Friends,
in today’s Gospel Jesus presents a child as the model for his disciples
who want to be the most important. Jesus lays out for his disciples
what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem, how he will be rejected,
tortured, and killed. Oblivious to this, the disciples are discussing
who among them is the most important. For Jesus, the
path to greatness lies on the road to Calvary, to self-forgetting love;
for the disciples—and for most people of most ages—it lies along the
road to ego inflation.
What
is the antidote? A child is proposed as a kind of living icon to these
ambitious Apostles. We notice first how Jesus physically identifies with
the child, sitting down at his level and placing his arms around him.
It is as though he is saying that he himself is like a child. How so?
Children don’t know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another.
They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest
nature.
Why
was this story of Jesus’ identification with children preserved by all
of the synoptic Gospels? Somehow it gets close to the heart of Jesus’
life and message.
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 134
The wicked say:
Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.
With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test
that we may have proof of his gentleness
and try his patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.
Beloved:
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there is disorder and every foul practice.
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
for those who cultivate peace.
Where do the wars
and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions
that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.
You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
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.”
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