Homily: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Friends, our
Scriptures today provide us with many rich topics for reflection and I
certainly won’t be able to cover them all in one homily. I am going to start, however, with something
that’s hidden “under the surface” of the Gospels to prepare for the thing that
I hope we’ll be able to carry away from the Mass today: and here it is.
It’s clear
throughout the Gospels that Jesus is a teacher and a miracle worker. The majority of what is recorded for us in
the Gospels are accounts of his teaching and his miracles. As a teacher, we tend only to see Jesus as
one who teaches us morality: that is,
a teacher of what is right and of what is wrong. What we often fail to recognize is that Jesus
is also a teacher of the way things are
supposed to be. Our Gospel reading
today gives us an example of this.
There, on the
way to Capernaum, Jesus again explains to his disciples what is going to happen
to him: that “he will be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three
days after his death he will rise.” This
is the second time Jesus explains this to them (the first time we heard last
week). But his disciples were so
convinced that the Messiah would be a great, worldly king that they couldn’t make sense of this teaching:
thinking it must be some obscure philosophical saying about how he would come
to power that didn’t make any sense to them.
Thus, the disciples didn’t ask any questions. Instead, they demonstrated their lack of
understanding by debating who would get prominent positions of authority in
Jesus’ kingdom.
What is,
perhaps, surprising is that Jesus doesn’t rebuke his disciples for thinking
this way. He understands that it is part
of our human nature to strive to be successful—that is, to do something that
makes a positive difference in the world and to achieve great things—and so he
doesn’t rebuke them for hoping that they can achieve it. Rather, he corrects their thinking. He
teaches them that being successful—that is, being great—isn’t about achieving fame, fortune, power, or popularity,
but rather that it is about serving others and their achievement, instead of
one’s own. In their discussion on the
road, the disciples were arguing for themselves:
each one arguing for why he should
have the place of prominence in Jesus’ kingdom.
Jesus’ correction teaches them that they shouldn’t have been arguing
that at all or, if they did, that they should have been arguing for another, instead of themselves.
Thus, in
teaching his disciples that they shouldn’t be jockeying for positions of power
for themselves, Jesus is teaching them both a principle of morality—that
is, “what they should do versus what they shouldn’t do”—as well as the way things are supposed to be. Namely, that the greatest in God’s kingdom
are not those that acquire power for themselves, but rather those who choose to
forget themselves and so make themselves the servant of others. The example he uses makes clear how far Jesus
intends to take this teaching. A child
was not one to be served by adult males in the culture of the day. But Jesus teaches that, when they choose to
serve even a child, they will enjoy the presence of the Messiah; and not just
the Messiah, but also the Father in heaven, who sent the Messiah. For Jesus’ disciples, nothing greater could
be imagined.
Jesus clearly
wants his disciples to achieve greatness.
In teaching them what true greatness looks like, he is enabling them to
achieve it. ///
One of the
things that has impressed me about this community here at Saint Joseph’s is
your witness to serving one another. My
observation is limited, of course, but nonetheless I have observed how you care
for each other in your needs. I expect
that this carries over into your workplaces, as well, and that you try to work
honestly and well for the good of the business and your coworkers, not solely for
your own gain. Hopefully this also
carries over into your homes, though I suspect that sometimes this is the hardest
place to put this model of service into practice.
This is
counterintuitive, though, right? On the
surface, it would seem that serving one another at home would be the easiest to
do. These are the people to whom we are
closest—both physically and emotionally—and so it should be easy to choose to
serve them, right? Well, for many
reasons that I cannot review here, it isn’t.
Rather, it is in our homes where our natural tendency to selfishness
most easily manifests itself. Therefore,
it is also in our homes where the greatest opportunity to overcome these
tendencies lies.
Saint Theresa
of Calcutta once said, “If you want to change the world, go home and love your
family.” She was responding to the claim
that many were making that, in order to improve the world, they needed to
travel to far-off places like Calcutta to improve the lives of the poor people
who lived there. Her statement was a
teaching that one does not need to travel to make a significant improvement in
the world. Rather, one need only stay
home and focus on loving his/her family in order to make the world better.
Friends, God
wants us to be great! And he wants us to
be great in the true measure of greatness: by being those who, like Jesus,
forget themselves in order to serve others. This is why he has given each of us to a
family. Yes, God has placed us in our
families because he wants to teach us how to love through service. And the family is the best place to teach us
how to love through service because it is often the hardest place to do
it! Am I right? God knows our natural tendencies and so he
knows how difficult it is for us to transcend our selfishness in our families. God also knows that, if we can learn to
become loving servants of the members of our families, we can become loving
servants of anyone. In other words, God
knows that, if we gradually learn to think about others before ourselves inside
the walls of our homes, it will become second nature to do so outside those
walls. ///
Therefore, as
Jesus taught his disciples nearly two-thousand years ago, so he teaches us
today: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the
servant of all.” As we take these words
with us into this week, let us examine our home lives to identify where
selfishness still reigns and seek the ways that we can transform that
selfishness into service. Perhaps a
resolution to be more patient with your husband/wife, your brother/sister, your
son/daughter. Perhaps an offer to help
with a chore that another family member normally does or to clean up a mess
that you didn’t make. Whatever it is,
make it something concrete so that you know that you are doing it! Then, pray for the grace to follow through.
Brothers and
sisters, as Jesus renews his commitment to us in this Mass today, let us renew
our commitment to him, and ask him to help us, starting today, to pursue
greatness as he has taught us so as to prepare ourselves for the glory that
awaits us in heaven.
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph Parish: Rochester, IN –
September 22nd, 2024
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