29th Sunday Year B 2021

 

 29^th. Sunday (Year B)

 (Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45)

 

 

St. Matthew tells us (6:33) that Jesus once said:

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides; 

and in today’s Gospel reading we are told of two brothers apparently exemplifying that attitude, James and John, members of Jesus’ most intimate circle of disciples, ask for a place, a really special place, in the Kingdom:

They said to Jesus, "Grant that in Your glory that we may sit, one at Your right hand and the other at Your left."

However, despite their eagerness in seeking the kingdom of God, the two brothers can in no way be said to have exemplified the fulness of Jesus’ teaching since He recommended that the search for the kingdom of God should go hand in hand with a search for the righteousness of God:

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. 

James and John wanted prestigious seats in the glory of God’s Kingdom on the basis of favouritism or special privilege, and Jesus said that such positions were not His to give in such a way: they could only be bestowed on the basis of the righteous judgement of the all-holy God.  The brothers had asked for places of privilege in the Kingdom of the heavenly Father, without seeking equally to share in His righteousness; and though their mother might well have been the motivating power behind that request as St. Matthew tells us, their somewhat glib response to the awesome question Jesus subsequently put to them suggests that they had not themselves truly ‘thought through’ the implications of their request:

Can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?

Immediately answering that they could indeed drink His cup and be baptized with His baptism, they were behaving in much the same way as the notoriously self-confident and dynamic Peter would do later on when saying:

Though all should have their faith shaken, mine will not be. Even though I should have to die with You, I will not deny You! Lord, I am prepared to go both to prison and to die with You."  (Mark 14:29; Matthew 26:35; Luke 22:33.)

That, however, was how Peter would speak on hearing that Jesus was being threatened with death: those words were a heartfelt and beautiful protestation of concern and love, before being also an ill-considered promise of personal fidelity far beyond him.  Peter can be excused to a large extent in that over-appreciation and over-statement of his own powers because he was being impelled by his anxiety for Jesus under threat of violent death;  James and John, however, had no such laudable motivation for their over-zealous and over- confident words, springing mainly – at the moment -- from their ill-considered desire to be greatest, which, Mark tells us, had already shown itself shortly before:

Jesus asked the disciples, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. (Mark 9:33-35)

Despite Jesus’ explicit teaching on that occasion – ‘if anyone desires to be first of all he shall be last of all and servant of all’ – and their own subsequent embarrassment, James and John still hankered after the position of the ‘greatest’.  As yet, they knew very little about seeking the righteousness of the Father, and Jesus would have to teach them about it to the very end, as we find at the Last Supper in His sacerdotal prayer before the whole gathering:

Righteous Father, the world does not know You, but I know You; and these know that You have sent Me; I made known to them Your name, and I will make it known. (John 17:25-26)

Jesus, when speaking of His Father or about the mission for which He had been sent, consistently attributed nothing to Himself, openly saying:

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him on the last day. (John 6:44)

Everything that the Father gives Me will come to Me, I will not reject anyone who comes to Me, because I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of the One who sent Me. (John 6:37-38)

Clearly, Jesus did not consider that, whether by His preaching, His miracles, or by His Personality, He would effectively and decisively draw disciples to Himself; no, only those sent by the Father would come to Him.

That was His example of seeking the righteousness of the Father; an example that needed to be closely observed, secretly pondered, and ultimately imitated, by those impetuous brothers James and John; as indeed by all the disciples who had shared in that animated discussion among them about who was the greatest.

Jesus supreme attitude and teaching in this respect was manifest above all in His death.  We were told in the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the Suffering Servant, the future Messiah … concerning Jesus:

            It was the Lord’s will to crush Him with pain.

Though Son and Saviour, Jesus ... in His embraced weakness as perfect Man ... did not take upon Himself suffering and grief; His invincible strength lay in the fact that it was the path traced out for Him by His Father.  As man, He had indeed long prepared for it but He did not seek it out for Himself; all He wanted to do was His Father’s will.  He would, however, and He could, most lovingly accept it as His Father’s gift!

