TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY "B"

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Cycle “B”: Mark 9,30-37

Some relatives can be quite insensitive. They are informed that their wealthy parent/elder is dying, and they pop up from all corners of the globe. You didn’t know you had so many. But here they are, sitting round the beloved, dropping a  few tears and many a hint as to who is going to get what after the dear one’s departure. In laws can behave like outlaws! Well did Jesus predict that where the body is, there will the vultures be also.

Today’s gospel presents a similar picture. Jesus, for the 3^rd. time, predicts his cruel death, and his disciples are engaged in discussing who qualifies for the highest place. Their own concerns so preoccupied them that they could not open their minds to what Jesus was telling them and allow his words to disturb their self-centred and self-absorbed thinking. Working out who was the greatest among them seemed to be so much more immediate, practical, and relevant to their lives.

Jesus insisted, nevertheless, on setting before them another idea of human greatness, challenging and overturning all their cherished ambitions and desires. True greatness lay not in being eager to dominate others but instead in being a humble servant and receiving everyone, however small or insignificant, with deference and respect, without hope of any reward. Jesus rejected everything the disciples judged important and replaced it with new values of love, humility and service. When Jesus suffered and gave his life on the cross, he himself most fully lived out these new values.

Today’s world tells us we don’t need to do it the Jesus way, because it denies and disowns that Christ-attitude towards suffering and sacrifice. The message of the media is: “Go through life with maximum pleasure and minimum pain. You only go around once. Grab all you can and don’t be responsible for anything to anyone.”

To some extent all of us have bought into this “good times” philosophy of life, which pretends to change this “valley of tears” into a “valley of Valium” or Prozac or other drugs - the philosophy of instant happiness. Now-a-days words like “obedience”, “self-denial”, and “commitment” have become repugnant expressions.

Over and above the smoke of our dreams and delusions stands the loving and lonely figure of Jesus. In back of him, casting a long shadow, is a tall cross. Shall we accept ?  Shall we love God and serve the neighbour or shall we love things and dominate the neighbour ?

Then Jesus takes a little child and places him among them. What does Jesus see in a child that the adults lack ? Innocence ? No, not innocence. The child already contains the ingredients of wrongdoing  -  mainly dormant, to be sure, but often astonishingly awake and active. The “innocent child” is a sentimental invention. But what Jesus is pointing out is that grownups anxiously seek security and, in the process, they can become inconsiderate and callous, and live in fear. Children, on the other hand, live in unruffled trust and dependency. Adults see everything with an eye to its usefulness, thereby rendering everything unfree.

Jesus seems to be telling us that we must love persons and use things, and not the other way about: use persons and love things. Jesus seems to be saying: “Don’t ever give your heart away to a thing. If you do, then that thing, whatever it may be, will gradually become your master. It will own you and drag you around on the leash of addiction. Worrying about it will keep you anxious and awake at night. But worst of all, if you give your heart to a thing, you will soon begin the great inversion of priorities. When you begin to love things, you start to use persons to get those things, competing with others to get all you can, cheating and bringing down others, and cutting corners on your integrity.

There is no other way to maturity, wisdom and fullness of life except the way of Jesus, and we must stake our lives on the surrender of faith and trust that the Cross of Christ demands.  So what does Jesus mean to you  -  and me ?

PRAYER: 

Heavenly Father, set me free from seeking the approval of others. Purify my motives as I seek to draw closer to your Son, Jesus. Teach me about true greatness in your kingdom. Give me a heart and disposition that want to serve and not to be served, to love more than to be loved, and to give more than to receive.