29th Sunday in Ordinary time
Arguably the most important document to come from the Second Vatican Council was its Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum. The final paragraphs dreamed of a people of God committed to living by the Scriptures at every level of their lives. The council yearned for the whole Church to be renewed spiritually through the Scriptures and to become much more biblical in all aspects of her existence. (Fr. Gerald O’Collins, S.J.)
29th Sunday B
(October 18, 2009)
We are praying and supporting our brethren devastated by natural and social disasters: in the Philippines, in Indonesia in Darfur/Sudan, Eastern Congo, Afghanistan, Palestine, and sufferers everywhere. Now, has anyone ever asked to suffer like them by association or compassion? These places symbolize cross-bearers, friends of Jesus in one sense. The illustration might help us to keep grappling the exclamation of Jesus: “You do not know what you are asking!”[1]
Scriptures: Is. 53: 10 – 11 ; Ps 33: 4-5, 18-19; Heb. 4: 14 – 16 ; Mk 10: 35 – 45
Homily
Introduction: God’s suffering servant redeems God’s people as prophet Isaiah says, and Jesus Christ, our powerful high priest in the letter to the Hebrews is identified with this suffering servant. Jesus, in the Gospel affirms having come to serve and give his life as ransom for many. These readings make me ask the question of Jesus’ identity and the quality of his sway or kingdom among us. Who is Jesus for us today, and how does he want us to bear witness to him in this world?
1) Jesus, and the rest of us
Two weeks ago, we saw Jesus indignant because his disciples were banning children from entering his presence. Today, the disciples (ten of them) are indignant because two among them asked to hold the highest ranking around the leader Jesus. There seems to me a difference in their respective indignations. The same feeling is experienced, but the cause and the purpose are different, from Jesus to the disciples. How often do we identify with Jesus’ feelings? And how often do we identify with the disciples’ feelings about life? In other words, what gets me/you indignant? What makes me angry? Why? And what do I do after experiencing my frustration? Where do I take it?
One prophet of old said on God’s behalf, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.”[2] Jesus’ indignation is about a similar situation: “My disciples don’t know my heart,” that is a heart of a child, calling people to retrieve their childhood in matters of love and genuine relations. “My disciples do not know my heart,” that is Jesus’ overall approach to human life. How does Jesus come to experience such feeling?
James and John request the highest intimacy with the Lord: one at the left, and one at the right. Just like us, they want to own what they love. They want to appropriate this wonderful companionship, more than other, and they are even ready to pay the price. This is close to the spirit of competitive progress as we all experience today: everybody wants the upward movement, the climbing of the social ladder. From Assistant professor, one becomes full Professor – for example. Sometimes, there is a specified reason: some people want to please parents and mentors for their good support; others want to prove to themselves what they are capable of; others want a different objective as they climb this specific ladder, for it avails another desired place. Being close to the teacher would allow James and John to teach as admirably as he does. Still others do not know too well why they want to go upward (everybody else does so, or they don’t even need to think about whys). Is Jesus validating the desire of James and John that passes the moral test by their strong agreement to pay for it (“We can,” they say.)? Jesus is doing the work his Father in whom he invites the disciples to have faith and trust. When the Father picks one among them for a specific mission Jesus submits to the father’s will – there is no competition between Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is not a spirit of conflicting competition. We see this submission of the Son when he tells Peter that The Father, by revealing hidden things to him was making him the leader among the twelve (mission is always for “those for whom it is prepared”).
The other disciples get vent of this request and feel unfairly treated (“indignant”) by the two brothers who are literally “going tribal” about being with the Lord – [long live the tribe of Zebedee!]. I doubt whether there is one among us who has never felt that someone else should not be where they are, doing what they are doing, being who they are – because they thus take what belongs to “me/us”— at a given moment. The ten are just like us in this regard: “Who do you think you are James and John?” Are we not here on the same call? Have we not been as faithful as you did to the Lord, have we not been as loving? Why do you want more “privileges” than others? Clearly their question is about, “Who will be the greatest among us?” They don’t seem to have an idea about what their call and their mission means. Imagine a family of 12 brothers and sisters who gather to celebrate the life of the deceased patriarch or matriarch. Will they ever asked, “Who among us will volunteer to be next in death?” Such question is rarely asked. “Who holds the first rank in the family now?” That’s readily expected. It therefore did not occur to the ten others disciples to perceive the request of James and John in that sense of sharing in the Lord and servant’s suffering and death. They also did not know what they were “indignant” about.
