The concept of service within greatness is plagued with difficulty. If you wish to lead, you must also serve. Part of this is connected with welfare. The dreadful dictators of this world care for none but themselves, and this was clear two thousand years ago as now.
But we needn’t be a dictator to fall at the same hurdle. The disciples found this out. They were keen to see what the pecking order of this wonderful future kingdom would be, but Jesus closed them down. To be that interested in how important they are going to be, suggests that something isn’t quite right. It suggests that they are looking, not from Christ’s standpoint, but from that of worldly power and ego. This not-quite-rightness is called the human condition, and it is for this reason that all of us are susceptible to falling at this hurdle.
It is worth using this as more than a Gospel meditation. We are, after all, human. It’s highly likely that the thoughts of these disciples are sometimes similar to our own. We want to see where certain situations, certain decisions, will place us in the pecking order of our own social lives. How much are we making compared to others; how favourably are we seen within a group of friends and family; what does our car, our house, our clothes, say about our status? Most importantly, though, do we sometimes use our faith to help us in the pecking order? And, within the life of faith, do we cling to certain aspects in an unhealthy way, and perhaps do-down others for our own furtherment?
If we can identify with any of these thoughts, then this is how the Gospel is speaking to you. After all, Jesus had to intervene with his disciples; how can we put ourselves above them?! Keeping on track, as a believer, is a difficult daily process of betterment, and although the world presents this to us as a struggle, we are incredibly lucky to have so much more knowledge and context than those first disciples.
How we use the grace of this knowledge and context is up to us.
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark (10: 35-45)
Glory to you, O Lord.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached Jesus.
Master,’ they said to him ‘we want you to do us a favour.’
He said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’
They said to him, ‘Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.’
You do not know what you are asking”. Jesus said to them.
‘Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptised with the baptism with which I must be baptised’
They replied, ‘We can.’
Jesus said to them,
‘The cup that I must drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I must be baptised you shall be baptised,
but as for seats at my right hand or my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted.’
When the other ten heard this they began to feel indignant with James and John,
so Jesus called them to him and said to them,
‘You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you.
No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant,
and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all.
For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many.’
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.