21 September 2024 – 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Surain Durai Raj

My dear friends,

The Readings that we hear today carry very rich symbolisms. There is the image of the suffering servant that we hear from the First Reading. And then there is the image of the child that Jesus brings to the forefront in the Gospel Reading. And the conclusion of the Gospel Reading, where Jesus mentions: Anyone who wants to be first must be last and servant of all. The image of a servant.

Allow me then, my dear friends, to take perhaps the symbol which is most close to us that we would resonate well, the image of the child that Jesus brings to the forefront.

You remember, my dear friends, that during the time when we come close to Christmas, many places would take the initiative to animate a Christmas play. And so there was this parish where a Christmas play was organised and many little children were roped in to play the various different parts. There is Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and even the wise men.

Children were brought in and they were trained and rehearsed and perhaps everybody was waiting for that good day when they would watch the play. Certainly, sometimes people forget their lines. And so you watch at that time when the play began, the 3 wise men walked in. 3 little boys, each one coming with a gift for baby Jesus.

The first boy placed a box in front of the baby and said: I bring you gold.

The second boy put the second box and said: I bring you myrrh.

And the third boy said: Frank sent this.

I heard this story from Sir Ken Robinson, an educationist who speaks, public speaking. Frank sent this. He probably forgot his line but children take a chance. Children will take a chance and whatever comes, even if it is wrong. They take a shot at it. Not because a wrong can be a right. That is another day’s discussion. But they take a chance because they are pretty frank about things. And why are they frank?

Well we can say they are children and they will take time to grow before they become schooled in the delicate language of the adults. Very good. But there is another reason why children are very frank. It is because they are totally dependent on the adult. They are totally dependent and so the counter of that dependence is about being frank with the adult. And if they trust, they will be frank.

So the key here is that they are frank because they know what dependence is. Totally dependent on the adult. And that is the image we take by looking at a child. Dependence. Total dependence. That is the image that is coming as we look at the Gospel Reading today.

If you remember last weekend, my dear friends, Jesus begins to speak about the coming passion, death and resurrection, how He will be handed over to men who will torture and put Him to death. And He will rise again. And you watch Peter protesting that this must not happen.

Today’s Gospel continues that narrative where Jesus now takes time, for a second time, to speak about the same thing. Now more closely to the disciples. This is what is going to happen. We are heading to Jerusalem and this is what is going to happen to the Son of Man.

And we hear, my dear friends, the disciples blindsiding Jesus. They cannot comprehend the future of powerlessness that Jesus is mapping out for Himself. That there is this time where He will be handed over to others. An image of powerlessness. 

Peter protested last week: ‘This cannot happen‘ because the Messiah that he envisions is a Messiah of power, not one of powerlessness.

Today the disciples now begin to react. They shut down on Jesus because they cannot envision a future where Jesus would take the road of powerlessness, of being handed over to others. And they are afraid to ask. Perhaps there is a hint that this will be true. That is why they are quiet. So they decide to organise their own seminar on power and privileged places, things that happen as people begin to talk around.

So the disciples get into this discussion about power and privilege places, about who will be the first among them. But you know when there is a seminar on power and privilege, it will always end up in an argument.

Likewise in the Gospel Reading, the disciples began to argue because there is no settlement to that. And when they reached Capernaum, Jesus turns to them and said: What are you arguing about? And they are quiet because, one, they cannot fathom this idea of powerlessness. And that is when Jesus brings a child and puts the child in front of them, at the center.

Anyone who wants to follow me must be like this child. And anyone who welcomes this child, welcomes the One who sends Me. 

For what is this child dependent on? This child is dependent on whoever the adult is who is watching. And Jesus takes that same meaning of dependence.

When Jesus gets to Jerusalem, there will be no show of power. There will be no show of rebellion. There will be no show of defense. It will be totally handing over. Why?

Because Jesus’ power does not rest on what will happen but on total dependence on the Father. That even in that midst of abandonment, even in the midst where He is taken, handed over and crucified, total confidence in the Father. And He will not abandon that faith in the Father, that the Father is with Him.

That same element that the child would have, dependence on an adult. Jesus would take the same thing, dependence on the Father.

This, my dear friends, is what the disciples struggle to understand. How can there be when you abandon power? And Jesus is willing to lay down His life because His dependence is on the Father who will raise Him to life again.

My dear friends, what do we take from this Gospel Reading?

This. That element of dependence in a child. There is powerlessness in the future mapped by Jesus. And that is why when Jesus says:
Anyone who wants to follow me, anyone who wants to be first, will have to be last. 

That is the journey that Jesus is mapping. What will happen to Him? He will be last, He will be servant, He will be pushed. If you read the Suffering Servant, it will illustrate even more about a man who is broken and crushed.

And yet, my dear friends, in that powerlessness, what makes sense then? The struggle to keep faithful in dependence to God.

And that is perhaps what, in the Second Reading, James is taking up for us. This human heart desires so many things. The Second Reading will say you want something that you do not have and you are prepared to kill for it, you desire something that you want so much that you will do whatever it takes to take it. The heart lavishes on whatever it can possess. The desire for power.

And yet the counter image that is shown in the Gospel Reading is this: What does it mean to be dependent on God?

It is this. That the real greatness that we hear in today’s Gospel is when the heart makes space for God’s will to be done in one’s life. That with your battle of whatever you desire, whatever I desire, the heart makes space for God’s will to be done in my life, in your life. And then we become dependent on God.

Whatever fascinates in this Gospel Reading is this.

Jesus is ardent and confident the Father will not abandon Him. That is power for Jesus. The fidelity of God that never changes. Because the heart makes space for the Father. And that is the counter balance of today’s Gospel Reading.

The challenge that despite whatever we love and endure and want to cherish and lavish in this world, when the heart makes space for God’s will, we discover a different dependence that is on God. And that, my dear friends, is greatness that the Gospel proclaims.

To be last and servant of all and yet to be first in the eyes of God.

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