Readings: |
Isaiah 53:10-11 Hebrews 4:14-16 Mark 10:35-45 |
Date: |
October 20, 2024, Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B |
The section of Mark's Gospel we have been hearing over the past few weeks paints a very unflattering picture of the disciples who will become the first Apostles. In fact a deacon I know once said that chapters 9 and 10 of Mark's Gospel should be titled, 'Clueless in Galiliee'. Jesus has taken his apostles off by themselves as they travel to Jerusalem in an attempt to get them to understand what will happen in Jerusalem. And in response, we heard Peter try to talk Jesus out of his paschal mystery, the whole group of them trying to figure out which of them is the greatest, to today's story of James and John, nicknamed the sons of thunder, trying to secure places of honor and power in the coming kingdom, and then the rest of the disciples getting mad because they didn't think to ask for themselves. One commentator says that Mark depicts the apostles in this bad light deliberately to highlight the change in the apostles' understanding and faithfulness and courage after the Resurrection.
I am sure no one here is surprised at the behavior of the disciples, including James and John's trying to secure positions of power and status. Throughout history, up to and including today, human beings have tried to establish a pecking order, and then try to get to the top of it. But notice that Jesus doesn't criticize them for trying to get ahead, does he? Instead, as he does so many times, Jesus uses the occasion to try to teach them something much more fundamental. Jesus uses stark contrasts to try to get us to look at life differently, to see things the way he sees them. In the past few weeks, we have heard him tell his disciples that riches can be a stumbling block to entering the kingdom, that we must become like little children to enter the kingdom, that to be a leader we must serve others.
What is Jesus getting at? Is he telling us that we have to grovel or be subservient in order to be good Christians? Is he saying that we should give up all our possessions? Is he saying that maturity and experience have no value? Not at all. Jesus is asking us to stop looking at people, including ourselves, based on their position in the pecking order because that often leads us to see them as objects to be used or feared or appeased rather than as fellow human beings. By looking at everyone, no matter what their position in society, as someone we are to serve, we are more likely to see them as human beings with needs and hopes and fears just like us.
I just read a story about new nursing students being given their first quiz after several weeks in class. For the most part, the students did well on the test except all of them left the last question unanswered. The question was: what is the name of the woman who you see cleaning the school every morning. The students thought the question was a joke until they found out the professor was counting it against their mark. When they protested, the professor explained, "In your careers, you will meet many different people. All of them are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you can do is smile and say hello." Servant leaders notice those on the margins.
It is so easy, at least for me, to see just the surface of of Jesus' teaching these past few weeks, to focus on the particular thing he is talking about: riches or humility or service. But it doesn't matter if we sell everything that we have and give the money to the poor, or serve until we are exhausted, or even give our bodies up to be burned, as Paul says in his famous passage on love in the first letter to the Corinthians, if we don't do it out of love. If we do not serve someone because we see that person as a human being we love and who needs us, then we serve in vain.
Jesus treated everyone he met as a person because he loves every one of us and wants to serve us. If we are to be true disciples that is how we must treat everyone we meet: the server at a restaurant, our wife or our husband, our children, our parents, our boss, our employees, the person who cuts us off in traffic, the store clerk who is rude or ignores us. Jesus reminds us that this is not lowering ourselves but this is the true way to greatness.
So I would pray that all this week, we let the resurrection of Jesus convert us, as it did the apostles. If we do, we will be conscious of how we relate to each person that we meet, but most especially those right around us: family, schoolmates, coworkers. Let's try to encounter them, regardless of their importance in the world's eyes, as individual human beings that we are here to serve. What a change that will bring to our little corner of the world. What greatness that will bring to us.