Homily:
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Have any of you ever noticed that it takes different levels
of concentration and focus to drive in the city versus driving on the
highway? For example, if you’ve taken a
trip to another city—one that you’re not familiar with—and it’s time to leave
and return home, you have to put a lot of focus and attention on making sure
that you are taking the right turns so that you can get on the correct highway
that will take you home. If it’s a
larger city with a lot of traffic you have to be even more focused so that you
don’t miss the turn to enter the highway.
On the highway, however, you don’t need to pay as much attention. You know that if you keep going the way that
you are going that you’ll get there.
This is where our minds start to drift a little and we focus less on
where we are going and how we are getting there and more on whatever else our
minds try to focus on.
I myself always tend to focus on other cars. My car is a perfectly good car, but I like
cars and I like to think about owning other cars, so most of the time I’m
watching other cars go by and I’m thinking about whether or not I’d want to own
one of them. Even when I’m on my way to
do something important, my focus drifts away from that important thing and I
pay attention to the cars passing by.
Jesus’ apostles, it seems, suffered from the same
condition. In our Gospel reading today,
Jesus and his disciples are on a journey from Galilee towards Jerusalem. This was no short trip, but the way was well
known to them. Thus, they were each
subject to the temptation to enter into “cruise mode” where their minds could
drift from the task for which they had set out on their journey and focus on
other things.
This particular trip to Jerusalem would be a “one-way” trip
for Jesus. After arriving, he would not
leave Jerusalem again before being crucified.
So aware of this was Jesus that he even predicted it to his disciples
while they were on the journey. In
Mark’s Gospel, it would be the third time that Jesus told his disciples that he
would have to suffer and die at the hands of the chief priests and the
scribes. Nonetheless, the temptation to
enter “cruise mode” was too strong for the Apostles and their focus drifts away
from Jesus’ prediction and onto things.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee and two of Jesus’ first
disciples, had allowed themselves to think about the reward they would be
receiving as Jesus’ disciples. Remember
in last week’s Gospel reading, as Jesus and his disciples were setting out on
this journey, Jesus told his disciples that those who had given up everything
to follow him would receive a hundred times more. Thus, as their minds drifted during their
journey, James and John decided to see if they could get a specific commitment
from Jesus on what that reward might look like.
They asked to be seated at the right and the left of Jesus
when he was seated on his royal throne.
The seats to the right and the left of the king were the two most
powerful seats in any kingdom and those who sat in those seats would have great
influence over the king. It would be
hard to find fault in their request given what Jesus just said about the reward
that they would receive and that elsewhere he had taught them that if they “ask,
they will receive” and that if they “knock, the door will be opened to
them.” It’s not as if they had strayed
from the mission—that is, the purpose for their journey—rather, they let their
focus drift away from it.
This is a risk that all of us can fall into, right? When we begin to follow Jesus seriously it’s
kind of like trying to find our way out of the town that we are unfamiliar
with. We’re paying close attention to
what we are doing and we are trying to follow each direction as precisely as we
can. We are focused on following him
because we know that, if we don’t, we may find ourselves lost and, perhaps,
even in danger. After that initial
intensity, however, we make it out onto the highway and begin to cruise. We’re still heading towards our destination
and we haven’t forgotten the purpose for our journey, but we don’t have to pay
as close attention as we did initially and so our minds begin to drift. Perhaps we even begin to think about how we
are going to be rewarded for our faithful discipleship. Like James and John, we haven’t strayed from
the mission—we’re still on the road, travelling to our destination—but we’ve
lost focus on the destination and have begun to focus on ourselves.
Jesus, as he did with his Apostles that day, steers us
clear of all of this in order to refocus us on our destination. In the Gospel, when James and John ask for
positions of power, Jesus instructs them to stop thinking in those terms. Instead, he tells them to focus on the
mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God.
“Serve one another in serving the mission,” he says, “and the reward
will take care of itself. This is the
example that I am giving you.” Jesus
knew the reward that awaited him and so he knew that there was no need for him
to spend time thinking about it. Thus, he could remain focused on the mission
so that he might fulfill it completely.
Perhaps we don’t have the same perfect focus as Jesus and
perhaps we’ve allowed our minds and hearts to drift from their focus on our
mission and destination. This should not
lead us into despair, however, because, as the author of the Letter to the
Hebrews reminds us, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet
without sin.” Jesus sympathizes with our
weaknesses and so we can come to him confidently, asking for help when we’ve
lost our focus.
In many ways, this is what we do when we gather here each
week. Notice that we do not come here to
receive accolades or rewards, but rather to be refreshed and
re-commissioned. By engaging in this act
of worship, we take the focus off of ourselves and place it back on Jesus and
the mission that he has given us. The
Word that is proclaimed to us instructs us and inspires us, while the Sacrament
that we receive strengthens us and reminds us that the promised reward is
already ours. Thus refreshed and
strengthened we can continue on the journey with the same focus and intensity
that we had when we first took our discipleship seriously.
My brothers and sisters, our world needs active apostles,
not disciples in “cruise mode”. May our
participation in this Eucharist awaken us to the apostolate that Jesus has
given us, so that the kingdom of God may be more fully realized among us.
Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport,
IN – October 18th, 2015
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