"IF ANYONE WISHES TO BE FIRST, HE SHALL BE LAST."

Homily for Sept.23rd, 2018: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Mark 9:30-37

AIM: To encourage the hearers to find Christ in serving others.

 

AWhat were you arguing about on the way?@ Jesus asks his disciples in today=s gospel. He probably knew already (Jesus always did). But he wanted an admission from their own mouths that they had been discussing Awho was the greatest.@ Mark will repeat the phrase, Aon the way,@ in the very next sentence C and four more times in his short gospel (10:17, 32, 52; 11:8). There was a reason. It was not just any way. Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem where, as he says in today=s gospel, AThe Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him ...@

       That way was not inevitable. Jesus chose it, at great personal cost. And the cost grew greater, not less, as Jesus approached the end of his self-chosen way. We get a glimpse of the cost in Mark=s description of Jesus= agonized prayer in the garden of Gethsemane the night before his death, when Jesus falls on the ground and prays that the cup of suffering might be taken from him. (Mk 14:32-36)

       There are, in every life, times when the way we must walk is steep, and difficult. As a help to persevere, many people join a support group. There are support groups for just about everyone today, priests included. Jesus too had a support group: his twelve apostles. One of the reasons he chose them, Mark tells us, was Ato be with him@ (3:14).

       The Twelve did not really give Jesus much support, however. Those dozen men who accompanied Jesus Aon the way@ were miles removed from their Master in spirit. While he Aset his face resolutely toward Jerusalem@ (Lk 9:51), knowing what awaited him there, his closest friends were discussing Awho was the greatest.@ Their behavior illustrates perfectly what Mark has already told us: that these hand-picked friends of Jesus, his support group, Adid not understand@ what he was facing. This failure, and the resulting inability of the Twelve to give Jesus the support he needed, were themselves part of Jesus= suffering. His passion had already begun before he reached Jerusalem, while he was still Aon the way.@

       Our gospel shows how Jesus responded: not with a complaint, but with a fresh bid for understanding. Seated C the accepted posture for the religious teacher Jesus= day C Jesus tells his friends that ordinary standards of importance cannot apply for them. AIf anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.@ This teaching was so crucial for the early Christian community that it is recorded, with variations, five more times in the gospels. (Mt 18:3f, Mk 10:43f, Lk 9:46ff & 22:26, Jn.13:14f)

       To drive home his point Jesus places a small child in their midst and says: AWhoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me ...@ The child does not symbolize innocence. That is a sentimental modern idea which would have been foreign to Jesus and his hearers. Richard Gaillardetz, a teacher of theology at Boston College and himself a married man and father, is more realistic when he writes: AWhatever Jesus meant when he suggested we must imitate the children, it had nothing to do with angelic innocence! I love my children in ways that can never be put into words, but there is no hiding the fact that they are imperfect creatures, capable of the same pettiness, resentment, and mean-spiritedness that sets us adults to warring.@ [Richard R. Gaillardetz, ALearning from marriage,@ in: Commonweal, Sept. 8, 2000, 18f]

       In Jesus= world, therefore, children symbolized not innocence, but insignificance. It is as if Jesus were saying to these friends of his: >You are concerned about who shall be most important. If you want to be my disciples, you must become like this child, the least important. If you want to find me, look for me in people who are as insignificant as this child, and as easily overlooked.=

       Jesus= words overturn all normal worldly standards based on Alooking after Number One.@ Yet Jesus had no interest in promoting a revolution that would sweep away earthly rulers. What he wanted was to create a new way of living that would reflect God=s rule, as Jesus reflected it in his own life. God exercises his rule through his merciful love; and Jesus exercises the power he has from his heavenly Father by being the servant of all and at the disposal of all.

       Who lives like that today, you ask? More people than you might think. We have such people here in our parish. There are parents who live like that. A father of three asked members of his support group: AWho ever said children were supposed to bring us together?@ To which his wife added: ASince we started having children, we have had less time for ourselves than we ever expected. We can hardly wait for the kids to grow up, so that we can get together again.@ A newspaper article quoted a Catholic bishop saying something similar. Asked to describe his life, he answered: AYou can never do what you like.@

        Would those harassed parents, or the busy bishop, exchange their lives with others who have greater leisure? They might talk about it. Deep in their hearts, however, they know they would not change, even if they could. In their commitment to serving others they are living out Jesus= teaching in today=s gospel: AIf anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.@ In putting themselves at the disposal even of those whom many would consider a nuisance or insignificant, they encounter the One who had time for everyone: who was so little concerned with his own importance that he was willing Ato be handed over to men [who] will kill him;@ and who was raised from death the third day, never more to die.

       So if you want to encounter Jesus Christ, look for him in those everyone else ignores. There, in the overlooked, the insignificant, the neediest and the most forsaken, Jesus is waiting for you.