When I meet siblings, especially the grownups, I like to ask them if they fight/quarrel and how their parents respond to their fights/quarrels. I had my fights/quarrels with my siblings while growing up. And in fact, we still quarrel and fight from time to time. I tried to be the most righteous among my siblings when I was much younger. I kept myself clean and waited for any of them to step on my toes or look for my trouble. Then, I would strike back, and so would the fight/quarrel begin. After each fight, I prepared my logical argument in my defense in the court of law where my parents were the honorable judges and justices. Unfortunately, no matter how innocent I was, or how convincing my argument was, my parents would always say to me, “You do not win by fighting your siblings; you win by fighting for your siblings. Your goal should not be to win your siblings but to win over your siblings.” When I insisted that I did everything right and that my sibling did everything wrong, my parents would ask, “How did you help them to be right like you? What efforts did you put into preventing the fight?” All I wanted was for my parents to tell me that I was right and that my sibling was wrong; I just wanted to hear that I was better than my sibling, but my parents consistently denied me of that joy; instead, they consistently taught me that I could not win alone.
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus is taking a very decisive step. He has left the North, where he was a lot safer, and he is now facing Jerusalem in the South, where the Cross is awaiting him. For the second time, he prepares his Apostles for what is coming ahead; this time, he is more graphic than the first time. But his Apostles are not ready to deal with the reality on the ground; they are not asking him to explain for fear that he will give them more details that will make them more uncomfortable. Rather than reflect on the crucial message Jesus is giving them regarding his coming passion, death, and resurrection, they decide to distract themselves with the question of who is the greatest among them. But such a question is far from the spirit Jesus wants to plant in them. Jesus then sits down, calls the twelve to himself, and says to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” By sitting down, Jesus indicates how seriously his followers should take this teaching; Rabbis sit down to teach as Rabbis.
Jesus did not come into this world to die so that one of us may be greater than the others. He came to suffer and to die so that we may all be one in him as he is one with the Father. No disciple of Jesus can gain Jesus’ admiration by winning another disciple. Instead, the way to gain Jesus’ admiration is by winning over the other disciple in the way of love. No reasonable parent takes pleasure in seeing their children engage in unhealthy competition but in seeing them support one another as a family. A Christian or Minister who brags about how they are better than others while doing nothing to help others improve may be running a good race but on the wrong track. What Jesus expects of his followers is teamwork that comes from loving service. According to St John of the Cross, “As every one of the saints received the gifts of God in a different way, so every one of them sings God’s praises in a different way, and yet all harmonize in one concert of love.” My dearly beloved in Christ, the desire to be better than the other person, which eventually grows into the desire to be the only one on the stage, is self-destructive. If you do not wish for your neighbors to be successful, the day you will need the help of a successful person, there may be none in your neighborhood. In his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reflected on the fragility and complexity of the world’s situation and said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Add comment