And we carry our ideas of fairness into our relationship with God. Have you ever found yourself trying to bargain with God? I have. There's something I really want, or I'm nervous about something, so I'm suddenly saying to God, "I did this for You today, I tried really hard to do good things for You, so could You please do this for me? After all, God, that would be a fair trade."
Or, you believe that, in fairness, you deserve more from life than what you've gotten. Something really bad, traumatic, tragic, happens, and your first thought is, "But, I am a good person, I've always obeyed God and my Church, so why should this happen to me or the people I love? This isn't fair!"
If we have this really strong, inflated idea of what fairness for ourselves should be, we can spend our entire lives in a state of bitterness and depression because life hasn't been fair enough to suit us.
If we are relying on our own limited, understanding of what fairness and justice in our life should be, we're basically telling God to shape up and listen to us. We are being Adam and Eve, proud of the fact that we belong to the most intelligent species on earth, that God has put power over the whole rest of the earth into our hands, that no computer yet can even duplicate the speed, the complexity, the complex combination of thought, feeling, and decision-making of the human brain. We take pride in all of this - and think that God should, too, by doing what we think is fair for us.
But God's idea of fairness to us, or doing justice for us, is very different from ours. So, who do we listen to about what's fair or just for us? God, or us? Or - who is in charge of deciding what is fair for us, God or us? Ask yourself: Who made us? Who gave us power over the whole earth? Who gave us these complex brains and powers of decision-making?
God's idea of fairness or justice is way beyond human ideas of fairness or justice. God shows us, instead, an abundance of merciful love. God's main concern is that the life we lead is a love relationship with Him, that the way we live every day increases our faith in Him, that, no matter what happens, we put our trust in Him, that we make Him the priority in our lives. God the Father, out of an abundance of merciful love, has given us His Son to walk among us, live for us, die for us, rise from the dead for us. And God asks us to lead our lives by following Jesus the humble Servant - not us! - as our Way, Truth, and Life, whatever the cost. Jesus even tells a rather disturbing parable to prick the bubble of unreality that our self-seeking egos try to get us to live in. Luke 17: 7-10:
“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Whoa, we can think. Jesus, that's COLD. We're only UNWORTHY SERVANTS?! Bishop Robert Barron reflects on this parable:
"Friends, as is often the case with Jesus’ more difficult parables, we have to pay careful attention to today’s Gospel story. It’s all about justice, which is rendering to each what is due—a good and noble thing. When justice is your primary consideration, you are basically in charge, morally speaking. But what Jesus is doing today in this striking and annoying story is to shake us out of that understanding of our relationship to God.
"The point is this: God owes us precisely nothing. Everything we have, including our very existence, is a sheer gift. We are in absolutely no position ever to demand anything of God. To move into this space is to move out of the stance of faith. And so no matter what God asks, the proper response is: "I am an unprofitable servant; I have done what I was obliged to do." (Daily Gospel Reflection (11/12/2019)
Jesus doesn't just talk the talk on this "Servant" business. Jesus walks the walk. Remember the Last Supper? (John 13: 1 - 17.) While Jesus' disciples were at the table, Jesus rose from the meal, took off his cloak, wrapped and tied a towel around his waist, got a basin of water and a towel, knelt down, and did a servant's job by washing everyone's feet. Peter didn't like it, and protested that they should be washing Jesus' feet instead, because Jesus was their Rabbi, their Master. Remember what Jesus told them then?
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."
But Jesus' action of washing their feet was a culmination of his life spent humbly serving others, because Jesus literally lived for His people. He walked everywhere to minister to people, always ready to listen, to teach, to heal, even when he was exhausted. His love was so great that he chose to tenderly care for everyone whom the Father gave Him as His responsibility. Jesus did not consider His people - and that is all of us - as a burden. Jesus considered and considers us to be the precious gift that His father gave Him. As a human father considers his family his gift, and so works hard at his job so he can take care of them, even when he is exhausted. As a mother considers her child her gift when she cares for that child long into the night when that child is sick. This is being a Servant - putting the other's needs and wishes before your own.
Jesus says that no servant is greater than his master, that no messenger is greater than the one who sent her. What is the attitude of good servants or messengers? Their Master is their priority; they literally focus everything on what their Master is doing and desires of them, what the message is that he wants sent out; they put all their considerable talents at their Master's disposal.
If Jesus is our Master, our Teacher, our Lord, then our priority is focusing on His way of doing things that He wants us to imitate. What does He do? What does he tell us to do? Serve others to help Him save others. Preach the Gospel with our words and with our lives spent serving others, when it's convenient and when it's inconvenient. Persevere, even when our ego tells us that it is unfair for God to ask so much of us, to carry the cross, to wear the crown of thorns of our various sufferings, trials, and tragedies. All this takes tremendous faith in God, trust in God, love for God. All of this takes a continual battle in our souls between what we want and what God wants, a battle to live in humility.
It especially takes humility to love and care for others if we think they are undeserving. Yet, couldn't God consider all of us undeserving? As Bishop Barron says, God has given us everything, including our lives; God doesn't "owe" us anything. But - we owe God everything! If God has loved all of us to the death, even though we are undeserving, we can certainly take care of others without judging their lives or their worthiness.
Jesus said, at his Last Supper, "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." To be blessed is to be happy! Living in humble dependence on God, in total surrender to God as God's servant, is, paradoxically, the Way to true happiness. When we allow ourselves to be Servants, instruments who allow God's merciful love to flow through us to others, we receive the Holy Spirit's Gift of Joy. We are working to bring God's Reign of Mercy and Love into reality on earth - nothing could be more joyful! If we live according to our own ideas of "fairness," we may never attempt to do all that God desires us to do, because, to do so, would be "too much," an "unfair imposition" on our lives. Yet, being God's humble Servants opens, deepens, widens, our lives in unimaginable ways, brings people and events into our lives that give life richness and depth and glimpses into the mysterious ways that God works.
And, in what can seem to be a paradoxical shift, Jesus tells us what will happen to us and for us if we have been good and faithful servants, constantly watching and waiting and preparing for our God's return for us to take us where He is: (Luke 12:37)
"The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat!"
Our humble God plans on putting on an apron and waiting on us, SERVING US, Himself at the Heavenly Banquet. What sheer happiness, TO SEE HIS PERSONAL SMILE FOR US, RECEIVE BLESSINGS FROM HIS OWN HANDS! After all, God cannot be outdone in humble, merciful, loving generosity. His abundant, overflowing love for us will trump our limited, measley idea of "fairness" every single, blessed time!