Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Luke 17:5-10

View from the Servant's Quarters

There are times when routine righteousness is what is needed - that steady practice that causes someone to bring a welcome basket to your front door when you move into a new neighborhood. Or Mrs. McKenny with her curried potato casserole that she has taken to grieving people for years out of reckoning. Routine righteousness. It may not be the kind of faith that commands mulberry trees to be planted in the ocean*. It does the job though. People in shocked grief do not always thank Mrs. McKenny for the food. For that very reason she does not expect it. It is her duty on the Care Committee. She is not so good with exchanging pleasantries at any rate, and that is the strength of her ministry, reminding struggling people who do not presently need the burden of conversation that someone can be trusted to offer a token of love and give them space - that there is someone who knows how to come and go without being that kind of needy servant who is always angling for personal thanks and thereby becoming an added burden to grieving people. 

Mrs. McKenny doesn't talk much about herself or her faith. She would be mortified if somebody tried to gauge her faith as some kind of quantifiable ingredient in her life. It doesn't matter. Who are we to say how many miracles were performed through those dozens of potato cassaroles? We are just the servants. A lot of the time we are at our best when we do our job and say as little as possible.

*If we did not know Jesus was purposefully being outlandish to make a point (a cherished rabbinic pedagogy), we could question the reason for having a mulberry tree growing in the sea.

© 2010 Andy Gay