And so, the prophet went on:

By making His life as a reparation offering, He shall see His offspring, shall lengthen His days.

All would then happen, the prophet tells us, in such a way that:

The Lord’s will shall be accomplished through Him.

Jesus could only guide to such sublime perfection disciples who were eager to learn: and that is why He was secretly pleased with the ardent desire of Peter, James, and John, and indeed of all His closest disciples, to be great in the Kingdom of God.  Initially,  such desires appeared to be nothing better than merely human ambition seeking superiority and precedence; Jesus, however, knew that deep down, they were the expression – as yet, tarnished indeed -- of the disciples overwhelming desire to share with Him, to be united, as closely as possible, with Him, on earth as in heaven; and such desires could -- like diamonds -- be skillfully cut and purified before finally being polished to perfection by the divine artificer.

Today, however, dear People of God, very, very few want to be great in the kingdom of God, for so very, very few have faith in, and love for, Jesus deep enough to make them long, desire, and will -- above all -- to cling to Him through His earthly sufferings and thus share with Him in His heavenly glory.  Such a desire is fundamental, and the lack of it cannot be compensated for easily or quickly, just as an athlete cannot train without first having a good bone and healthy muscular structure to begin working with.

At times this apparent lack of love for, commitment to, Jesus may result from a relatively innocent and understandable fear of standing out from friends for fear of losing their companionship as can still happen easily enough with young people today.  Again, there are others ... good, Christian and Catholic people … who tend, in their spiritual naivety and ill-conceived humility, to think along lines such as: “Who am I to think that I can become anything special?” They are right to a certain degree, of course; but they are also wrong, and much more seriously wrong, since God is the supreme potter able to turn His clay into choice vessels as He wills.

There are yet others, who, amazingly, seem to think that to aspire and try to aim higher in their spiritual life would somehow be disloyalty to themselves: “This is my character, if I tried to be otherwise it would not be the real me”!

Whereas the young persons’ fear of standing out alone, is, as I said, understandable, bearing in mind the weakness of our human nature and their lack of years, confidence, and experience; with the other two examples, however, we find the Devil more insidiously at work, doing what he usually tries to do: pass himself -- his suggestions and his impulses -- off as virtuous, even holy.

People of God, all of us, like James and John, have faith in Jesus, and all of us, on the basis of that faith, should want, indeed aspire, to be true disciples of Jesus, longing to be as close to Him as possible here on earth and for all eternity, because our supreme destiny is to be found, in Him, as true children of our Father in heaven.  Such a desire for greatness is no disloyalty to our fellows, neither is it a forgetting of our true situation, or false representation of our real selves; rather, it is the only true recognition of and response to the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God, and that we have been redeemed by the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Our Lord for the glory of His Father and the fulfilment of that, our God-given being and likeness.

As you heard in the second reading:

Since we have a great high priest Who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.

Yes, let us -- out of love -- strive to follow where He has gone before us.   Do not let the Devil -- with weasel words of mock humility or serpentine suggestions of twisted fidelity -- try to persuade you to idly and comfortably go through life like everybody else; or, under the devilish pretext of remaining true to yourself, lead you to neglect the God-given opportunity to discover and realise your only true self.  God has, indeed, made you in His own image and likeness, you are individuals, not like anyone else; Jesus has died for you personally, He alone commands your supreme loyalty.  He has risen and gone to heaven to prepare your place in heaven: do not betray Him for the sake of what would be, ultimately, a contemptible fear of standing out from others or a ludicrously tragic self-deception trade-marked by Lucifer himself.  Only when you strive to follow Jesus with your whole heart will you find your true self, divinely commissioned before time began; only when you commit yourself, with Jesus, to the Father, will you become a member of the heavenly family with the hosts of saints and angels for your true companions and enduring friends.

This living of the Christian life, this contentment with Jesus above all, for the Father, might indeed bring the cross into our lives as you have heard from today’s readings, but it will be a sharing in the Cross of Jesus, our passport to real life (Romans 8:16-18):

The Spirit Itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.  I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.