2543AFC1012425 – Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service ← PODCAST LINK 😀
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Psalm 34:1 –
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Praise
Luke 18:13 c – God. be merciful to me, a sinner. Humility
2 Timothy 4:7 c – I have kept the faith. Faithfulness
Sirach 35:14 – The one who serves God willingly is heard Service
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. These four short phrases from the coming Sunday’s readings seemed to me to set an outline of “a great way to live” because it encompasses “a great way to pray.” The Gospel for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time is “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.” The Pharisee, all full of himself, prays to be seen – not only is he putting on a show for his fellow Jews, but he is also literally “praying to be seen,” his prayer is that others will see him and recognize what a swell guy he is. All the while he is perfectly unaware, that God – Who sees everything, and everyone, all the time everywhere – can see what a fake he is. On a humility scale of 1 to 10, he’d score like a minus 2! Prayer requires humility. Without that prerequisite, it’s just empty words. (See Job 35:12-13)
On the other hand, standing well back from such a grand specimen of an earthling, there is the Publican, a tax collector, a collaborator with the enemy, Rome. His head is bowed and he is stooped over beating his chest and praying in humble honesty, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus tells us in this parable that the prayer of the tax collector was favorably received and welcomed by God for the man’s justification. The Pharisee’s reward was as he prayed for – he was seen by others, and that’s all he gets. This story, and especially this image, always enters my mind and heart during Mass when we pray, “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” What an amazing prayer, and only one little part of The Perfect Prayer, the Mass!
We begin this post with the aspect of Worship that should be the beginning of all worship: PRAISE. In Judges 1:2 and Judges 20:18, we see God’s Will when the Israelites asked God which tribe should lead their forces against the enemies. God’s answer was “Let Judah go up first.” (← Check it out in those passages.). Many Bible scholars (and this passionate student of the Word) recognize that “Judah” means “Praise” { יְהוּדָה} so that the Scripture reads, “Let {Praise} go up first.” This is illustrated in The Lord’s Prayer, “Father in Heaven, your name is Holy.” We also recognize that Jesus’ name in Hebrew – Yeshua – means “Jehovah Saves,” or “God is Salvation.” Thus, by invoking the very name of Jesus, (↔ Music Link) we give praise to God. Jesus is “the refulgence (lustrous splendorous brilliancy) of God’s Glory, and so in praying or calling or speaking his name, we not only invoke God, but also we offer him Perfect Praise. Knowing, then, that God is God, we are not; knowing that Jesus is God and we are not; knowing that the Holy Spirit is God, and we cannot be; then we are disposed to approach in our prayers The Lord, the Giver of Life with at least wonder and awe, and hopefully with humility as well, and we could start with “The Jesus Prayer.”
Today, then, we will look in particular at one very special prayer. It is most often known as “The Jesus Prayer.” One common format is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There is a popular musical setting by Tom Booth The Jesus Song (↔ Music Link). I want to go back a bit and look at how this prayer is “put together.” This goes back to 2019, so you might remember it:
The Jesus Prayer combines three New Testament Scriptures: [1] The Messianic theological hymn of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians in Philippians 2:6–11 (See verse 11: “Jesus Christ is Lord”), the Annunciation as presented in Luke 1:31–35 (See verse 35: “Son of God”), and the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Tax Collector) of Luke 18:9–14, in which the Pharisee demonstrates the improper way to pray (See verse 11: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”), whereas the Publican prays correctly in humility (See verse 13: “God be merciful to me a sinner”). It takes humility to pray and humility comes to us by Grace and Grace is a gift from God, so when we pray we exercise (make use of) and Extra-Ordinary Gift from God – in short God prepares us to pray, and if we accept the Gift of Grace that elicits prayer, we respond to him by asking him to respond to us. God is always the initiator of every Grace because he is ALWAYS THE Giver of all Good Gifts. Many a day I think that Grace must be the goodest Gift God included in Creation. These two, Praise and Humility, make a good pair, yes? When I think about grace I consider it to be something like Justice tempered with Mercy that is gifted to all who will accept it. Who would not accept it? Persons like the Pharisee who cannot even fake humility in the presence of Almighty God.
