Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

20 October 2024

Mark 10:35-45

Sr Eileen O’Connell OP

 

The journey of Jesus and his disciples to Jerusalem continues in this week’s Gospel. Just before this episode, Jesus again tries to prepare the Twelve for what will happen there. A third time, he tells them he will be condemned, put to death, and rise three days later. In that context, the conversation we hear between Jesus and the sons of Zebedee about what will happen in the future makes some sense. They have a request to make of Jesus: ‘we want you to do us a favour … Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.’

 

James and John’s response is a sign that they have listened to what Jesus has told them but have failed utterly to understand what it is that he has tried to teach the disciples with his life and about his impending death. Jesus tells the disciples he will be killed. The brothers make plans for what will happen afterwards. The reaction of the other disciples – they are ‘indignant with James and John’ – makes it clear that the two brothers are not alone in hearing but not understanding Jesus. We can imagine their indignance might well be because the brothers succeeded in asking for the best places before any of the others managed to do so!

 

Last week, we heard Jesus tell a rich man that living a good life, faithful to the Law, is not enough to inherit eternal life. Shortly before this, Jesus had asserted that the ‘first will be last, and the last first’. To be a follower of Jesus or to seek eternal life is not an easy choice but Jesus reassures the disciples that ‘all things are possible with God’. Today again, Jesus teaches the Twelve about the nature of discipleship. In the kingdom of which Jesus speaks, to which disciples aspire to follow him, to be ‘great’ is not about the pursuit of privilege or prestige or holding positions of honour alongside Jesus.

 

To follow Jesus demands putting thoughts of our advancement away. Discipleship is not about getting ahead and putting oneself above and before others. While other leaders may ‘lord it over’ people and ‘make their authority felt’, this is not the way for those who follow Jesus. They are to be the very opposite. Jesus is very clear: ‘This is not to happen among you.’ For Jesus, greatness is found in service, humility, smallness: ‘anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant’.

 

The kingdom that Jesus declares near is not a kingdom of power as typically understood. In God’s kingdom, oppressive power has no place. It is a kingdom where those who seek greatness must be servants and where those who are weak, poor, small in the eyes of the world are those who are first and most important. It is a reversal or inversion of all such definitions of what is important. Part of this reversal is non-violent resistance.

 

In Jesus, this is lived in its entirety. James and John look for positions of power and influence at Jesus’ right and left side. He tells them that all he can promise them is that they will suffer: ‘You will drink the cup I drink’. The Twelve are disciples of a Messiah who allows himself to be mocked and beaten and killed in a brutally violent way. This is not as they had anticipated and longed for but suggests that the Messiah is powerless. However, the resurrection demonstrates the power of non-violent resistance in the face of those who seem to have power and influence in this world.

 

Our faith is in a crucified Messiah. We are disciples of a Messiah who was killed by those in authority precisely because Jesus’ life witnessed completely to a reversal of what the world and those in positions of power often most value. The very things that such reversal promises for those who are not beneficiaries of the status quo are the same things that threaten and undermine the way of life of those who are beneficiaries of the status quo.

 

These are the inverted values which we, as disciples of Jesus, are called to pursue and to live. They may also be the values for which disciples are called to die.

 

Jesuit priest, poet and activist Daniel Berrigan once said, ‘If you want to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.’

 

Saint Teresa of Jesus, whose feast day we celebrated this week, is reputed to have said to Jesus: ’if this is how you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you have so few!’

 

Saint Teresa, like Fr Berrigan and so many others, knew from lived experienced that a life dedicated to friendship with God and with God’s people is not easy.

 

Those who know this know too that no other life will do!

 

As Teresa put it: ‘Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.’