Terence’s Chremes, we must take the attitude that “nothing that
concerns a man do [we] deem a matter of indifference”.[2]
Once we learn to love others more than we love ourselves,
then we will be able to move beyond the rules.
We will not need them, for we will do no evil to those whom we love, nor
will they be sufficient for the expression of that love. Only in that purity of love which God alone
makes possible will laws finally become useless.
[*]
By contrast, when Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “If anyone would be first, he
must be last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35), the Greek word in question
is diakonos. The diakonos
is not necessarily a bondsman or a captive, nor is he a person of no social account,
but he still carries out commands of his superior. Diakonos
also meant “waiter” or “table servant”, which explains why the original “seven
men of good repute” chosen to distribute food became known as diakonoi, or deacons (Acts 6:1-6).
[1]
King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1968, April 3). “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”.
Speech at Fordham University, Memphis, Tenn.
