"Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Gospel of Luke
Many years ago, right after our marriage, my wife and I attended several funerals for some of her elderly family members. I recall making a comment to her after one of those funerals. “My goodness you have a lot of deaths in your family; more than in mine.” Time would prove me very wrong. The incidents of death of family members have proven to be pretty much the same. It’s just a matter of timing.
It’s strange how we prefer not to think of death. We all know that someday we will die. This knowledge is in our heads, yet many of our everyday decisions and actions seem to indicate that life will go on forever. We so often dismiss the fact that dying is a part of life, and that life has its own purpose to fulfill, a purpose that can so easily be dismissed. If we were more fully aware that we have only a certain length of time in years and days, we would probably respond too many of life’s situations quite differently. We read in psalm 90: “Teach us, O Lord, to count up the days that are ours, and we shall come the heart of wisdom.”
"And Jesus began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
In the gospel above, Jesus is trying to explain to his disciples his own impending death. It is meant to prepare and to help them discover their own inner purpose for life, and to make the changes that are necessary.
Often, when someone hits us with a bombshell like this, particularly when it concerns illness and dying, we have difficulty to take it in. The words said often escape our understanding, and we end up dismissing it.
For the disciples, what Jesus told them did not make sense. It did not fit in with their understanding of what Jesus came to do. It did not fit in with their plans as to how they saw things unfolding. So they dismissed what he said. We read in the gospel that they didn’t even raise any questions about it. They continued to do things as they normally would. Part of the message that Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples was that dying is a part of life. Sooner or later, it comes to all of us, often sooner than we may think.
But if we can first learn to die to self; if we can first learn to empty ourselves of “self”, of excessive self-concern, we will discover that death is not how we imagine it to be. Death is only a transition, one door that opens to something else. If we really know this, and believe it in your heart, it will change us. It will change the way we live our lives now. Jesus was calling his disciples to change the way they lived from the ordinary way of doings things, to believe and live the gospel message.
It must have been embarrassing for them when they discovered that Jesus overheard their conversation as they were walking along the road: "For they were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest." Who among them would Jesus reckon to be the favorite?
But Jesus is very much aware of their human way of thinking, and he uses this moment for another teaching. He takes a little child, and places her before them where she is clearly seen, and tells them: “If you welcome this small child in my name, then you welcome me, and if you welcome me, you also welcome the one who sent me. In God’s Kingdom, if you want to be first, then choose to be last. If you want to be great, then be a servant to all."
So Jesus turned upside down his disciples’ idea of greatness, and challenges them to move away from their ordinary way of thinking about greatness.
The disciples would have known that a child had the lowest status of all in society. Children represented the least among the people. To welcome and to serve this child would means being a servant to the least of those among them.
The message of Jesus to his disciples in the Gospel, and his message to us is clear: “Whoever of us who wants to be first, choose to be last." If we want what’s best for ourselves, then we have to consider what is best for others, to be a servant of others, particularly the most vulnerable of our society. Jesus not only taught that, but he lived it, and died for it so that we may know the meaning and purpose of our lives. It is a radical change from the way we ordinarily think, and the way we ordinary act, a change that challenges us deeply. And when we really hear it, and understand it, and not dismiss it, we discover it to be a source of new life now, and the path that leads to eternal life with God.
The gospel is not about radical idealism. My own personal experience is that the more I can set “self” aside, the more I experience my greatest joy, my greatest appreciation for life, my greatest thankfulness for the gift that it is, and my closest experience of God who wants to be present and active in my life.
There’s definitely a tension between the message of our culture, and the message of the Gospel. At times, we can feel it strongly. In order to not get caught up in the tug and pull of this tension, three things are necessary.
1. We need to take refuge in prayer.
2. We need to take refuge in the teachings of Christ and scripture.
3. We need to take refuge in the community where we encounter Christ in in so many different ways.
Through prayer, we discover that the message of the Gospel brings hope. It speaks of a better world where people care for each other and can bring life to each other. It speaks of God who loves us beyond our wildest imagination, who calls us into relationship. It assures us that even in death, we have nothing to fear for we have the joy of knowing that Christ continues to be present with us, and prepares a place for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment