What does it mean to "serve others?"

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In last Sunday’s gospel we heard Jesus call us to pick up our cross and follow Him.  This Sunday He admonishes the disciples for arguing and tells them that the greatest among them is the one who is a servant to others.

As society moves inexorably in the direction of becoming more secular, the values held up as “normal” are self-fulfillment and personal freedom, rather than authentic freedom which comes from acquiring virtues through commitment and self-sacrifice.  When God gave us the 10 Commandments, He laid out a prescription for developing a virtuous life and a healthy society.  The vitality and strength of our society depends on our willingness to make personal sacrifices in order to achieve personal excellence, and in service of one another.  Disciplining our minds and bodies requires sacrifice (picking up our cross), and it is the opposite of radical freedom to do as we please.  Serving one another builds trust, strengthens our communities, and secures our future.  The free-market economy rewards discipline and sacrifice.  Businesses that serve their customers well, operate efficiently enough to have competitive prices, and invest in their productive capacity are rewarded.  Competition on the basis of quality, cost, and service reinforce these principles over and over again in the marketplace.  Organizations that have no competition become inefficient, lose touch with their customers, and become self-serving.  For this reason, we have laws against monopolies… except when it comes to government entities. 

Over that past half century our government at all levels has allowed labor monopolies to dictate terms that have made city, state, and local government inefficient and bloated.  With no alternative labor force, city, state, and local governments have little or no bargaining power with the unions that staff their schools, police, fire, and maintenance divisions.   The Chicago teachers strike is but one example of unions dictating terms to city government.  Despite being among the highest paid teachers ($76,000 average salary) in the country, with a student-teacher ratio of only 16-1, the union demanded and received a pay raise, despite that fact that recent census data reveals that tax payers funding this increase have lower average incomes than seen in 20 years.  Moreover, union pensions and benefit plans are far richer than those of constituent taxpayers.  In this same school district, nearly 80% of eighth graders are below proficiency levels in both math and reading.  Never the less, teachers successfully resisted an effort to increase the percentage of their annual reviews based on student outcomes from 30% to 40%. 

This scenario has been repeated over and over in many cities whose school districts face mounting deficits.  The Chicago school district faces a $1 billion deficit over the next fiscal cycle with no means of balancing the budget now, other than increasing taxes.  In the private sector, when a business, or school for that matter, fails to achieve results and/or goes into deficit, it is forced to shut down, and is replaced by its competitors.  Not so with government entities. Instead, the unions of government employees spend billions of dollars endorsing political candidates who agree to continually raise taxes in support of the inefficient, and in many cases ineffective, government programs.  None of this serves the best interest of students or society.  As Jesus admonishes, those who serve others are the greatest, not those who serve their own interests first, in deference to the needs of the community and the inability of the community to pay for government employees to have better pay, better benefits, and better pensions than the average tax payer in the private sector. 

In this day and age we need to ask ourselves what constitutes serving others effectively?   While there’s certainly a place for financial support for the poor, the sick, and the unemployed, when does such support become a hindrance to personal growth and authentic freedom?   I was working in Wausau Wisconsin when then-governor Tommy Thompson passed a statewide welfare reform that was to serve as the model for a national reform of welfare programs a few years later.  Before the new state law took effect, everyone was fearful of the impact it would have on the poor and the unemployed.  To the shock of many, the program was a huge success.  People required to participate in job training, and to seek employment, did so.  Not only did unemployment decrease statewide, incomes went up, productivity increased statewide and with it, tax receipts increased.  Government funding of schools improved, and the state began to run a surplus.  Many of the chronically unemployed reported enhanced self-esteem at learning new skills and obtaining jobs.

Unfortunately, our nation has been going the opposite direction in recent years.  The requirement to seek work, which was the crucial centerpiece of National Welfare Reform, has been removed, benefits extended to 99 weeks, and food stamp assistance has been dramatically expanded.  This has been referred to as “the welfare trap” because it is so hard to let go of these benefits, especially when they add up to more money than people can make in entry level jobs.   Does this serve the poor, or does it ensnare them by discouraging the development of the virtues of self-reliance and industry?   In communist countries where totalitarian governments attempted to create a workers paradise, the lack of market incentives resulted in poor quality, inefficiency, and a miserably failed national economy.   With no opportunity to benefit from their labor, or acquire property, employees had no incentive to hone their skills, no reason to work hard, and no repercussions for shoddy workmanship.  In the case of Russia, it also contributed to rampant alcoholism, depression, and rising suicide rates.  All this also contributed to declining longevity, especially for men whose life expectancy fell to about 60 years old, compared to 77 years old in Germany.  See the attached article for details on this: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/19/russia.../index.html

The best way to serve our country is to return to the values and virtues that have made us a great nation with the strongest economy in the world.  Rather than promote the growth of inefficient government programs that lack the disciplines of the private sector, we should be encouraging self-reliance, personal growth, and success built on hard work, determination, and competition.  It is the private sector that made us the great nation we have become, precisely because of risks and rewards of the market economy.  When we excuse the government sector from the rigors of competition, we invite mediocrity and failure.  Rather than castigate those who have succeeded in the market economy, we should celebrate their success, learn from it, imitate it, and encourage others to do so as well. 

When I was in a leadership role in the private sector, I attempted to be a ‘servant-leader.’  I don’t think I succeeded in this effort as well as I would have liked.  It meant being honest with people when they failed, and allowing them to suffer the consequences of their failures.  But it also meant reinforcing success at every opportunity, and helping every person develop their personal strengths.  This is the way to promote healthy success, and we need national leaders who are able and willing do this.  We are not helping anyone when we accept and reward mediocrity, and pay for it by taxing those who have achieved a modicum of success.