25th. Sunday of
Year (B)
(Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16 – 4:3; Mark 9:30-37)
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One
of the high points – perhaps the high point – of the O.T. revelation of
God is to be found in the book of the prophet Isaiah, where we read (44:6 and
48:12):
Thus says the
Lord: I am the first and I am the last; there is no God but Me.
Listen to Me,
Jacob, Israel: I am He, I am the first and I am the last.
And in the book of
Revelation, the last book of the New Testament we read (1:8) likewise:
“I am the Alpha
and the Omega” say the Lord God, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the
Almighty.”
Now, the highlight of today’s
Gospel reading are words of Our Blessed Lord spoken to the Twelve for their immediate
correction and for their establishment as His future Apostles chosen to serve
and proclaim His Gospel of Salvation in all truth and understanding, patience,
strength, and humility:
If
anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.
There are some very
reputable modern translations of the Bible which change those words, specially
chosen for our consideration today, from: ‘he shall be last’, to, ‘he must be
last’, or even to ‘he must make himself last’:
“If anyone would be first, he must be
last of all and servant of all”;
“If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself
last of all and servant of all.”
However, the
original Greek and the authoritative Latin translation are perfectly clear and,
following them closely, our more literal and indeed scholarly Church
translation gives us a truly full and accurate understanding of those words in accordance
with traditional Catholic theology and Christian spiritual teaching:
If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be
last of all and servant of all.
We only need to
compare John 7:17 where the Greek words are the same as ours today but the translation
is always “shall”, never “must”:
If anyone is
willing to do His (God’s) will, he shall know whether My teaching is
from God or whether I speak on My own (authority).
The difficulty for some modern attempts to appreciate these words of Our Lord is Jesus Himself, so deeply loved but also reverentially feared; and in this instance recorded in today’s Gospel reading we can appreciate why His disciples had such feelings in His regard.
For
the words of Jesus were, first of all, and most literally, a statement of sheer
fact, and as such, a warning for
those He most specially loved. He was not commanding, yet neither was He merely
offering teaching for their consideration; His words were, first of all -- I
repeat -- a warning for immediate attention, understanding, and practice:
‘Whoever, as My disciple, sincerely wills
to become truly first, will be –
that is, My Father will lead him, cause him, in the achieving of that his
God-given aspiration -- to become last of all and servant of all.’
Jesus
claimed to be first in the divine sense when He said to the Jews (John
8:54, 58):
It
is My Father Who glorifies Me, He of Whom you say, ‘He is our God’. Amen, amen,
I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM
But
at the Last Supper (John
13:13), while asserting Himself to be, humanly speaking, first with
regard to His disciples:
You call Me
‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am;
nevertheless,
showed Himself last in their regard by His ceremonial washing of their
feet, before finally allowing Himself to be made last of all men when
Isaiah’s prophecy (53:3) was fulfilled in Him on the Cross of Calvary:
He was spurned and
avoided by men, a Man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from
whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held Him in no esteem.
Notice
People of God, the God of Heaven declared Himself to be the first and the last.
Jesus, Son of God made man, knowing Himself to be first, showed His
willingness to become last at His baptism by John in the Jordan and then allowed
Himself to be made last, publicly, by His heavenly Father in and throughout
the course of His public ministry, by the contradictions, insults, and
opposition He received from sinful and foolish men. He did not,
however, set out to make Himself last; He even prayed in the Garden that
His Father would take the cross of suffering and death from Him if He so willed
it. What Jesus wanted, supremely and solely, was that His Father’s will
be-done-in-Him. His own Personal will as Son was that He might
obediently become such as His Father willed Him to be in His
humanity.
All
that God made and makes, was and is, good; sin makes nothing new and is ever
destructive. And so, man’s desire to be like God was not evil in itself,
it only became evil in Adam and Eve’s case by their embracing it as a
suggestion dripping with venom from the Serpent’s mouth.
