Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXV per Annum B
22 September 2024

 For the second Sunday in a row we hear the Lord teaching and telling the disciples about the prediction of his passion.  This is the second of three passion predictions in St. Mark.  We see hear once again, as we did last Sunday, that the disciples don’t get it.  In fact, it is embarrassing that as the Lord predicts his passion they are busy predicting who might fill the leadership vacuum by arguing who is greatest among them.  In last Sunday’s passage, the Lord had to confront the tendency to think only as human beings do.  Trying to understand the plan of salvation with only human thinking simply will not work and will not result in appreciating the serious call that we must confront the tendency to think as human beings do and we must convert.  We must change.  Following the path of salvation means our sinful ways must be put to death in order that we can rise to a new life, a redeemed life.  Thinking as human beings do by rejecting suffering will meet the sharp rebuke we heard St. Peter receive last Sunday.  In this Sunday’s passage, the Lord confronts the tendency to reject humility, the tendency to think of oneself as greater, to exalt oneself.  This is precisely what was occupying the attention of the disciples as they walked along with Jesus.  These two Sunday passion predictions teach us that the Lord’s way – and therefore, our way to being saved – is through suffering and humility.

 The first reading reinforces the lesson of suffering.  This matches up with last Sunday’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah.  Last Sunday’s first reading was taken from the section of Isaiah that references the chosen servant of the Lord who will undergo suffering and persecution.  In fact, that section of Isaiah is called the suffering servant section.  That theme continues in today’s first reading, the Book of Wisdom, where the wicked seek to test the just one by revilement, torture, and condemnation to a shameful death.  The second reading from St. James brings into particular focus the need to embrace humility as a virtue for godly life.  When we embrace suffering we do penance for our sins and we are transformed by an opportunity in faith to be like the Lord, the suffering servant.  In such conformity to the Lord we can grow in grace.  Humility is also a way in which we become like the Lord.  We are encouraged to humility when St James writes, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice”.  This is the dangerous path the disciples were on even as they seemed so near to the path of the Lord.  They are silenced for shame when, inside the house in today’s gospel passage, Jesus asks them, “What were you arguing about on the way”?  The phrase “the way” became an early reference to Christians and the first roots of the Church.  When the gospel reveals “they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest” we can look back today and see an irony about the use of that term “the way”.  We learn that we are not members of “the way” if the way we are on is one that rejects humility and suffering.  For as the Lord must suffer in humility, we must also embrace the same path if we are truly united to Christ.

 The virtue of humility is a call to be grounded in the truth.  Authentic humility does not exalt oneself above what is true.  And, on the flip side, authentic humility does not pretend that one is lower than one is.  We all have gifts and talents that we are given to use for others, to build up others and to build up the Church.  We should not exalt ourselves above what is true; but we also should not deny our gifts or refuse to use them out of some false humility.  Rather, we are grounded in what is true.  We are grounded in the truth that we are not god, but His creatures.  We are grounded in reverencing God by using well the gifts we have been given.  If the gospel passage were written today, the disciples would have been arguing about who was the G.O.A.T. (the Greatest Of All Time).  So, the virtue of humility is something needed in our time too.  The image of a child, small, dependent, and without legal rights in the ancient world becomes a symbol of humility.  By humility we are drawn into the very inner life of God, the inner life of the Blessed Trinity.  Though absolute and almighty in power and authority, God pours Himself out in Trinitarian life, He pours Himself out in humility to create and to save us.  In suffering, God freely gives His entire being to pay the price for ours sins and to open before us the way to everlasting life.  We remain on that path when we maintain our unity with Christ our Head as members of His Body.  Where Christ, the humble and suffering servant has gone, we, too, are called to follow.