September 20^th 2015.  Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Mark 9:30-37

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Mark 9:30-37

After leaving the mountain Jesus and his disciples made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, ‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.

They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ They said nothing because they had been arguing which of them was the greatest. So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.’ He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms round him, and said to them, ‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . While Jesus is talking about how he will humiliate himself and suffer grievously in order to bring about salvation, the disciples are arguing about which of them ought to be exalted the most! Each one of us has a tendency to be fixated with our own position relative to others. We like to feel superior to others in certain senses, and we feel challenged when the integrity of another’s behaviour shows up our hypocrisy. Our inclination to put down others, however, is rarely just for the sake of putting them down: we do so in a misguided effort to give significance to our own existence. Our attempts to subordinate others to ourselves is an illegitimate attempt to save ourselves from emptiness and meaninglessness. I must draw life and a sense of worth from somewhere, after all. If I do not draw it from God, then I usurp it by placing myself on a pedestal above others. We are thus confronted with two possible paths, and the Gospel this Sunday illustrates both paths clearly. One is the path of the disciples, who seek “life” by placing themselves on a pedestal above others. The other path is the path of Jesus, who empties himself before others and abandons himself completely into the hands of the Father who is life. All of us are called to follow Jesus by emptying ourselves and entrusting ourselves into the hands of the Father. This is the sure path to life. The kind of “life” that we obtain by placing ourselves above others is illusory and empty.

While Jesus is talking about how he will humiliate himself to bring about salvation, the disciples are arguing about which of them ought to be exalted the most!

In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus makes one of the announcements regarding his passion. ‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.’ We are often struck by the first part of this statement – the tragic part – but it is the destination of the journey that counts the most, not the journey itself. A journey - no matter how wonderful it might appear - that ends in pain or death, is a terrible journey. But a difficult, austere journey that ends in joy is beautiful. The logic of God, God’s way of doing things, is a process that leads by way of the truth to life itself. But Jesus’ announcements regarding the path that he must follow lead to regular misunderstandings. We have seen how in Chapter Eight of the same Gospel, Peter reproved Jesus for his claim that he would have to suffer and die. In the case of the Gospel passage that we read this Sunday, we find a different sort of lack of comprehension on the part of the disciples. Jesus asks them what they were talking about and they are too embarrassed to reply at first. They had been discussing which among them was the greatest. While Jesus is speaking to them about his humiliation in obedience to the Father, his suffering that leads to life, they are arguing about which of them is better than the others! It is a head-on confrontation between two mentalities that have nothing in common.

We don’t put down others just for the sake of putting them down: we do so in a misguided effort to give significance to our own existence. Our attempts to subordinate others to ourselves is an illegitimate attempt to save ourselves from emptiness and meaninglessness.

In the first reading from the book of Wisdom, we hear how the godless seek to trap the virtuous man, “since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law and accuses us of playing false to our upbringing.” The just man does not upset the godless by criticizing him, but simply by the fact that he lives in a different manner. I can easily get along with someone who thinks differently to me, but when that person acts differently to me then I begin to feel uncomfortable. If someone refuses to make the hypocritical choices that I make, or the choices directed to the narrow advantage of the people in my group, then it becomes challenging for me. The godless in the first reading are led to violence against the just man on account of the challenging nature of his integrity. The egoism of our society is fuelled by the fear we all have of suffering, death and emptiness. This primordial fear drives us to live for ourselves and to oppose anyone whose behaviour challenges our fundamental drive. We have a terror of being make secondary to others and seek in all sorts of ways to have our own egos affirmed. The discussion among the disciples regarding who is the greatest arises from this mentality. The desire to win, to be first, to be the greatest, is not primarily related to the desire to put down others, but arises rather from an effort to overcome the emptiness of our being.

I must draw life from somewhere. If I do not draw it from God then I usurp it by placing myself on a pedestal above others

This infantile rivalry considers that I am only someone significant when I am above someone else. This existential sense of emptiness arises from the genuine truth that I am indeed an impoverished creature, a mendicant soul that needs to draw life from somewhere. If I do not look to God, if I do not abandon myself to his love, then I must obtain my sense of worth elsewhere, usurping it by creating classifications in which I place myself above others. Often I do this by speaking in a negative way about others. Sometimes I enter into a sort of communion with others, an evil assembly, by creating a common enemy at which we can direct our vitriol.

We are confronted with two paths: the infantile strategy of basing my self-worth on a perceived sense of being superior to others; or the strategy of emptying myself and entrusting my life into the hands of the Father. Only the latter path leads to life and true meaningfulness.

This world in itself does not bring us to true life. The way of Christ brings life. This Sunday we see a pattern of behaviour on the part of disciples that arises out of an inherent belief in death, leading them to act out of fear (i.e., the fact that the disciples have a primordial fear of death and emptiness leads them to seek meaning by asserting their superiority over others). Thus it becomes violent - violence always arises from fear. Christ, by contrast, is docile because his whole existence is directed towards the Father who is life. The issue here is to believe on a profound level that our lives are in the hands of our heavenly Father, that we belong to him. Jesus says, ‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men”, but he knows that he is not permanently subject to the hands of men but of God. Men might well kill him, but the Father will restore him to life again.  We must allow ourselves to be inundated by this tender yet powerful light; the Father will not abandon us; everything tends towards light and life. The path of life is not a path that is obsessed with victory over primordial emptiness: rather it is a path in which emptiness leads to victory. When we learn to empty ourselves, then we are granted a victory over the ungodly “I” that seeks to usurp life by illegitimate means. Let us allow our lives to be illuminated by the logic of Christ, the strategy of Christ. Let us entrust ourselves to God in the things that cause us anguish, recognizing that the impulse to rivalry and one-upmanship are an illegitimate shortcut to meaningfulness, leading us nowhere.