Father Donald Senior, CP

Sept. 23: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Conversion of heart

Wis 2:12, 17-20; Ps 54:3-4, 5, 6, 8; Jas 3:16-4:3; Mk 9:30-37

The stoics, members of a school of philosophy in ancient Greece, believed that true happiness was attained in controlling one’s passions or unbridled desires and following the better inclinations of our reason to produce a happy life, described as “ataraxia,” or a life of equanimity. 

The reading from the Letter of James assigned for this Sunday has a similar line of thought.  True wisdom leads to a life that is “pure, peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits.” Toxic passions such as “jealousy and selfish ambition” lead to “disorder and every foul practice.” James even contends that such self-centered passions and deep-seated greed ultimately lead to “violence,” “wars” and “conflicts.”

What James expresses in his usual blunt style the Gospel of Mark affirms in a different manner in this Sunday’s account of an intriguing encounter between Jesus and his disciples. It comes from the important central section of Mark’s narrative where Jesus and his disciples leave Galilee — the place where most of Jesus’ healings and teaching took place — and turn to Jerusalem, where Jesus will encounter ultimate opposition and the specter of the cross. 

It is during this fateful journey that Mark describes some of Jesus’ most pointed teachings about authentic discipleship. Often that teaching is prompted by abject misunderstanding on the part of his disciples. That is the case here.

On the journey, Jesus reveals to his disciples the fate that awaits him in Jerusalem: “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.” A striking characteristic of Mark’s Gospel is his portrayal of Jesus’ disciples as chronically dull and prone to misunderstand Jesus’ teaching. Mark notes that despite Jesus’ words, “they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.”

It gets worse. Not only do they fail to understand Jesus’ words, they also contradict the fundamental spirit of Jesus’ life and teaching.

When they arrive at Capernaum, Jesus asks them,” What were you arguing about on the way?” Mark notes “they remained silent” because as Jesus was speaking of giving his life, “they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest!”  

After such failures on the part of the disciples (and there are many of them in Mark’s account), Jesus “sits them down” and begins to teach them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” To make his point, Jesus takes a child, “puts his arms around the child” and challenges his disciples to be open and welcoming, even of one who is a child without guile or prestige.

Later in the year, we will discover another scene from Mark’s Gospel where the disciples’ ambition runs counter to the sense of service and generosity taught by Jesus. Jesus will state in no uncertain terms, “The Son of Man has come not be served, but to serve, and to give his life in ransom for the many.”

How striking that this original community of Jesus’ disciples is portrayed in the Gospel not as an alert and heroic band of followers but as a very human and fallible group that is prone to ambition and tone-deaf to the fundamental teaching of Jesus. 

The long view of Mark’s narrative that we will encounter many times during this year of Lectionary readings is that only a profound conversion of heart prompted by witnessing Jesus’ dying and rising will jolt the disciples into understanding — and acting upon — the example of Jesus. 

A friend of mine commented that the Scripture readings these past few Sundays seem pointed for the crisis in which the church finds itself now immersed. The toxic passions of ambition, pride and self-seeking will destroy us. The defining spirit of Jesus’ teaching is a life of service, that is, love expressed in self-transcending action on behalf of others, especially those most vulnerable. 

 

 

Topics:

  • scripture

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