Sept. 19, 2021: 25th Sunday B
Sept. 19, 2021: 25th Sunday B
Someone said that clear, penetrating, and thoughtful questions help us to seek understanding of how things are but also challenge us to imagine how things could be. “The right question is already half the solution to a problem,” another said. Sometimes, though, we ask questions that are self-defeating. Recently I spent some time hearing confessions of high school students. And there was a common question with which they were struggling. “Why can I not be like the other guy or girl? Why am I not as handsome or beautiful as my friend? Why am I not as athletic or smart as my classmate?” We can appreciate the struggles of young persons at that age when they’re questioning their self identity and their place in this world. All of us have asked similar questions throughout our lives. Why does my friend’s life seem to go so smoothly while mine is so chaotic? Why does my neighbor seem to have perfect health while I seem to be always suffering?
In the Gospel passage today, the apostles struggled with the question, who among us is the greatest of all the disciples? When Jesus asked them what they were discussing, they didn’t respond perhaps because they were ashamed. In the presence of Jesus, their desire to compare themselves seemed pointless. The disciples were still applying earthly logic to God’s kingdom, that they must compete for their own glory, privilege, and prestige. Jesus turned their human thinking on its head; the only way to fulfill their desires for grandeur was to put oneself last by becoming a servant for others. Jesus told them that if they sought for greatness in his kingdom, they must seek to be the last. Instead of ambition to rule, they must have ambition to serve and do things for others.
What should be the ambition or the goal of our life? St. Ignatius of Loyola gave us a vision for life called, “First Principle and Foundation,” as a framework for understanding our place in the world and how we should live for God’s kingdom. He wrote that our goal in life is to live and serve God forever. All the events and things in this world are gifts of God, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily. While we appreciate these gifts, we must not let these gifts become the center of our lives so that we don’t hinder our growth toward our goal. We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one. For everything and all life circumstances have the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God. So in everyday life, our desire and choice is to want and choose what better leads to the deepening of God’s life in me. This framework is to be lived out daily in the form of service for others.
In order to teach his disciples about the principle of service, Jesus took a child in his arms and said, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.” To receive a little one is to lovingly serve and care for those who most need it and cannot repay it. To receive in the name of Jesus is to welcome such a person for the sake of Jesus as if it is Jesus whom they are serving. Jesus taught them that the way they treat the lowly, the “nobodies” of the world, is the measure of their treatment of God himself.
Mother Teresa said, “God has created us for great things: to love and offer love, to experience tenderness toward others, as he did, and to know how to offer Jesus to others... Your calling is to belong to Jesus. He has chosen you for himself. We simply need to give Christ a chance to make use of us, to be His word and His work, to share His food and His clothing.”
God has called us through our life of humility and service to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we understand our lives as a vocation to be a disciple of Jesus, then we will have the right vision or framework for our life as a service for others.
