25th Sunday of Year B
✠ A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 9:30-37
Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him. They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst and putting his arms around it, he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me”(Mk). Taken from today’s Sunday gospel.
1. Today’s readings focus on the natural human tendency to dominate others. The first reading (Wisdom 2:12,17-20) speaks of a plot of the wicked against an innocent person. The wicked want to dominate the righteous. The only reason for this is that the good man exposes, by his goodness, the evil of the wicked. Man naturally desires to excel. In his search for excellence, he is driven by neutral forces that fire his ambition for perfection. One of the forces is “the will to power”, by which he seeks to be the first among his peers. The second related force is “the desire to dominate.” These forces naturally urge one to master and dominate others. They make the powerful to desire to keep others down and make those down to pull down those on top. They push the bad to war against the good. They push brothers against brothers, as we see in the case of Joseph and his brothers, who had to sell him to prevent him from rising to the top (Cf. Gen 37). It is for the same reason that Jesus, a good man, would be destroyed by those who claim to be great servants of God. They were afraid to see him on top. But these forces are raw natural instincts that must be domesticated. Today’s second reading takes up the same idea: “Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something, and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill.” (Cf. Jas 3:16-4:3).
2. Last Sunday, Jesus already announced this impeding destruction by religious leaders and scolded Peter for thinking that a child of God should be exempted from humiliation and suffering. Today, he made the second announcement of his death. We are told that the disciples did not understand what he meant because their interest was in what position they would occupy when Jesus manifests himself fully as the Messiah. They all missed the point which Jesus wanted to make. For him the son of man will rise from death, but he will only rise after he has accepted humiliation, suffering and death.
3. The disciples paid no attention to the serious message of Jesus’ death because they were eager to grab power. They focused on discussing who should be regarded as the greatest among them, who should dominate the others. Jesus intervened in their discussion to highlight the fact that through humble service to others, one can actually become the greatest. It is through this that the blind instinct to dominate others is domesticated and channeled to good use.
4. Jesus does not just propose theories, he walks the talk. Placing a child before them, he taught them that God is even found more in the simple than in the great. He made them understand that the child, symbol of simplicity and trust is a personification of Jesus and his Father who sent him to the world when he said: whoever receives a child like this receives me; and whoever receives me receives not me but the one who sent me.
5. You certainly need to be ambitious to be able to make sufficient contribution to humanity. You need the will to power, the desire to be better than others, for you to be able to leave some legacy to humanity. You cannot realize great feat if you lack the above qualities. But you do not need to dominate or pull down anybody in order to remain on top. All you need do is to have the willingness to serve others. It is this willingness that will domesticate and convert the raw instinct of being domineering to humble attitude of service. Nigeria is what it is today because those who struggle for power do so with the aim of lording it over others. You must not be like them. You must make a difference by using service and not power as your mantra.
@Vitalis, 22/09/24.
