B: 5th Sun of OrdTime (4 Feb 2018) - SERVICE - Mk 1:29-39

It is rare that all the three readings on a Sunday liturgy are seamlessly related. Today is one of those instances when we can discern the value of service in all of them.

The First Reading presents Job after he experienced the most humbling and excruciating trials in life: his cattle robbed, his properties destroyed, his servants and children dead (Job 1:13-19), and his body afflicted with boils (2:7). Anyone in this situation will definitely feel abandoned and frustrated. We have to give then Job a compassionate pass for his uttered grievances against the Lord (3:1ff.). But even in the midst of this despair, he was still able to compare man's life on earth as someone in service (7:1). The Hebrew word used for "service" here is "tsava" which is associated to war-service in an army. Seemingly, Job was comparing himself to a soldier who even in his unwillingness would still perform the mission at hand.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians in our Second Reading is speaking about the obligation God entrusted him in preaching the gospel. The whole of chapter 9 is actually Paul's claim that he is an apostle of the Lord (v. 1) and he was doing this "free of charge" (v. 18), all for the sake of the gospel that "he may have a share in it" (v. 23). Subsequently, to illustrate this task he used the imagery of runners in the stadium who perform their disciplinary exercises with the hope of receiving one day God's imperishable crown (v. 25). As an athlete doesn't complain of the hardships he endures daily, Paul does the same in performing his missionary works.

Our Gospel starts with Jesus' visit to the house of Simon and Andrew (Mk 1:29). There he found Simon's mother-in-law sick with fever. What is noteworthy is that after she was healed by Jesus, she immediately began to serve (Greek: "diekonei") them. Some biblical versions (e.g., New American Bible) translate this verb as "wait". But I prefer the translation "serve" offered by the New Revised Standard Version for it links this verse to the next scene where Jesus literally served the whole town tirelessly at late evening and even on the following morning. He cured the sick, drove away demons, and preached in synagogues. He did all of this because as he had clarified: "for this purpose have I come" (v.38).

True Selfless Service… it will be far-fetched to find this as the norm in our present society. Can we still find material, political, and spiritual leaders who busy themselves to serve the people without receiving any benefits in return? And even less likely, to imitate Paul's service doing it free of charge? A few probably. But in most cases, everybody seems to act with an ulterior motive at hand: more fame, power, money, pleasures, glory… or better referred to as "corruption".

Allow me to share Pope Francis' prayer for this month of February which zeroes in on corruption as the root cause of our modern sufferings: http://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-02/pope-francis-prayer-intention-february-corruption.html#play

As we serve our individual communities, may we just simply say: "it is my duty to God". Period.

- Rex Fortes, CM