October 18^th – Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Lectionary: 146

Reading 1 – 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 – Psalm 33: 4-5, 18-19, 20, 22

1. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
   Upright is the word of the LORD,
   and all his works are trustworthy.
   He loves justice and right;
   of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
2. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
   See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
   upon those who hope for his kindness,
   To deliver them from death
   and preserve them in spite of famine.
3. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
   Our soul waits for the LORD,
   who is our help and our shield.
   May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
   who have put our hope in you.
4. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

Reading 2 – 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

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.”

 

 

LISTEN TO THE SCRIPTURES: Click on the link below:

 

http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/15_10_18.mp3

 

29^th Sunday of the Year – B

 

 

CHRISTIAN SERVICE.  Jesus was sent by God the Father to be the Suffering Servant.  Because He was faithful in His task, Jesus has become our High Priest before the Father.  Christians are also called to serve.  Service will bring suffering, but Christians serve with confidence in Jesus who has saved them from their sins and will reward them for faithfulness.

 

Christians are called to serve others in love.  Such service involves pain, suffering, frustration, and disappointment.  No one serves or is served perfectly on earth.  But fidelity in serving others, according to the model of Jesus, will be rewarded by God the Father who is completely faithful to his promises.

 

Introduction:  Both service and fidelity are unpopular ideas in the modern world; both are under attack on many sides.  Some think serving others implies a type of slavery, debasement, fawning, bootlicking.  Service is considered dehumanizing by those who guide their lives by the image of the self-made person, dependent on no one, self-sufficient.   Fidelity also has its doubters.  Can anyone really say forever?  Is it realistic for a person to intend to be completely faithful to anyone, to anything (forever)?  Why suffer needlessly in a vocation of service to others?  There are no easy answers.

Point 1: Christians are called to serve others.  Jesus Christ was sent to serve, not to be served.  Those who believe in Jesus are called to follow his model.  The Christian life requires death to self and a new life of love for others.  To love another means to intend, indeed to promote what is best for that person.  Christian service is thus a form of love.  In order to serve well, the Christian must first have proper self-love.  Self-giving requires discipline, humility and perseverance.  Service of others is not demanding if the servant has a good self-image and a sense of worth as a person.  The Christian then is the author of his or her own service; from the authorship comes the authority of service.

 

Point 2: Christian service involves suffering.  Service is not necessarily its own reward.  Some indeed do receive satisfaction from serving others, but much of the time serving others brings pain.  The pain comes from dying to oneself, from controlling the love of self, from making the first step toward another in love.  Service requires that the well being of another person be promoted before one’s own welfare, and this is hard for selfish people to conceive.  There is also the risk in service of being rebuffed, unwanted, rejected.  Few people deliberately seek such rejection; hence it is easier to ignore others and serve self and its interests instead.  Even fewer persons see how powerful, how authoritative authentic service is and so they belittle those who humbly serve.  Such misunderstanding brings a special type of pain to those who seek to serve.

 

Point 3: Christian service requires fidelity.  Serving others is a life-long task for a Christian.  The Christian never stops serving others despite the pain and suffering involved.  Nor does the Christian continue to serve just because he or she receives satisfaction or fulfillment from service.  There will be successes and failures because Christians also suffer human weakness.  Where their real confidence rests is in Jesus, their High Priest who intercedes for them before God.  Even when they fail to serve well, Christians know that Jesus has saved them from their sins and continually calls them back to service.  In Jesus’ completely faithful service lies both the model and the assurance of future success for those Christians who also seek to serve in love and with fidelity.  Faithful service gives Christians the power, the authority to stand well before God who is the only real judge of their lives.

 

Conclusion: God’s grace is sufficient for a Christian in the task of serving others.  We should pray for the power to love self and others properly, for strength amid suffering, for perseverance amid temptations to stop serving others, for renewed faith amid doubts about the value of service.  To serve is to reign.

 

QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFLECTION, DISCUSSION/ WRITTEN

 

1. Do you serve others only because you receive satisfaction from service?

 

2. Do you fail to serve other because you are afraid of the risk, of failing, of rejection?

 

3. Do you serve others because you seek a reward from God or fear His punishment?

 

4. How do you exercise your authority when you are in charge of others?

 

5. What is your attitude toward the authority figures in your life?

Today we learn something about James and John, perhaps about ourselves.

 

1. The Gospel tells us that they (James and John) were ambitious. When the victory was won and the triumph was complete, they aimed at being Jesus’ chief ministers of state.  Maybe their ambition was kindled because more than once Jesus had made them part of his inner circle, the chosen three. Maybe they were a little better off than the others.  Their father was well enough off to employ hired servants (Mk.1:20), and it may be that they rather snobbishly thought that their social superiority entitled them to the first place.  In any event they show themselves as men in whose hearts there was ambition for the first place in an earthly kingdom.

