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In the little cottage where I live in Martinez I have a landlord, and every so often he drops by and asks, “Anything need work? Anything need repair, fixing?” He comes by once a month. And I have a whole little pack of index cards with suggestions or questions. I articulate them. (I’ve been there for four years.) And I made the mistake this week of taking one of the index cards and inserting it into his shirt pocket. And he said, “No. Wait. I’ve heard what you said. I’ve assimilated. I’ve heard it once. I don’t need the reminder.” He gave me back the card. Now, I thought, “No, you don’t need the reminder, but I do. I need the reminder. I need reminders, and some of us, not all, need regular reminders, not from the preacher, from the Sunday gospel.... from the Sunday gospel.”

There are two big reminders in today’s gospel. And I have to hurry up and say fast that the last adjective Our Lord uses in His example of “unprofitable servants” is a bad translation. I checked it with the Catholic Bible scholars. It’s “humble.” .... We are “humble” servants. That’s Ok. Humble can have great dignity and reserve and honesty. We are humble servants. It’s a reminder. Not all of you need it, but some of us do. I do. We are servants. OK.

So, there are two themes in today’s gospel. One is about faith. Hold onto your faith. You don’t need much, just a little bit of faith. And Our Lord says, “If you had just a little seed of faith you could say to that mulberry tree ‘Go to the ocean!’ “ Now, according to the Bible scholars, a mulberry tree in Our Lord’s land was the tree with the biggest, thickest, deepest roots. So it is a good example of Semitic hyperbole (Jewish exaggeration). If you could get that kind of a tree to get picked up and thrown into the ocean (Our Lord uses as an example.) you just need a little faith. Hold on! A little bit of faith, hold onto it!

And the second thing is servants. We are all servants of each other. He says it three times, “servants,” not slaves..... servants. So, when I was walking the dog yesterday, I was trying to get an easy way for me to remember. None of this is meant to diminish your intelligence, merely an aid to my faltering one. And I am walking the dog and I tried to get a little bit of (Well, I won’t dignify it with the name “verse.”); let’s say “doggerel.”

Keep your faith up and tall.
Don’t stagger.
Keep your ego down and small.
Don’t swagger!

(And I love it when I see someone in the audience yawning and stretching and checking his watch!) Hold on! There’s only about six more. OK. Don’t stagger with your faith. Hold onto the litttle bit of it you’ve got. Don’t quit before the miracle.

And the second thing is “Don’t be swaggering!” I have found, back on the East Coast when I was dealing with Protestants or Jewish people or athiests, really Catholics are the least inclined to swagger. Really. Maybe it is because we have the cross wherever we turn but It is a good reminder for some of us: “Don’t swagger!”

Just before today’s gospel, if you have been reading Luke, just before this, Our Lord has been warning His friends, “Don’t become Pharisees. They are swaggerers.” And they were. The swaggerers, when they appeared in public, expected to be greeted in this way, and forgive the ham bone, but.... (Father demonstrates a big sweeping bow.) Our Lord says to His friends, to you and me, “You are servants. Don’t swagger.” Pharisees, if they passed somebody whom they regarded as a sinner, would draw their cloaks about them, lest a bit of the garment come into any contact, however vestigial, with a public sinner. And as far as women and kids are concerned, the Pharisees would not permit them anywhere near the forum where they were going to speak or teach. (Women and children, OUT!) So, what some of us may regard as that cute little gospel where Jesus welcomes children isn’t cute. It’s revolutionary! Christ welcoming children! Our Lord says, “Don’t swagger. Don’t. You are servants of each other.”

And remember “unprofitable” is translated “humble.” At the last supper, you all remember, Christ strips off His outer garments, puts on a towel around His midsection, kneels down, and He cleans the feet of each of the eleven apostles, eleven, not twelve, because tragically Judas had split by then. Remember? “And Judas left and it was night.” That’s the scariest line in the Bible to me. Judas left the dinner and it was night. But Our Lord cleans the feet of the other eleven and He looks up at them. He is still on His knees with the towel around His waist. He says, “You see what I have done? And you call me ‘Lord.’ That’s what you do to each other.“ Servants. He wasn’t just talking to the first priests. He was talking to Dibble and some of us who need the reminder. You are servants of each other. Don’t swagger.

