Wis. 2: 12, 17-20; Ps. 54:3-6, 8; Jas. 3:16—4:3; Mk. 9:30-37
Who is the greatest? The one who came to be the servant of all, Jesus Christ. We are called to be in imitation of Christ as a servant of all the gifts, blessing we receive, our family, our friends, our neighbor, our work, our talents, and not least of all the stranger. We have a responsibility to the world around us even when the world rejects us when we stand for our beliefs. The Spirit within moves us to build a better world for we are all inheritors of God’s creation to love and to serve.
The disciples were looking to Jesus as a king to rule in the material world. They witnessed his miracles over nature and believed in a kingdom where the power of Jesus would bring all humanity to their knees. They anticipated it would be a new era in this world and they wanted to hold a high place of honor. It is as if they expected to live forever and never die. Perhaps the spirit was revealing a truth to come but not in the way they envisioned it. The victory over death would come through death to the eternal.
We bend our knees not by fear but by choice and by choice we become the servant of all. This is how we possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the message when Jesus claims the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It is in giving that we receive the greater glory. It takes a humble heart to trust and surrender to the will of the Father.
St. James reminds us that our human passions is what leads us to war and division, envy and selfish ambition. It is what divides families over inheritance and creates a culture of entitlements expecting to be served than to serve. The more we covet the least we possess because we seek wrongly and do not receive the blessing. As a parent we want to give our children everything that we did not get growing up. As a result, we teach them to covet and expect more. Then they grow up and expect the same from the world only to realize the world cares about what are you ready to give under the principle that nothing is free.
As Christians we are in the world but not of the world. We are called to be a counter culture that rejects the eye-for-an-eye view of life. “The wisdom from above is first of all pure” that gives without counting the cost. We give because it is not the world that upholds our life but the Lord. It is the Lord who we serve and him through others. The Lord is the just one revealing to his disciples that he is the one to be condemned to a shameful death but three days after he will rise from death.
Victory over death came through death in the resurrection. We too await our victory over death. We have the promise of the resurrection and the eternal life. The life we live in imitation of Christ is the assurance of our victory and so we offer ourselves up to God and pray that his will be done in us as we live our temporary time in this world. What are a few human years compared to eternity and yet we are filled with the “I” of selfishness and lack the “eye” of divinity. Divinity is already waiting for us to begin to live when we become the servant that God desires of us.
We cannot save ourselves. The Lord saves us but he cannot save us without us entering into the covenant of love to be transformed into his image as a servant of all.
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