Twenty-ninth Sunday (Year B)
(Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16;
Mark 10:35-45)
St. Matthew (6:33) tells us that Jesus once said:
Seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
In today’s Gospel reading we are told of two brothers apparently
following that advice; 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 in Your glory that we may sit, one at Your right hand and the other
at Your left."
However, in their eagerness to set about seeking the kingdom of God, as Jesus
said, they failed to take sufficiently into consideration the fact that He also
taught 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 Jesus to grant them prestigious seats
in the glory of God’s Kingdom on the basis of favouritism or special privilege;
Jesus said that they 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 something good in the wrong way:
asking for places in the Kingdom of the heavenly Father, without manifesting a
corresponding desire to share in His righteousness. This is clearly shown in their glib response
to the awesome question Jesus subsequently put to them:
Can you drink the cup that I
drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?
They immediately answered that they could indeed drink His
cup and be baptized with His baptism; and they said this on the basis of their
own self-confident appreciation of the love they felt for Jesus. They were doing just what Peter would do
later on:
Peter said to Jesus, "Lord,
I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death; even if I have to die
with You, I will not deny You! Even if
all are made to stumble, yet I will not be." (Luke 22:33; Matt. 26:35; Mark 14:29)
Then, however, Peter would be speaking after hearing that
Jesus was being threatened with death: it was a spontaneous and heartfelt
protestation of immediate concern and love.
It was, indeed, also an ill-considered promise of personal fidelity far
beyond him, but Peter could be excused somewhat in that over-statement and
over-appreciation of his own powers because he was being impelled and compelled
by his anxiety for Jesus under threat of violent death. James and John, however, had no such laudable
motivation for their considered, over-zealous, and over-confident words, unduly,
though not exclusively, motivated by the desire to be greatest, which, Mark
tells us, had already shown itself previously:
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 – if anyone wishes to be first of all he shall be last of all and
servant of all -- James and John still hankered after the position of the ‘greatest’. As yet, they knew 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
k+
now that You sent Me. I
made known to them Your name, and
I will make it known. (John 17:25-26)
Jesus 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 up on the last day.
(John 6:44)
All that the Father gives Me will
come to Me, and 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 until such time as He Himself should be lifted up (John 12:32):
When I am lifted up
from the earth I will draw everyone to myself.
A like attitude, concern, is manifest in Jesus’ death. We were told in the prophecy of Isaiah
concerning the Suffering Servant, the future Messiah … concerning Jesus:
The LORD was pleased to
crush Him in infirmity.
Though Son and Saviour, Jesus did not take upon Himself
weakness, suffering, and grief; it was the path traced out for Him by His
Father. He was indeed prepared for it
but He did not seek it out … all He wanted was to do His Father’s will: He
would lovingly accept it in fulfilment of His Father’s plans, for His Father’s
glory, and as the supreme human expression of His love for and trust in His
Father.
And so the prophet went on:
If (in loving response to
His Father) He gives His life as an offering for sin, He shall see His descendants
in a long life.
All would then happen, the prophet tells us, in such a way
that:
The will of the LORD shall be
accomplished through 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.
However, 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, through their ignorance,
such desires appeared to be little better than merely human ambition seeking superiority
and precedence; Jesus, however, knew that deep down they were the expression –
temporarily 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 skilfully cut and purified before finally being polished
to perfection by the divine artificer.
Today, however, few want to be great in the kingdom of God;
so very few have faith in, and love for, Jesus deep enough to make them long,
desire, and ultimately will, to cling to Him in their passing experience of earthly
sufferings so as to share with Him in His eternal, 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 results from a relatively innocent and understandable fear of standing
out from friends for fear of losing their companionship: this can 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, more seriously, wrong; since God is the supreme potter
with the unique ability and exclusive right to shape His chosen clay as He
wills:
According to the eternal purpose
that He accomplished in Christ Jesus Our Lord. (Ephesians 3:11)
And there are yet others who, amazingly, seem to think that
to aspire higher in their spiritual life would somehow be pretentious 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
understandable, bearing in mind the general weakness of our human nature and
their own personal immaturity and lack of 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 that we be found,
in Him, to be true children of our Father in heaven. A desire for such greatness is no disloyalty
to our fellows, neither is it a forgetting of our true situation, or a lying
representation of our real self; 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 our God-given being.
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 for Jesus and our heavenly Father,
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,
originally planned for God’s own presence, and created in His own likeness. God has, indeed, made you in His own image:
you are individuals, not like anyone else, and because 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, alone 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 chosen 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 is the Cross of Jesus,
and our bearing and sharing in that Cross is really our passport to eternal life
and fulfilment:
The Spirit Himself testifies with
our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of
God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may
also be glorified with Him. For I consider
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:16-18)