 

2. It tells us that they had completely failed to understand Jesus. The amazing thing is not the fact that this incident happened, but the time at which it happened. It is the juxtaposition of Jesus’ most definite and detailed forecast of his death and this request that is staggering.  It shows, as nothing else could, how little they understood what Jesus was saying to them.  Words were powerless to rid them of the idea of a Messiah of earthly power and glory.  Only the Cross could do that.

 

3. But when we have said all that is to be said against James and John, this story tells us one shining thing about them–bewildered as they might be, they still believed in Jesus. It is amazing that they could still connect glory with a Galilean carpenter who had incurred the enmity and the bitter opposition of the orthodox religious leaders and who was apparently heading for a cross. There is amazing confidence and amazing loyalty there. Misguided James and John might be, but their hearts were in the right place.  They never doubted Jesus’ ultimate triumph.

 

It tells us something of Jesus’ standard of greatness. What he is saying is, “Can you bear to go through the terrible experience which I have to go through?  Can you face being submerged in hatred and pain and death, as I have to be?”  He was telling these two disciples that without a cross there can never be a crown.  The standard of greatness in the Kingdom is the standard of the Cross.  It was true that in the days to come they did go through the experience of their Master, for James was beheaded by Herod Agrippa (Ac.12:2), and, though John was probably not martyred, he suffered much for Christ.  They accepted the challenge of their Master – even if they did so blindly.

 

Jesus told them that the ultimate issue of things belonged to God. The final assignment of destiny was his prerogative.  Jesus never usurped the place of God. His own whole life was one long act of submission to His will and he knew that in the end that will was supreme.

 

The Cross Our Only Hope

 

What has the Cross come to mean to you so far?   How have you experienced the cross in your life thus far? 

 

Meditation: Would you rather follow or lead, take first place or last? Two of Jesus’ disciples boldly asked Jesus to promote them to first place in his kingdom. The desire for greatness seems to be inbred in all of us. Who wants to be last or least? Jesus did the unthinkable – he reversed the order to true greatness and glory. If we want to be first and great, then we must place ourselves at the disposal of others by putting their interests first and by taking on their cares and concerns as if they were our own. Jesus wedded authority with unconditional love and service with total sacrifice – the willing sacrifice of one’s life for the sake of another. Authority without sacrificial love is brutish and self-serving. Jesus also used stark language to explain what kind of sacrifice he had in mind. His disciples must drink his cup if they expect to reign with him in his kingdom. The cup he had in mind was a bitter one involving crucifixion – laying down one’s life even to the point of shedding one’s blood for the sake of Christ.

What kind of cup does the Lord have in mind for each one of us? For some disciples such a cup entails physical suffering and the painful struggle of martyrdom – the shedding of one’s blood for the sake of Christ’s name. But for many of us, it entails the long routine of the Christian life, with all its daily sacrifices, disappointments, set-backs, struggles, and temptations. The Lord has offered his life for our sake and he calls us to freely offer our lives in a daily sacrifice of love and service for others. What makes such sacrifice a joy rather than a burden is love – the kind of love which has power to transform and change our lives and the lives of those around us. Paul the Apostle tells us that this “love” is a pure gift  “which God has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). If we allow God’s love to transform our lives, then no sacrifice will be too great or hard to make.

An early church father summed up Jesus’ teaching with the expression: “to serve is to reign with Christ.” We share in God’s power, authority, and kingdom by loving others as he has loved us and by laying down our lives in humble caring service for the sake of our neighbor’s welfare. Are you ready to lay down your life and to serve others as Jesus did?

“Lord Jesus, set me free from fear and pride that I may be a servant of love and compassion for others. May the fire of your love inflame my heart that I may give generously and serve joyfully for your sake.”

 

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time B – October 18, 2015

For the Church: that we may follow Christ in laying down our lives in service of one another, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For the grace of to bear affliction: that God’s strength will enable us to embrace dying and rising with Christ so that we may live in newness of life, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For a deeper identification with Christ: that in times of temptation we may look to Christ who was tempted in every way but remained faithful to being Child of God, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For the grace to surrender pride: that we may honestly appreciate our gifts and weaknesses and surrender our false sense of self to God who heals all weaknesses, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For all who exercise authority: that they may use their authority to call forth the gifts of others, free those who are unjustly restrained, and to lead others to wholeness and freedom, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For all leaders of the church: that they may follow Christ in tending to the needy and marginalized and never be seduced by power or prestige, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For all who are oppressed, for refugees and those who suffer from war: that God will inspire people to reach out in service to ease their burdens and offer them care and compassion, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For the people in Mission lands: that God will open their minds and hearts to the Good News and unite them in love and service, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For all who serve in the missions: that God will help them to faithfully proclaim the Good News and console them in times of loneliness and discouragement, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For all who are serving in dangerous areas, especially in the Middle East: that God will protect and preserve them during their service and bring them home safely, let us pray to the Lord.

 

For all who are working for peace: that God will inspire and strengthen them to continue to offer options for peace even when few seem to listen, let us pray to the Lord.