Twenty Ninth Sunday in OT
B 2021
This Gospel about the brothers James and John asking the
Lord for positions of honor in the kingdom of God at the Lord’s right and left
hand.
This is one of my favorite Gospels for me to identify
with. James is my patron saint and I
have a brother John. And I must confess
to you that pride easily gets the best of me wanting to be recognized and
wanting to be successful.
In the scriptures of my own life, as far back as I can
remember, as a Little League baseball player at Genesee Valley Park, losing a
ball game seemed like the end of the world.
Thanks to my sainted mother, she helped to understand it was just a game
and the sun was going to rise the next morning.
As a student in the seminary, with much encouragement from
my dad, getting high marks and doing well academically was very important. There was a definite competitive to myself.
After ordination, I have been very much blessed with a
variety of priestly assignments. I am
grateful for the confidence the Bishop and others have placed in me. I was beginning to feel like the apostles
James and John.
The apostles James and James were on the inner circle of the
apostles and so you might guess that would want to take the next step and see
if they would get that extra recognition.
And so, they asked the Lord for the two prime places of honor in the
Kingdom of God.
There’s no doubt about it.
Competition is as keen today as it was during Jesus’ time. Human nature hasn’t changed much in the last
two millennia. We are still driven to be
No.1, to earn the most, achieve as much as we can, be recognized for our
accomplishments, to have that seat at the “big table.”
I can identify with the ambition of James and John and get
easily caught in pride and self-centeredness.
But as
to opening up his apostles to the true meaning of discipleship, Jesus is so
disappointed, because they are thinking of power and glory and praise and all
these great, wonderful things, and he is thinking of his own death.
And so
he says to them,
“Can you drink the cup
that I drink?”
The cup
is the cup of suffering. Are we able to
be followers of the crucified Christ, the Christ who came not to be serve but
to serve, the Christ who was willing to lay down his life out of love for each
and everyone of us.
And
then he says,
“or be baptized with the
baptism with which I am baptized?”
We
usually think of a little child being baptized, a new life being baptized. Baptisms
of infants is such a precious part of my ministry and brings much to all.
But the
word baptism means “to be immersed in water.”
And the
whole story of baptism is we are immersed and drowned in the waters
that we might die to our old lives and be brought up out of the waters and
live to the new life in Christ.
This is
why I so prefer immersion baptism so that we may be immersed in the life giving
water of Jesus. But we must know that to
be immersed in the life of Jesus in to enter into the paschal mystery – the
dying and the rising of Jesus.
And so,Jesus
knows that he is going to be baptized means that he must die, but in three days
he will rise again.
James
and John said: “We can drink of the cup and we can be baptized with the
baptism,” not understanding at all what they are talking about.
But
Jesus softens and he looks at them and he knows in the future they will return
and he says to them, “Yes, someday you will have to drink the cup and someday
you will be baptised in this kind of baptism.
“But to
give you places in heaven, that is not for me to talk about, that is for the
Father. It is the prerogative of the Father to speak of rewards, to speak of
the things that you are crying out for so much.”
But the
other disciples hear about it and they protest.
Why do they protest?
They
are jealous. They, too, want the first places at the table. They, too, want to
be honoured. They, too, want power. They, too, are in the competition
game. They want to be winners and not losers — finally. They have been
losing their whole life and now this man is going to make them winners.
And
Jesus listens to them squabbling. These are the men that he’s going to found
the Kingdom of God?
These
are the men that want the authority of the world. As we well know, in this
life, you do not rise high unless you want power, unless you are somewhat
arrogant and forceful. It’s a world in which the authority of the world is
based on might and power.
And
Jesus is offering the authority of God.
And
what is the authority of God?
The
authority of God is not in domination. It is not in winning.
The
authority of God is in loving. It is in silence. It is in quietness. It is in
accompaniment, a quiet presence. It is in listening. It is in caring. It is in
accepting.
It is
learning how to love the way the Father loves, because the Father is a giver
and not a taker. It is learning how to love the way Jesus loves, so great that
he will lay his life down for his people.
And
this great mystery, that we take so readily today into our own lives, is not
understood, or not heard, by the Apostles.
And so
it is Jesus comes together and he explains it to them. And he explains it to
them in these words:
Jesus summoned them and
said to them,
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Nest
Sunday is Missionary Sunday. Sometimes
we think it is that we are sent out to kind of convince the whole world
that we are right and they are wrong, that we have the truth and they don’t.
This is
very far, not from the Apostles’ thoughts, but from the thoughts of God.
We are
sent into this world to listen and to heal, to care and to reach out. We
are, sent into this world to learn how
to love not as people love, to learn how to love as God loves.
And God
gives His only begotten Son that he should offer his life that we might
understand that God’s love is so great that He gives everything into our hands.
May God
give you the gift of peace and a missionary spirit of listening, of compassion,
of caring, and loving as God loves us.
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