Wis 2, 12, 17-20 / Jas 3, 16-4, 3/ Mk 9, 30-37
As
I read today’s gospel I could see Jesus walking along and being followed by the
disciples. He’s told them clearly and
definitively that to be disciples they have to learn to deny themselves, to
un-center themselves from their own living.
He hears behind him a hefty discussion going on. They must be talking about the challenge of
learning how to live life without being self-pre-occupied. Once they get to their destination in
Capernaum, he asks them: “So what were
you talking about?” They’re quiet –
untypically quiet. Jesus learns they
hadn’t been talking about moving beyond self-pre-occupation at all. In fact, just the opposite was the case. They’d been talking precisely about
themselves and who was the greatest among them.
Imagine Jesus’ frustration and disappointment.
Jesus
then gets graphic and concrete. He tells
them to be his disciples they have to become servants of all. And he acts out what he has just said. He brings a child into their midst, embraces
that child and tells them to do the same.
Jesus not only accepts the child but identifies himself with the
child. In accepting the child they will
be accepting him. To fully grasp what
Jesus is doing here, we have to realize that in Jesus’ day children were
regarded as having no social or legal importance. They were non-persons in Jewish
society to whom nothing was really owed.
Children could make no claims for themselves. And Jesus embraces and accepts these non-persons,
identifies with them and tells his disciples they must do the same if they want
to consider themselves his followers.
What
Jesus is saying and doing here has many applications. But I want to read and understand the gospel
scene in the light of our political season.
We are about the process of electing the next president of our
country. I hear us having hefty
discussions – talking and arguing about who will be the greatest to lead
us? And I hear Jesus wanting to insert
into our political conversation a question, a consideration we need to think
about. “The greatest among us”, we say,
“that one should be president.” We have
many measures for greatness – but do we have the measure Jesus gives to his
disciples? That’s becoming “the servant
of all”. That’s embracing and
identifying with the non-persons of our society, those with little
social, economic or legal power to make claims for themselves. Is that the kind of greatness we want from
our leaders? Is that the kind of greatness
we want for ourselves? In our politics
do we want to be servants of all?
If Jesus were to hear us talking politics among ourselves and asked us
what kind of leadership we want, would we come to an embarrassed silence?
Becoming
the servant of all requires having care and consideration for the good of all,
including the powerless. In our Catholic
tradition we name that “good of all” the common good. Every disciple of Jesus, every Catholic is
called upon by Jesus himself to be the servant of all in society by making
political, economic and social decisions that serve to promote the common good
– our common good. This is how we
concretely embrace the children – the non-persons – in our midst.
A
politics based on the pursuit of the common good militates directly against any
politics based merely on self-interest – where what is mine – what
promotes my interests – is the real bottom line. The common good is understood to be the sum
total of those conditions of social living whereby all people are enabled more
fully to achieve their God-given purpose.
And our God-given purpose in life is to flourish as human beings –
living and loving together in community – and grateful for our interdependence
on each other. We are grateful to live
as images of a God who is a loving community of Father, Son and Spirit. We are born sacred and social – brother and
sister to one another.
In
this political season and beyond we do have much to talk about among
ourselves. We are Republicans; we are Democrats;
we are Independents. But as disciples of
Jesus we ask not: am I better off
now than I was four years ago? That
question may not be the main or motivating question we bring to our political
decisions. Rather, we ask: how shall we become the servants of
all? How shall we promote and
work for the common good of all, especially the vulnerable and voiceless?
To
conclude, I say we need to pray for one another. And I’d like to offer a prayer I found in my
reading and preparation for this homily.
Listen, please, to the words.
Creator
God, Source of our vitality and freedom,
You
call us beyond our limits.So downwards we tunnel, upwards we construct,
And sidewards we reach out, determined to connect.
Bless the constructs of our minds, may they manifest your wisdom.
Nourish the feelings in our hearts, may they express your compassion.
Bless the works of our hands, may they reveal your justice.
For if we build without you, we toil in vain.
In truth, we are the clay and you are the potter.
Amen.
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
No comments:
Post a Comment