In
the case of the Apostles arguing in today’s Gospel reading about which of them
was the greatest, they were behaving most foolishly, indulging a spirit and
using a word improper for them to use as
Apostles of Jesus; because their childish -- Jesus used a child to teach them – human
aspirations to be greatest were leaving out of consideration the divinely
concomitant thought of ‘being last’, which they – as disciples, and above
all, as Apostles of Jesus -- would have to fully appreciate and love if in
their subsequent lives they were to exemplify, and inspirationally proclaim,
the full meaning and beauty of Jesus’ Gospel of Truth.
God
is first and last; and Jesus, knowing Himself to be One with His Father
in Heaven, knew Himself to be first as God:
I am the first and
I am the last; there is no God but Me.
As
man, however, under the limitations of His assumed creatureliness, Our Lord willed
Himself to be made ‘last’ by His Father in view of the purpose for which He had
been sent, that is, to save sinful mankind who, along with their chosen lord
Satan, naturally willed only to be first. Therefore, Jesus’ Apostles needed to learn
quickly and appreciate deeply the divine meaning of the words He was now
addressing to them, because at present they were flirting with Satan by acting
so childishly.
Peter
had been severely corrected for taking himself too seriously and now the rest
of the Apostles, who all looked up to Peter as we have seen, were being severely
corrected for their childish levity.
Jesus knew what
had been going on, literally behind His back, as He and His disciples had
walked along, and:
Taking a child He
placed it in their midst, and putting His arms around it He said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in My name, receives Me.”
In the ancient
world children were thought little of and frequently much abused. And at
present the disciples -- superficially wanting to be ‘greatest’ seriously
enough as to be willing to argue about it without embarrassment – obviously
feared human disdain and contempt. Therefore, when Jesus took one such
person, so insignificant and singularly unimportant in the eyes of the world, as
a child, and said:
Whoever receives
one child such as this in My name, receives Me,
He thereby gave
His disciples a picture that was so surprising and yet so familiar as to be
unforgettable, one that offered them teaching of inexhaustible riches; and right
now, the Apostles were beginning to learn how to aspire to being first
in a true, divine, sense.
To be appreciated by
the world one has to be endowed, by outstanding talent and ability which is, of
itself, a great gift of God given for the benefit of human society as a whole, but
one which can be so easily corrupted into self-service, and forgetfulness of
the Giver of such gifts. One can also
try to make oneself noticed by cravenly repeating and embellishing what is generally
acceptable, and always walking along, and speaking politically correct words about,
socially approved and popular paths; indeed, some individuals can even seek
notice by outrageously disregarding normal decency and defying customary
opinions and practices. Any such endeavours for personal recognition and
renown are, however, of no advantage whatsoever in the Christian life, for God
exalts the lowly and humble of heart, while pride -- inevitably and invariably
-- separates from the Lord those who pursue it.
How utterly
different, on the other hand, is the simple desire for renown before God!! Why? Because all self-seeking is ultimately
totally excluded by the very sincerity of any such desire. Renown before
God can only be God’s gift – utterly free and un-determinable – given as Love in
response to love. The Apostles had to, as indeed all modern disciples
of Jesus must, learn from Jesus one thing above all: how, in Jesus and by the
power of His Spirit, to recognize and respond to His Father’s initiatives, His
gifts and blessings, in their lives!
If anyone wishes to be first, he shall
be last of all and servant of all;
Thus says the Lord
and Father of us all:
I am the first and I am the last; there is no God but Me
People of God, we
have little time, so we must let Mass proceed with our loving devotion and
self-commitment, for the only power that will ultimately change us for the
better and for our fulfilment is not the clarity of our thinking nor even the
sincerity of our desiring, but Jesus’ example, sublimely manifest in the
sacrifice, and the power of His Spirit so generously offered us in the
sacrament, we are pursuing, soaking ever more deeply into our minds and hearts.
May we be able to leave Church today in
the fellowship of Jesus, and go in peace before the world by the power of His
Spirit, to love and serve God and our neighbour as the Father wills.
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