Jesus takes this opportunity to state clearly who he is: the child of God, servant of God’s people, the one who works hard so that others may have more rest, since they are already burdened with several afflictions: blindness, hardness of heart, guilt and unrighteousness. “I am here to serve and give my life as a ransom for many.” This expression ransom needs some explaining today. When a woman’s husband died leaving her childless, the brother of the deceased would redeem her by begetting children for his brother.[3] When someone becomes unsolvable before the bank, a corporate or individual helper redeems him by offering an equivalent value or equal amount. When a student struggles honestly with studies, a teacher redeems him or her by suggesting different framings of the same questions or exercises of equivalent grade that will require the same amount of effort, until the student owns the principles. In basketball, scoring redeems one’s team from defeat. Ransom is this price paid for satisfaction, to fill in the gap. Jesus’ life is a “ransom for many.” We are part of the many. How is Jesus’ life a ransom/rescuing-help for you personally and for your/our community? Jesus is drinking a cup, and receiving a baptism, which, both, seem repulsive. It is by reading from prophet Isaiah (before Jesus coming in the flesh), and from the letter to the Hebrews (after his identity was made plain by the Holy Spirit to his disciples), that we know that Jesus is the suffering servant whose life brings us back into life when we are crushed by iniquity, or by our own selfishness, or by some natural or social unwanted forces. Jesus is the life that calls us back to our senses, for he is “innocent” and yet he offers himself to atrocious treatment so that our hearts will never faint. There is no aspect of our current life that is not touched by the life of Jesus (from power and success, to failure and rejection). If we trust him, we will look at him for guidance and for better understanding of our own thriving and receding. If you take the time to look at Jesus and to ask him the right question, he will surely not fail you, for his life is “ransom” for many, for all those who relate to him really and trustingly. It is in that context that he explains to both groups (the two on one side and the ten on the other side) the full meaning of discipleship and living in the kingdom of God, among us.[4]
2) The quality of the Kingdom of God among us
“The greatest is the little boy/servant among you.” Do we now remember how the highly favored one, Mary is the silent woman whose effectiveness shines through the apostles, after the Son? For the Archangel Gabriel to greet Mary as “Highly favored,” Heaven had first seen the possibility of Earth’s response to God’s call to obedience. In response to the rebellion of the wicked angels who decided to be “like God,” proposing to humanity to make the same choice, Archangel Michael asks, “Who is like God?” Mary echoes Michael on Earth, “I am the servant of the Lord!” Jesus is the Son of this response of humanity to God: pure obedience in love. Therefore, “among us” who believe in Jesus Christ, who put our trust in him to intercede as our high priest, for us with his Father, relations are different from relations in the world.[5] We do not “throw our weight around.” We try to be transparent to God, and to let others see God in us. This is a sacrificial life, but it is no more sacrificial than forfeiting the truth of who we are for the lie of trying to be like God. I will always insist that, “we suffer with sin or we suffer with love;” there is no place between, so long as we are on earth. Suffering does not always mean ordeal or atrocity, but certainly unfulfilled desires. Have we learned to surrender to God? If we take the time to check in our experience, we will see that the significant events in which we held the first role were full of tensions and much work of overseeing. Those events at which we held secondary roles felt different, maybe a little more relax. But in the second case, we do not get all the attention; we mostly see our part of the work. If we resent not being the centre of attention, Jesus has much to teach us today. If our joy is in serving and contributing as best as we can, even in the role of number-one-person whenever that happens, then we understand the willingness of James and John to drink the cup and receive the same baptism as Jesus.[6] Having understood this, we cannot resent them for asking for more suffering to be united with their Lord, just as several saints and mystics of the Church are reported to have done. We can just ask for the same “privileges” of carrying the cross of our Lord so that we may share more intimately in his joy, in his kingdom. For the kingdom of God is about a demanding, yet gentle and humble service of communion in the life of God.
Conclusion: By rescuing James and John from greed and by rescuing the ten other disciples from jealousy, Jesus shows the quality he expects from our life of faith. Among us, service is not a matter of competition for roles or domination, but a deep joy of sharing the Lord’s life, which is a ransom given for our salvation, if we do what it takes to be part of the many, still few. Let us pray to the Spirit of Christ, to tame our greed and non-discerned or lustful generosity, and to increase our creative participation in the life of his brothers and sisters among and around us, just as we share at the same table, in the Eucharist, and outside of this table, in the resources of this world. Let the Eucharist ransom us into generous love today!
[1] Mk 10: 38. Alternatively, if your child saw on TV a show of war actions and decided to identify with the hero. You surely will say, “You do not want to be on that battle front my son!” If he insisted, you will put him through the process that takes people there he is validly approved to be sent to that place where he wishes to offer his service. It takes time, training and a “call” to be a hero. It is God’s choice to incarnate in Jesus and to call people for specific kinds of holiness.
[2] Hosea 4: 6. And prophet Isaiah interprets God saying, “An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger; But Israel does not know, my people has not understood.”
[3] Dt. 25: 5 – 6. Bailing out, rescuing and redeeming amount to helping someone to live better.
[4] The people of God brought into the “Kingdom” as Jesus the descendant of David does, were divided into Northern kingdom (Israel) with ten tribes, and Southern kingdom with two tribes, constantly quarrelling with each other, theologically and politically. These sometimes bloody conflicts are narrated with high sophistication in the First (Old) Testament. Why would God dwell on Mount Zion (Jerusalem in Judea; cf. 1Kg 8:1, Ps. 9:12, Ps 48:12) and not on Mount Gerizim (North in Samaria: Dt 11: 29, Dt 27: 12) Ps 78:68 says, “God chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he favored.” And Ps. 87:2 says that God “Loves the gates of Zion more than any dwelling in Jacob.
[5] The spirit-of-the-world among us seeks the mighty-greatest. But the Spirit of Christ makes the self-giving servant who loves freely without expecting compensation, even a place on left or right – just loving service for the good of others.
[6] The tradition according to which James died a martyr’s death first among the apostles and John died last among them of old age may be the positive answer to their request. Indeed they died (dismembered or dislocated) for the Lord and for his Gospel.29t2
