Today is the twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
In today’s Gospel James and John ask Jesus to allow them to sit on His left and His right when He comes into His glory. The typical take on this is that these two, who we know are in the inner circle, are motivated by pride and a desire to be close to power.
More than anything else today’s Gospel passage is about the cross. James and John certainly didn’t understand Jesus’ view of leadership through the prism of the cross. I wonder if we do. Jesus came as a ransom, an expiation, for our sins and the spiritual death that brought.
As imitators of Christ, we too are called to the kind of servant leadership Jesus called His first disciples to. In our homes and places of work, as well as our social interactions, we are called to serve, not be served.
St. Thomas Aquinas said that we often put something other than God in the place that God should hold in our heart. Aquinas gave the examples of wealth, power, pleasure, and honor. James and John seemed to be all about the honor of being associated with Jesus but did they get what that meant for them? Do we understand that to be close to Jesus we have to give up something, even embracing our cross, whatever that might look like for each of us?
If we’re going to be close to Christ, and not just fans observing from a distance, we have to embrace our cross and serve, serve, serve. We have to get over ourselves as the old Army commercial said.
Jesus asked James and John what they wanted Him to do for them and they answered with their ego and pride. How do you and I answer that question? He wasn’t just asking them. He’s asking us and He will ask us again next Sunday when He encounters the blind man Bartimaeus. Let’s think about what we really want from Him and what cross we need to embrace to get it.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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