It does indeed take humility to pray The Jesus Prayer. It takes nothing of conscience or spirit to recite this prayer. Recitation of prayers is a convenient trap for the devil to get into our heads and hearts. Now, let’s add to the list of “Praise and Humility” the concept of “FAITHFULNESS.” I have been prompted to dig into that a bit deeper. We all know what it means – or at least we all think that we do – and we also have a pretty good idea about what it should look like. Let’s begin with the Key Verse in 2 Timothy 4:7 c – I have kept the faith. In this The Apostle Paul attests to the example of his own life as evidence of believing in the Truth of the Gospel and living in accordance with that Truth despite having only incomplete knowledge and understanding of how that Truth is given to us through Grace so that we may claim it in fellowship with the Entirety of God in and through Christ Jesus. Now that’s a lot of words to say, “He walked the Talk.” Nonetheless, faithfulness is also one of those unfathomable Mysteries of God’s Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation because of his Immutable Justice. (Wait for it!) It’s all in the APP, the Absolutely Perfect Plan. God, who is (as we have already seen) the initiator of all Good Gifts, is perpetually Faithful – so that we therefore have complete confidence that God will not ask us to do anything for him that he would not do for us. In fact, God always initiates and exemplifies everything we should do for him by doing all those things for us first. He keeps every promise he makes, so guess what? SO MUST WE. We cannot do that without praise, humility, Grace, faithfulness, and service.
We know that we can rely on God to receive our praise, to bless our genuine (not “Pharisaical”) humility, to encourage and bless our faithfulness, and in all of these Gifts he expects us to accept and use everything he gives us. Now, why would he do something like that? He would do it so that we will apply those gifts to our worship of him and to our faith and charity for others. Hmmm, what could we call that? it sounds a lot like the Fourth Pillar of Stewardship. What is the Fourth Pillar of Stewardship? The Four Pillars of Stewardship are HOSPITALITY, PRAYER, FORMATION, AND SERVICE. Sirach 35:14 – The one who serves God willingly is heard. Not only that but also John 13:34-35 – 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”(↔ Music Link)
Would it be fair to assert that Love CAN be the cause of our willingness to render service – service to God and to each other? Does that make any sense? Let’s think for a moment about our loved ones – parents, siblings, spouses, offspring, friends, fellow pilgrims and sojourners. When we Love them, it seems only natural that we would serve them. How? As an example, should parents serve their children? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
“To serve” has roots in being a slave to someone else, to be devoted to another person or idea, or institution such as a religion. For those among us who are parents, were you devoted to your children so that it was your honor to provide them with all that they needed to learn how to Love and Serve God and others in their sphere of influence? Nearly all of us grew up knowing and loving at least one parent or guardian, one person whose centrality in our lives made life at least bearable, if not downright delightful. In a reasonable and caring climate, we are inspired to serve them, to make them proud, to give them the satisfaction of knowing that “the best that I can do” was good enough to bring out the best in us?
So it must also be with our Creator, The Lord God. I usually expand that title to “The Lord, the Giver of Life.” He is Jehovah Sabaoth which is translated as “the Lord of Hosts.” That is often applied to the concept of God’s Armies, but really it means everything that God is and all of his Creation. We could translate it as God of All or God of Everything. He is Elyon El – Most-High God, Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. He is El Shaddai – God Almighty. He is El Olam, God Everlasting. He is Abba, Dad (↔ Music Link). How can that be? It is because, in that as in everything else, God Our Father acts first, and every time he does that, we are called by HIM, to respond with Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service (and much, much more as well!). This Good and Loving Father wants to help us learn to Love and Serve him, and our neighbors, by transforming us into the image of his Son. And what might that accomplish? Let’s look at what The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 1:15-17 – 15 He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Here are a few other things to strengthen the case for the aspect of the APP:
Psalm 115:3 – 3 Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.
Lamentations 3:37-39 – 37 Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? 39 Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins?
You get the idea, I’m sure. Our God is Sovereign, and – “In the beginning” – we were to reign with hm. Through his Son, the Christ of God, he works to restore that relationship. (Here comes another redundancy.) More often than not, WE FORGET, and fight hard against his well-placed guardrails of Love often jumping over that “fence” only to fall from the cliff. In my experience its about half-and-half that he either catches us, or lets us bounce off the rocks to rock bottom. He even accepts our contrition when we say, “Sorry Dad. I forgot to Trust and Obey.”
Ahhh, Belovéd! What a GOOD God we have! In this Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time the Church offers four signposts along The Way to help us get up and get goin’. Let us respond in maturity of F.A.I.T.H. and show God our Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service. That’s a good start. Perhaps a couple other prayerful questions could be addressed: To God we can ask, “How have you called me?” (↔ Music Link) and to one another we must ask, “Will you let me be your servant?” (↔ Music Link)
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
