DOCTRINE AND FAITH(Isaiah 53, 2a.3a.10-11; Heb 4: 14-16; Mark 10, 35-45: 29th Sunday of Year B, 17th October 2021)
In today's Gospel we can notice two surprising things. The first is that two apostles, James and John, sons of Zebedee, went to Jesus and asked him for the first places: Grant us to sit in your glory, one on your right and one on your left. They speak of Jesus’ glory, and want to share it as his prime ministers. This question is surprising, because in the Gospel it comes immediately after the third prediction Jesus’ passion: Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes: they will condemn him to death, they will hand him over to the pagans, they will spit on him, they will scourge him and kill him; but after three days he will rise again (Mark 10, 33-34). Jesus has just announced all the humiliations and mistreatments he was about to undergo, and the two apostles were asking for places of honor! They were blind, and did not see the striking contrast between their ambition and Jesus’ prediction. We too often behave that way, Jesus reveals himself to us as the one who suffers death for love, and we, instead, seek privileges, advantages, personal satisfactions; we are ambitious and always want to have places of honor. There is also a second reason for the surprise. Jesus replies to the two apostles putting a condition: You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink, or receive the baptism with which I am baptized? The expression drinking the chalice makes us think of the passion of Jesus. In Gethsemane he asks the Father to take this cup away from him, if possible; but he deferred to the will of the Father, and in the end, he agrees to drink the chalice. Jesus’ baptism is a baptism of blood. The two apostles respond to Jesus' question with generosity and enthusiasm: We can. At this point Jesus announces martyrdom to them: The cup that I drink you too will drink, and the baptism that I receive you too will receive. And we would expect this conclusion: So you will have the best seats on my right and my left. Jesus set a condition, and they accepted it; now we would expect them to get what they asked for. Instead Jesus concludes, thus: But to sit on my right or my left is not up to me to grant it; they are for those for whom it was prepared. Jesus’ speech to the two apostles seems like a trap. The apostles seem to have been led into an apparent deception: they accepted the condition, and now they cannot have what they asked for. Thus a big disappointment for them! How is this to be understood? In reality, we must understand it as a grace. Jesus gave the two apostles more than they asked for: he freed them from their egoistic ambition and made them partakers of his love for him, he really placed them very close to him. They asked to be with him in glory, and Jesus makes them understand that the important thing is to be very close to him in love and in generosity. This is the most important grace. The place to his right or left is a secondary thing; the most important thing is to be with him in generous love. Jesus granted this grace to the two disciples, freeing them from their selfishness and introducing them into the kingdom of his love for them. The Gospel tells us that upon hearing this, the other ten were indignant with James and John. The other apostles were indignant, because they had the same ambition as James and John. This often happens to us too. We are indignant at what others do, because we have the same demands as them; we are disappointed to see that others want to have what we want to have. Jesus then calls all the apostles to himself and gives them a very important teaching: You know that those who are considered leaders of the nations dominate, and their great ones exercise power over them. The world also goes on this way: there are ambitious people who manage to impose themselves, occupy leadership posts and exercise power over others. Among you, however, it is not like that, Jesus says to his disciples. For now, the opposite of the mentality of the world obtains here. Jesus reverses the perspective, and says: Whoever wants to be great among you will become your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will become the servant of all. As he did on other occasions (cf., for example, Mark 9, 35), he tells the disciples here what true greatness, and value consist of. True greatness does not consist of oppressing others with power obtained with ambition, but in service, and making oneself available to others to help them live a beautiful life, worthy of man. This is what really pleases God and corresponds to Jesus’ way of life. In fact, he concludes his teaching with these words: the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. If we want to be with Jesus, we must put ourselves at the service of others, each according to his/her own abilities. We must not have the ambition to be above others, and dominate them, but the ambition to be generous in their service. Jesus exercised the highest degree of service for us, to the point of giving his life as a ransom for many. There is no possible better or perfect way to serve as Jesus did.
The first reading shows us what it meant for Jesus to give his life as a ransom for many. Isaiah presented the Servant of the Lord to us: «Despised and rejected, man of pain, who knows suffering well. The Lord liked to afflict him with pains. When he offers himself in atonement, he will see offspring, live a long time, the will of the Lord will be fulfilled through him. [...] my just servant will justify many, he will take on their iniquitous on himself. This is the maximum of service: taking on the iniquity of others to redeem them, giving one's life as a ransom for sinners. When we want to examine our lives, we must always have this model before us. Have we really taken this orientation of generous and humble service? Or have we taken the spontaneous orientation of the search for the best places, places of power and domination? We must always strive to, truly, follow Jesus in the way of service.
The second reading also shows us how Jesus became our servant. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews affirms that he was tried in everything, in our likeness, except for sin. Jesus accepted all the sufferings of the human condition; he lived in complete solidarity with us, and thus, acquired the capacity to deeply sympathize with our fate. To be able to truly sympathize with the suffering of others, we must have suffered personally. Jesus wanted to suffer in order to be able to show us compassion in our infirmities and to communicate to us divine mercy in a profound, complete and perfect way. We too, when we have pains or sufferings, must think of others who suffer, and be happy to share, in some way, Jesus’ passion, also to show love and mercy to the afflicted just as Jesus did. We must renounce the personal search for advantages, prestige and power, and instead seek to be with Jesus in humble and generous service to our brothers and sisters. +John I. Okoye.
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