29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection: Who do you think you are?
By SISTER MARY McGLONE
“Just who the #*!! do they think they are?!”
That is how I imagine Mark would have quoted the 10 angry disciples in today’s Gospel if he had been able to do it in the style of Sarge, a character from the “Beetle Bailey” comic strip. Mark says that the 10 disciples were “indignant” when they heard James and John request the most honorable places in Jesus’ glory.
By asking who the “#*!!” the brothers thought they were, the incensed majority was unpredictably close to what Jesus wanted to teach them. More precisely, the question of the moment was, “Just who did they think Jesus was?” That would then explain who they thought they were as disciples.
Even though they sought a singular distinction, James and John were no further off the mark than the rest of the gang. They had all carefully cultivated a chronic hearing impediment when it came to listening to Jesus explain his mission, and they were blissfully blind to what it entailed for them.
When the two of them asked for first places, the rest were probably fuming because they had not thought of it first. Mark makes it easy to critique their ambition and attention deficit when it came to Jesus’ mission. But we should not be too quick to judge. Mark wrote his Gospel with the intention of holding a giant mirror before his readers. He is also pointing at all of us who think of ourselves as disciples today.
Today’s readings focus on our image of God and discipleship.
Isaiah’s songs of the “Servant of the Lord” make Job’s life look like a rose garden – God’s servant will be crushed in infirmity as God’s will is accomplished through him. This is no call to self-inflicted pain or an invitation to offer oneself for martyrdom. Isaiah’s servant suffers because, like so many punished prophets, he faithfully represents the God rejected by people in power. His offering for sin consists in accepting solidarity with the rejected God rather than yielding to violent attempts to obliterate his witness.
Today’s Letter to the Hebrews focuses on Jesus as the Son of God who knows exactly what it feels like to be human, tempted, and afraid. The author of Hebrews wants us to know that as the human face of God, there is nothing in our experience that Jesus does not comprehend. In fact, Jesus feels with us so profoundly that his response is a continual offer of the graces of solidarity and the strength to share in his victory over the powers of death. If all of that sounds like too much for us, we are in fine company.
Today’s Gospel paints a picture of Jesus’ closest disciples as Olympic champions of denial and self-serving misinterpretation. No matter how much Jesus talked about the first being last and his upcoming suffering, the disciples could not or would not move beyond their own glorious expectations for a messiah and his victory.
Today’s Gospel begins immediately after Jesus told the disciples for the third time that he was going to suffer and die and that all of it was happening under God’s providence. Mark makes this story of the disciples’ incomprehension the most egregious. Jesus had ended his teaching about riches and poverty with the pronouncement: “But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.” That was the entrée to his declaration about the immanence of his suffering. For some mindboggling reason, James and John decided that this was the right time to jockey for position in his coming glory. Less subtle than the enemies who tried to trap Jesus, these two sounded like a couple of kids playing “Simon says” – “Tell us you’ll do anything we ask!” Jesus made them spell out exactly what they hoped for. When they came clean about their shameless ambition he told them that they had missed the point of everything he had been saying and that they surely had no clue about what they were asking him to do. He then spoke of the suffering he had been foretelling as a cup that he would drink and a baptism he would go through. Responding as if he were talking about having a pool party, the two claimed they were ready to join him in the baptism and would be happy to share his cup. In reply, Jesus drove his point home by telling them that he had no say in the matter. If they stayed with him, they would share his fate, but glory was not his to hand out.
Ched Myers, Scripture scholar and author of Say This to The Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, describes Mark 8:22-11 as the “discipleship catechism.” He says that this interchange completes Jesus’ teaching about his alternative source and expression of power.
Describing himself as “the Human One” or Son of Man, Jesus explains that the only way he can ransom the people is by being their servant, not their ruler. Little could his disciples imagine who would ultimately be on his right and left as he completed the baptism of the cross! Today’s readings combine to ask us where we recognize images of God. Isaiah presents the suffering servant as the most iconoclastic image imaginable and a counterweight to the idolatry of inventing God in the image of our ambitions.
The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus, the great high priest, passed to the highest position through suffering and death- therefore able to understand our temptations and fears as he offers us the grace to deal with them. The Gospel offers James and John as mirrors of our own ambitions contrasted with Jesus’ description of himself as the servant-representative of the God who created for love, not glory. In the end, our ambition to achieve status or to serve will be the truest reflection of our image of God.
Reading I
(Isaiah 53: 10-11)
The LORD was pleased
to crush him in infirmity.
If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.
Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness
of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.
Responsorial
(Psalm 33: 4-5, 18-20, 22)
Reading II
(Hebrews 4: 14-16)
Brothers and sisters:
Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God,
let us hold fast to our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has similarly been tested in every way,
yet without sin.
So let us confidently approach the throne of grace
to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.
Gospel
(Mark 10: 35-45 or 10: 42-45)
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 cup 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 cup 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.”
OR
Jesus summoned the twelve 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.”