5 Sunday Easter, Year A, John 14:1-12

Diakonia - Service

What would our world be like if cars were never invented? Or what about the railway? Or even the steam engine? If there was no such thing as oil, or gold? What would life be like if we didn't have Microwaves and Dishwashers, sewing machines and tumble dryers? Very often we say: How did we ever do without this?

Imagine, if you will for a moment, what our world would be like if Christ had never been revealed to us. Imagine if Jesus had never been born. What would our world be like?

I think that if Jesus had never been born and if we had not ever heard the Good News of the Gospel, then our world would not have as much service in it. Of course other religions and other ways of life have service. But there is a particular essence of service because of Jesus Christ.

This particular essence of service is born of the fact that God became a human being in Jesus Christ. And, because God became a human being, human beings are forever better. Because Jesus became one of us we know that every person, every human being, baptised or unbaptised, born or unborn, alive or dead, free or in prison; every human being is like Jesus. And, because we are like Jesus, we are also like God. Our dignity as human beings was always there, even before Christ. But, because Jesus walked among us as God become man; now we know. We can never go back. We are always challenged to move forward. We can never forget.

There are many examples in our world where the dignity of every human person has not been upheld. Famine, injustice, unemployment, poverty, slavery. In all of these situations people are not respected as the gift of God that they are. Even in our own time and place, the horrible plight of abuse in all it's forms challenges the Christian understanding of the dignity of each person.

It is because of the dignity of human life that Christians everywhere uphold pro-life values, challenging the status quo of abortion, challenging the status quo of war, challenging the status quo of an unequal and divided world.

It is also because of the dignity of every human person that we are touched deeply by the momentous symbolic acts of this past week when the Queen of England made a State visit to our country.

Because of the dignity of human beings, some of us are called into the service of God and of his holy people. Queen Elizabeth is a very obvious example to us all of a lifetime of service to others. And, in our tradition as Catholics we are aware of those who have offered their own lives to service as priests or religious sisters and brothers.

It is hard to imagine what life would be like if we didn't have planes, trains and automobiles. It is even harder to imagine what our world might be like if God had not become one of us. Because of Jesus Christ, our world is changed forever. The vision of life inspired by the Gospel is a vision of service to God and service to all people. It is a vision of love in concrete form. The challenge for each one of us today is to allow our hearts and our lives to be touched by Christ's love and so to offer ourselves in service.