Becoming the Greatest!

 

Deacon Dave · Becoming the Greatest!

Homily for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 20, 2024. Gospel of St. Mark 10:35-45. Theme: Becoming the Greatest! 

 In today’s Gospel, the brother-apostles, James the Greater and John, try to pull off a self-promotion maneuver behind the backs of the other 10 apostles. Like many Jews of their day, they misunderstood the ancient prophecies about the Messiah and imagined that he would be the Royal Champion who had come to conquer the Romans and establish a new and improved version of the Great Kingdom of Israel! They wanted a significant piece of the action and they are quite bold in asking for it! Instead of simply requesting it, they seem to be demanding this favor from Jesus. 

 Jesus does, indeed, grant the first part of their request, that is, to be intimately united with him in his reign in the Kingdom of God. But poor James and John had no idea what they were really asking. The “cup” and the “baptism” mentioned by Christ are symbolic references to his Cross and Passion. Jesus was mysteriously informing them that he would enter into his reign as King by wearing a crown of thorns and being given the cross as his “throne”. And per their request, these two brothers did indeed share in this baptism and cup of suffering by offering up their lives to God for the sake of the Gospel. St. James the Greater became the first of the apostles to die for Christ when King Herod ordered his beheading in the year 46 AD. And his little brother, St. John, endured torture and exile for the sake of the Kingdom. He was the last surviving apostle, dying around the year 100 AD near the age of 100. 

 But you know, James and John fundamentally had the right idea, that is, they wanted glory with Jesus and were willing to stand with him to attain it. But they misunderstood what this meant and went about it in the wrong way at first! The two brothers seem to have forgotten that Jesus has already told them that the way to victory, the way to reign with him in the glory of the Kingdom. It was to follow his example and serve the needs of others. And so our Lord repeats this lesson in today’s Gospel and says: “Those who wish to be first must become last and make themselves the slaves of all...I have come not to be served but to serve, and to give my life as ransom for many.” 

 Like James and John, this is a lesson that we all need to remember and put into practice in our everyday lives. We need to avoid their worldly ambition and realize that we don’t have to be persons in authority or someone with impressive credentials to have prestige in the Kingdom of God. Our greatness is not in what we do but in how we do it. Every human occupation and endeavor, every social level of living and every upright form of working can be a pathway to making us great in the Kingdom of God! The way to transform our ordinary everyday living into something great and extraordinary is by doing everything through Jesus, with Jesus, and in Jesus. 

 When we carry out our everyday duties THROUGH Jesus it means that we intentionally offer everything we do as a gift of love to God the Father. Our prayers and our professional duties, our joys and our struggles, all of our daily events are offered to him through the pierced hands of Jesus his Son. In this way the gift of our lives becomes joined to the gift of Jesus’ life given out of love and becomes something beautiful for God. 

 When we do everything WITH Jesus it means that we are mindful of the truth that we are not walking through life alone. We have the Lord as our companion throughout the day and can speak with him heart-to-heart. He is walking with us, he is working with us, he is praying with us and he is resting with us. When we join ourselves to Jesus in this way everything we do takes on a deeper spiritual meaning and becomes mystically united with all that he did when he lived on planet Earth.

 Finally, we seek to do everything IN Jesus. This means that we consciously try to carry out our daily actions as if it were Jesus actually doing them. It means to strive to love as he loves and to interact with others in the same manner and with the same kind of attitude that Christ has shown us. This is what it means to develop an outlook of servanthood, an attitude of humility. 

 Every morning can make the conscious and intentional offering of our day THROUGH, WITH and IN Jesus, and unite this gift of ourselves with his self-offering, by using this simple prayer from the Liturgy which we have all heard so many times: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever. Amen.”