Archbishop Gordon: To show love is to serve

ARCHBISHOP Jason Gordon said Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet on Holy Thursday was his way of showing that the greatest way to show love is to be humble and serve others.

He said exercising power over others was a scourge on the nation and if people served each other instead, Trinidad and Tobago would be a better place.

Speaking to congregants at the Holy Thursday mass on April 17 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Independence Square, Port of Spain, Gordon traced the ritual of the Eucharist from the Passover to the Last Supper to the apostle Paul passing it on to the church.

He said when Jesus gave his disciples the rite of the Eucharist and washed their feet, he was showing them the depth of his love.

“Earlier in the day, the disciples were arguing about who is the greatest. What does Jesus do? He takes off his garment, he gets down on the ground, he washes their feet. He does an act of utter humility. He had already said, ‘Among the gentiles, their great men laud it over you, you are not to be like that. The greatest among you must be the least of all and the servant of all.”

Gordon said Jesus, the gospel and the country had gone in different directions on how to be powerful.

“Maybe it’s our colonial past, maybe it’s slavery, maybe it’s indentureship, maybe it’s just we have poor egos, maybe we just haven’t found ourselves as a people, but what is really common right through the society is everyone wants to make their authority felt.

“The littlest person in an organisation want to manners you when you come in. If the receptionist behind the desk is on the phone talking to somebody when you come in and you try to interrupt them, they mannersing you. True or not true? It is a national scourge. From captain to cook, it’s a national scourge.”

He said Jesus showed his love by telling his disciples that being great is to be humble, unlike many people in TT.

“We think to be great is to manners people, put them in their place, make them know who the boss is, wine down on them, make them wait. If you only see they looking like they in a hurry, make them wait, pay them. We must not be like that. He showed us the depth of his love and the depth of his love is humble service.”

Gordon called on the public to ask themselves every day who they were called on to serve and how they could serve them better.

“If everyone asked those two questions, we would have a beautiful country. We have become a society that has lost its way and the first step to recovery, Jesus tells us, is to show the depth of our love. We must do that by humble service.”

Gordon said in receiving the Eucharist, people become Jesus and must do as he did, washing the feet of others.

“Every time we receive the Eucharist, we must hear a call to serve, a call to love, a call to give ourselves to him, and to each other. Then our families will be amazing, then our church will be amazing, then our nation will be amazing.”

Gordon carried out the ritual washing of the feet of a dozen congregants as part of the service.