Sunday 20th of October 2024 - Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 53:10-11/ Psalm 32(33)/ Hebrews 4:14-16/ Mark 10:35-45

At my age I struggle to understand the modern world with its fast-moving technology and particularly the strange language that goes with it. Acronyms and slang words abound in the text speak of today. One such acronym is G.O.A.T, or goat, which apparently stands for ‘greatest of all time’. Originally used to describe a sportsperson at the top of their game it is now attached to anyone deemed to excel at anything. There is an aspiration to be the best in many walks of life and there is nothing inherently wrong in achieving great results in sports or in the workplace. The problem with seeking to be the greatest is why it is being done. Is it for self-gratification? Is it due to excessive personal pride? Is it to ‘lord it over others, making the authority that comes with greatness felt?

In the gospel passage for today we hear how the brothers James and John asked Jesus to grant them seats on his left and right in the glory of heaven. Jesus told them that they did not know what they are asking and indeed they did not. They were looking for the glory that goes with being a follower of Jesus without understanding how that glory must be achieved. The glory that Jesus won was through suffering and death. Something that he was warning the disciples of as they followed him towards his trial, persecution, and death in Jerusalem.

Jesus took on the role of the suffering servant in the prophesy of Isaiah which says. ‘By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself’. Jesus was and is God, but he left his glory behind in heaven to become fully human with all that goes with it. He suffered pain, insult, rejection, and ultimately death. Not just a simple death but the wretched death of a common criminal. There was no sign of what we would understand as greatness in the life of Christ before his resurrection. Jesus gave us an example of what it is to achieve greatness through obedience and service. Jesus was obedient to the will of his father, and he offered his very life in service to humanity. Through his actions Jesus restored the relationship between us and God, destroyed by our stubborn search for our own greatness as highlighted in the story of Adam and Eve, a story of human behaviour understood from time immemorial and captured in the ancient texts of the book of Genesis. As described in the second letter to the Hebrews, in Jesus we have a high priest who feels our weaknesses with us, who has been tempted in every way that we are’.

There is no wonder that their companions were indignant with James and John when they asked their favour of Jesus. They were beginning to understand that Jesus was from heaven and had power that they wanted a part of. What they failed to understand was how Jesus was to restore the broken relationship with God, and the terrible price that would be paid for him to regain his proper seat of Glory. James and John claimed that they could drink the cup that Jesus was to drink and be baptised with the baptism that he would undergo without fully understanding what that would entail.

Our human actions and thinking are far removed from the actions and thinking of God. Jesus was very clear in his teaching about authority in the church, that it is an authority based on service which can include death itself. There is a timeless quality to the response of Jesus to the ambitious brothers request for honoured places in heaven. The teaching of Jesus was misunderstood by his first disciples and his followers since have often been influenced by human ambition rather than a willingness to follow an authentic path to true greatness. Ambition has always grown out of power seeking, careerism, and manipulation, even at the heart of the church. We still refer to people being ‘elevated’ to high office within the church. The elevation that Jesus was indicating was very different as we can appreciate when we consider him being lifted up on a cross. This was the service that Jesus showed us, a service of complete obedience to God at the service of others.

The dangers of human worldly ambition cannot be overstated. This ambition will lead us in an opposite direction to the one shown to us by Jesus. There have been many examples of people who have followed Jesus in lives of service some even giving their own lives. Many are commemorated as martyrs and saints, but many more are not remembered here on earth but are rewarded in heaven by being given the seats of glory allotted to them. We must put away our ambitious desires, die to ourselves, be obedient to God’s plan for our lives, seeking always to serve God through serving others. Jesus calls us to follow his example by sharing his life, his values, not seeking the top seats in the heavenly banquet but by earning the places we have been allotted. We will not be judged on how the world sees us no matter how elevated in society we might appear, but on how we have lived our life of service to God and to others.

God Bless Brendan