Slave or Friend?
Introduction
-
Once a teenager told me disappointedly about his
family, “my family is not a home but a military training camp. My father is the
commander in chief who always command to us, children. We are the trainees who
fear very much our daddy and obey him. My mother is the cook of the military training
camp. We, the children have no freedom to express our opinion or nobody listens
to us”.
o
In a family the relationship should be correct
in order to have the expected result, i.e., the father should be the father,
not the commander in chief and the children should be children, not the trainees.
-
To have the right result, the relationship
should be set right. It is very much applicable in our spiritual life.
-
In today’s gospel Jesus presents two models of
relationship for our spiritual life;
1. Slave
and master relationship
2. Friend
and friend relationship
Content
-
The slave master relationship will have the
following characteristics.
o
Fear
§
The slave obeys the master because of fear. When
the slave does something wrong he is too much afraid of punishment. He takes
all the unflavored action against him by the master as punishment.
§
It can happen in our spiritual life if we
consider God as our master and we are servants / slaves. Whenever we do some
mistakes we fear of His punishment. Whatever disaster happen in our life we
consider them as punishment of God.
o
Work for pay
§
The servant works for pay. His mentality would
be if I work more the master should pay me more.
§
It may right with our spiritual life. We may
think, ‘I am praying and attending the liturgies of everyday. So I will be
blessed by God’.
o
Keep a distance
§
The servant will not be comfortable if the
master is so close to him because he may fear it would create lots of problems.
Therefore distance from the master to be safe from over intrusion of the
master.
§
In our spiritual life if we compartmentalize our
prayer life with our other activities of life, then we are following
slave-master relationship with God.
-
Friend–friend relationship - In this kind of
relationship the following will be the characteristics.
1. Emotional
attachment
§
We will be attached to Jesus like ‘Vine and
branches’ (Jn 15).
§
We would feel the presence of Jesus in each
moment of our life.
§
We will try to avoid all those action of ours
that may cause rupture in the relationship (our sins) between me and Jesus.
2. Intellectual
consent
§
It should be reflected in our life of faith.
§
The response that comes from the intellectual
consent is ‘May it be to me as you have said’ (Lk 1:38).
§
We pray every day, ‘your kingdom come, your will
be done’. It is the intellectual consent that we are aiming at.
§
In today’s moral and ethical issues such as RH
bill, euthanasia, use of contraceptives, abortion etc. our ultimate position
should be of Jesus which is revealed in the Gospel and through the Magisterium of
the Church.
3. Commitment
to action
§
Action according to the command of Jesus – “You
are my friends if you obey my commandment” (Jn 15:14). ‘Love one another as I loved
you’ is the commandment of our Lord.
§
It is a call to forgiving and selfless love that
is expressed by Jesus on the crucifix. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them,
for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34).
Conclusion
-
Let us put right our relationship with Jesus. He
called us his friends. Be friend with Jesus.
-
If Jesus is my friend, let us have emotional
attachment with him, intellectual consent with his ideas and commit ourselves
for action according to his commandment.
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