OK. Two quick examples, one silly and the other sublime, about servants. What’s strong in me can help what’s weak in you, and what’s strong in you sure can help what’s weak in me! The eleven apostles are servants, fallible, messed-up human beings, but they can help each other. OK. Now, the silly one, needless to say, is about me. But the sublime one is about two mature adults. The silly one, about being of service to one another, this house I have been living in for four years, this cottage, I finally looked up a few weeks ago and realized that the windows need cleaning. And I had seen on TV a commercial for a product called “Windex.” See, I have lived in a community, a faculty house all my life. So I went to the store and I got a bottle of Windex, a big, big bottle. You can clean the Smithsonian with this bottle. And I brought it home and, avid for the task, I went to the big windows and I squirted. Except, nothing happened. So, I squirted again. And, again, nihil, nada. So I shook it and I turned it upside down and I punched it and I squeezed it. Nothing happened. So I took this vat of Windex and I hurled it into the trash can. Now, I am on a budget and it was a big bottle.

Later that night, a priest friend of mine (We had been in the seminary as teenagers. He is a priest in San Francisco. He has been dealing with people, unlike myself who has been in a classroom for thirty years.) .... We were talking, servant to servant. He said, “How are things going?” I said, “It is too humiliating to discuss, but I will with you. I want to clean these windows and I bought this Windex and....” I warn you it was silly. And he said, “Get the Windex out of the garbage and bring it over to the phone. And I will show you.” I said, “All right!” and I brought it over. He said, “Now, if you will look at the top of the Windex, you will see that there is an arrow.” I said, “I can’t see anything. Everything is white!” ..... “Well, why don’t you get your eyeglasses?” I warned you it was inane! And I got the glasses and said, “All right!,” snapping at him who is being a servant to me. Snapping at him! He said, “Now, if you would look very carefully, you will see that there is an arrow imprinted by the manufacturer, and you can get the arrow gently, gently turn it and it will match up with the spigot, the spout. Now,” he said, “squeeze.” Whoosh! Oh, the parting of the Red Sea was not a greater miracle. I said, “Oh, thank you!” just that way. He said, “Listen, you have been helping me over the phone for four years about starting my Catholic Book Club and movies, Catholic Books and movies and fiction that have a spiritual element. I don’t know anything about that stuff! But I can help you,” he said, “with washing a window, the intricacies of a microwave, maybe some plumbing.” Silly example, but true. And then he went on to say because he has been working with married people mostly, in many parishes, for the last forty years, he said, “I find that is true with married people too. The ardor and the eroticism and the romanticism of the honeymoon fades fast. But the marriages that seem to last, not without fracas and trouble and fights, but the ones that seem to last become friends. They’ve got a lot in common. What is strong in her is weak in him. What is strong in him helps what is weak or vacillating in her, with each other, with bringing up the kids. They are servants.” He said the word, not thinking about today’s gospel. He said, “They are kind of servants for each other. The same with long time friends,” he said. And I thought, “Yeah.... Yeah.”

And the second and last example is the sublime one. Just before I was lucky enough to come here, in 1999, I had been to a wedding in San Diego. It’s not about me, believe me. It will soon get to the mature adults. But, I said grace at the reception after the wedding and then I fled because people, at least with me, don’t seem to know “What do we do with the priest?” And for years, on the East Coast, I wound up way at a table near the kitchen with some remote relative who was really sauced up on martinis and wanted to tell me what’s really wrong with the Catholic Church!! So, I fled that particular reception. Nobody noticed. They don’t notice!

I was sitting on a bench on that promenade in San Diego over the water. It’s so beautiful, and the sun was setting. It was gloriously peaceful! And then, coming down the promenade was a woman in a wheelchair being propelled by an elderly gentleman. And I thought it was idyllic, just to watch it as the sun was setting. And, as they got closer to my bench (There was no one else around, just we three!) it became clear that she was giving him directions and she really was crippled because her legs were turned in and shriveled. But she seemed cheerful enough, and she was giving him directions. And then I perceived he was blind! But she would say clearly and calmly, “Now, John, in about ten yards, we will be making a left at the end of the promenade, and shortly after that, we will be making a right. And I will let you know.” Now, to me, that particular afternoon in San Diego, that is about today’s gospel, about service. What was weak in her became strong in him. You know what I mean. She couldn’t walk but she could give him directions verbally. He couldn’t see but he could propel her wheelchair. Anyhow, I thought “That is sublime service. One weakness helping another’s strength and vice-versa.” Symbiotic spirituality!

At any event, my landlord snapped. He really did. He kind of snapped at me. “I don’t need these extra reminders! I have heard what you said, Mike. I have assimilated it.” But I need, I do sometimes. And some of you, not all, but some of you need humbly, gratefully, reminders as in today’s Sunday gospel.