In this weekend’s Gospel, Matthew 6:24-34, Jesus said to His disciples, “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” According to Joyce Ann Zimmerman, C.PP.S. and Fr. Christopher Colon, S.M., “Telling human beings not to worry about tomorrow is like telling them not to be the center of their own lives. And that is exactly the point of this gospel! If we choose ourselves, we worry. If we choose God, we will feed on God’s generosity, be clothed in God’s gift of Life, and be made rich in faith. This choice is sufficient not only for a day but for a whole lifetime, even for all eternity.”

People who worry—worrywarts or fussbudgets—are not usually fun to be around. They worry about what might happen or what to have for dinner or how much they need to exercise or if they should do this or do that. Worriers are telling us a lot about themselves but especially that they are placing themselves at the center of their universe. Everything or everyone tends to be about them. Remember Bette Midler in the Movie Beaches when talking to her friend she said, “Enough about me, let’s talk about you…so what do you think of me?!” Worrywarts are slaves to their own small world. They serve themselves; they worry because they can’t stop obsessing and usually about “me, myself and I.”

Matthew’s Gospel is fairly short this weekend and in it the word “worry” is mentioned five times—and anxiety is mentioned once. But Jesus is clear: “do not worry.”
When we serve or choose ourselves we choose worry. After all, when we become fixated on our needs, desires and wants we can become blind to the rest of the world and the needs of others around us. My mother once told me that her mom boxed her ears one day telling her that “when you begin to feel sorry for yourself you should go out help someone in need…and then you’ll see how lucky you are.” When we choose ourselves—putting ourselves first—we worry. If we choose God, the center of our lives shifts from ourselves to God and then to others.

In just a few short weeks our youth ministry team will head to Boston to begin their 2014 Mission Trip. This will be a transformative experience for these teenagers. They will be trans-ported from their loving families and very comfortable lives and homes to a world where plenty of food, warm beds, and clean clothes are not a given but rather where the necessities of life are limited, if nonexistent. They will go from a life where hope is a staple to lives where hope isn’t even hoped for anymore. But each one will come back with a new perspective—one like God’s— which sees all people as children of the Creator, equal in dignity, and due the right, not the privilege, of food, shelter and hope.

As we consider this weekend’s gospel message we must ask ourselves “whom shall I serve?” Is it me, Lord, or you? And how am I to serve?

The Church—and I mean Christ Himself—calls us to serve God through our service to others (reread last weekend’s first reading from Sirach). But before we can even begin that dialogue we need to step outside of our “selfism” world and recognize that we are a family: one of blood, one of faith, and one of origin. Meaning, that our blood family is our family and deserves
our closest attention and love but our self-giving does not end there. We are family by our bonds of faith, recognizing that we

are all adopted sons and daughters of God. In this we have one common family of faith. We are family from Origin in that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, sharing in His divine attributes: compassion, mercy, forgiveness and hope. It is these divine goods or virtues that empower us and our will to go beyond the self and to serve God in caring for and in sharing with each other. Once we choose God (thus others) over the self (mammon) we can stop the obsessing and worrying about our own needs and begin to actually count our blessings and desire to share them with those who seem to have few. We see this happening right here in our parish through the Pantry Partners mission or the Malta Mobile Care mission or the Feed the Hungry mission or the Prayer Shawl mission or the youth mission or the mission of so many religious education teachers who are passing on the faith to your children.

Yes the needs are many, but like Saint Paul said, “grace abounds all the more.” You are the grace of which he speaks!

So if I am all-consumed with my needs (meaning my schedule and wants like soccer and skiing and going out to din-ner or shopping constantly at West Farms, or being hyped up on all the things I must do for myself and my family) without any concern for the needs of those around me, how can I be serving God. For surely God wants me to think more about my pleas-ures?! Indeed He does.

God wants us to be in right relationship with Him and that means recognizing His Eternal Image in the face of every-one—the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the white and people of color, those around me and even the unborn—everyone is imprinted with the face of Christ. And their needs rate right up there with mine. What will I choose to do today? Whom will I serve…God or mammon?