SELFLESS LOVE

25TH Sunday C Luke 16: 1-13 10:30 Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, and all of the others including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all repaired their boats and left. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to persevere until the last possible moment. When the island was almost sinking, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, “Richness, can you take me with you?” Richness answered, “No I can’t.. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place for you here.” Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel, “Vanity, please help me!” “I can’t help you Love. You are all wet and dirty. You’ll make my boat filthy,” Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked for help, “Sadness let me go with you.” “Oh...Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!” Happiness passed by Love too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her! Suddenly, there was a voice, “Come Love, I will take you.” Love felt so blessed and overjoyed that he even forgot to ask her rescuer his name. When they arrived at dry land, the rescuer went his own way. Love realizing how much she owed the rescuer , asked Knowledge, “Who helped me?” “It was Time”, Knowledge answered. “Time?” asked Love. “But why did Time help me? Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, “Because only Time is capable of understanding how great Love is.” The moral of this story in the light of the gospel parable of the unjust steward is this: true ,selfless love is timeless; egotistical self-love is time-consuming. For example, a husband or wife who indulges in egotistical self-love will make selfish demands on the other which are next to impossible to fulfill. For instance, changing the way of chewing food. Or a teenager who is self-centered will treat his or her parents as if they were indentured servants, here on earth for no reason but to grant instant gratification of every whim the teenager has. Egotistical self-love is a thin veil hiding the reality which is self-hatred. People who truly love themselves do not perpetrate acts of hatred. We have recently commemorated the sixth anniversary of the insane extent self-hatred can go in the savage crime of the terrorist attack on our nation. And we are still trying to grapple with how true love should respond to this heartless, barbaric attack. True, selfless love seeks to give; egotistical self-love is bent on getting. True, selfless love enriches others; egotistical self-love hoards at the expense of others. The unjust steward of the gospel parable was enveloped with egotistical self-love. All he was concerned about was taking care of number one, enriching himself. Only a person chained to self-hatred would act this way. On the spiritual level Abraham Maslow in his book, Religions, Values and Peak Experiences, carries the unjust steward’s attitude to the spiritual level. He wrote, “In sacred moments or peak experiences one may become simply a selfish person seeking his own personal salvation, trying to get into heaven even if other people can’t.” True, selfless love combines love of God and love of neighbor as the single stream of your love. There is a humorous aphorism that goes, Those who live only for themselves confer a wonderful benefit on the world whey they die. The question: do you live a true, selfless love that benefits others or do you live a egotistical self-love that benefits only yourself? You need to constantly ascend from the dark pit of selfishness to the stained-glass beauty of love in order to share all the affection you have experienced. Winston Churchill wrote in a note to his wife: Thank you for being rash enough to marry me, foolish enough to stay with me and loving me in a way I never thought I could be loved. Ask Jesus, your indwelling friend, to empower you to always live a true, selfless love, keeping in mind that true, selfless love is a power and a process; a power to heal past wounds and a process toward future healings. HUMOR Mr. Fenton was retired. When his wife went shopping at Walmart, she insisted he go with her. Mr. Fenton didn’t want to go but because he loved his wife so selflessly he always went .But he usually became bored because he’d rather get in and out of the store as fast as possible but his wife loved to browse. One day Mrs. Fenton received a letter from Walmart. It read: Dear Mrs. Fenton, Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and so we are banning both of you from our stores. We have documented all incidents on our video surveillance equipment. All complaints against Mr. Fenton are listed below. Things Mr. Bill Fenton has done while his spouse was shopping in Walmart: Set all the alarm clocks in House wares to go off at 5-minute intervals. Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area. Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he'd invite them in if they'll bring pillows from the bedding department. When a clerk asks if he can help him, he begins to cry and asks, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' While handling guns in the hunting department, asked the clerk if he knows where the antidepressants are. Hid in a clothing rack and when people browse through, yelled "PICK ME!" "PICK ME!" When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumes the fetal position and screams "NO ! NO! It's those voices again!!!!" Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited a while, then yelled very loudly, "There ain't NO toilet paper in here!" Went to the Service Desk and asked to put a bag of M&M's on layaway. Regards, WalmartTHOUGHT Always share yourselves with others with a more selfless love.