TO BE GREAT MEANS TO SERVE
Introduction
– Non Ministrari, sed Ministrare –
Peter reminds his audience that they have the obligation to live up to their baptism. For they have been reborn at the expense of the blood of Christ, who also rose for them.
The Gospel tells us that the great God will save people through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came as a servant of all. Those who follow Jesus must, like him, learn to serve, and learn to serve even at the cost of pain.
1 Reading 1 Peter 1:18-25
Beloved:
Realize that you were ransomed from your futile conduct,
handed on by your ancestors,
not with perishable things like silver or gold
but with the precious Blood of Christ
as of a spotless unblemished Lamb.
He was known before the foundation of the world
but revealed in the final time for you,
who through him believe in God
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are in God.
Since you have purified yourselves
by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love,
love one another intensely from a pure heart.
You have been born anew,
not from perishable but from imperishable seed,
through the living and abiding word of God, for:
“All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flower of the field;
the grass withers,
and the flower wilts;
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.
Responsorial Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
R. (12a) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R
Alleluia Mark 10:45
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Son of Man cane to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Mark 10:32-45
The disciples were on the way, going up to Jerusalem,
and Jesus went ahead of them.
They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.
Taking the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them
what was going to happen to him.
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man
will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes,
and they will condemn him to death
and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him,
spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death,
but after three days he will rise.”
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
came to Jesus and said to him,
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
He replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?”
They answered him,
“Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”
Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”
They said to him, “We can.”
Jesus said to them, “The chalice that I drink, you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.
Jesus summoned them and said to them,
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Commentary:
The total self-giving of Jesus is contrasted with the total self-seeking of the disciples. Even when Jesus describes the details of his humiliating passion and death, it does not register on the disciples, for they are totally absorbed in themselves. James and John are especially concerned about their power and position in the Kingdom of Christ. They are not merely requesting that Jesus consider their desire; rather, they are ordering Jesus to grant what they ask. Jesus patiently makes them understand that the only way to glory is by drinking the cup of suffering and walking the way of the Cross. James and John readily agree, not fully grasping the implications (of the “CUP”), for it is the tangible rewards of power that they are after. After all, hasn’t Jesus declared that anyone who followed him would be rewarded well? Why not book the rewards they favour before someone else steals them?
What the disciples needed to learn was to renounce even the desire for rewards. Becoming like Christ is the only reward worth desiring in following Christ. And when one becomes like Christ, everything else would lose its appeal (Phil 3:7-8).
Blessing
We, too, are here to serve rather than to be served. It is not an easy task. Spare others by not sparing yourself. May Almighty God bless you for this, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen!