Service in the Rule of Life

Tom Bartolomeo
29th Sunday Ordinary B 2012
Isaiah 53:10-11; Psalm 33;
Hebrews 4: 14-16; Mark 10:35-45
Reproduced with Permission

"Nothing succeeds like failure." Well, at least a person knows exactly where he stands when he fails. Success is different, sometimes illusory or difficult to measure.

We may be inclined to look for 'the easy way', avoid 'the hard way'. Why . . . we celebrate "the Big Easy" in New Orleans, a laid back life-style which seems so agreeable until it is swept away by a great storm surge, a Katrina.

The misfortune Isaiah described in the first reading, "The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity," was God speaking about his Son, whom he was "pleased to crush . . . in infirmity". Lord, the truth be told, we deserve to be crushed, not you. Crushed for us, Isaiah recounts, we are Jesus' "descendants in a long life, and the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him". How often we regret the lessons we learn 'the hard way' . . . which often proves to be the better way. But there is something more here than James' and John's ignorance described in today's gospel reading.

The sons of Zebedee, James and John, didn't know what they were getting into. Jesus had already told them "that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again", Mark 8. 31. It was something they just did not want to hear. Why did James, John and the other Apostles not grasp the implications of "the cup" and the "baptism" which Jesus would endure? Like many of us - we would more readily accept the benefits of some transaction without understanding its relevance. Perhaps it explains the confusion many experience at a funeral although no one denies their immortality. Were there any other alternative, an easy way to avoid the 'unthinkable', we would prefer that and unwittingly lose the benefits of taking 'the hard way.' Certainly, God was capable of taking 'the easy way', but he didn't. Never entered his mind. Never entered our minds.

Take, for instance, all the angina you have had raising a family. How backwards things became. You're the adults and you are ruled by your children. Ruled in the sense that you sacrifice so much for your family and children, knowing that if you didn't you could lose them, in a way a 'death by a thousand cuts.' You know, too, that the 'easy way' usually does not work, nor is it generally respected. Why argue, let your adolescents have their way. What kind of trouble does that bring?

When in the garden in the blood line of our first parents we failed our Father. (How fair was that?) But then we do continually fail Him. Did he regret making us in his image, did God take the easy way out? What would he gain? Glory! Glory! As dramatic as changing night into day and evil into good! Perhaps, we are called to change night into day and evil into good. Would transform us. The Sacrament of Penance achieves this, for example, sometimes changing ordinary people into saints. Never thought of that.

In the Gospel of John after Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus knew that his final days were numbered. While mulling over his fate in Jerusalem some visiting foreigners "came to worship at the feast" [of Passover], heard the talk about Jesus and wanted to meet him.

So they came to Philip [we are told] . . . and said to him, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus . . . And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant also be; if any one serves me, the Father will honor him",' John 12, 20-26.

This was the same message Jesus repeated in today's Gospel of Mark. Interesting, though, Jesus told us that our lot would not be as 'hard' as his as long as we have his goal in mind, our salvation: "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light", Matthew 11, 30. Only those bearing crosses get to heaven where suffering turns into joy and life is everlasting. Jesus had his eternal happiness already but gave it uo for "a little while" for our sake, the same 'little while' we have in this world. Jesus came looking for his cross. Ours is usually right in front of us. All we have to do is pick it up for a share of Christ's glory waiting for us and far superior to playing it safe and alone.

Jesus reminds us that "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone." Alone. Think about that. The glory of our transformation is in our hands, even better than our first parent's state in the garden. Only one person could ransom us as Jesus revealed, "For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many." God's justice needed to be served, and service is the key to our salvation. Our glory is comes from God who paid our debt with his human life, raising our lives into the Godhead and proving that God loses nothing. We may find it hard to understand how the Son always serves the Father and the Father always loves the son which Jesus explained:

I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day, John 6, 38-40.

God could give us a free pass, but why would he? No value, no glory in that. Besides, we would be 'uneasy' among so many who made sacrifices for others and out of place in heaven. Easy come, easy go. Whatever our relationships, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, employers, employees, friends, neighbors and strangers - our glory is serving others, not ourselves, both as benefactors and beneficiaries, all in one, in the sacrifices we make. In serving each other we serve God, who "bestows on the world all that is good" spoken of in this Mass.

Summary: God could give us a free pass, but why would he? No value, no glory in that. Besides, we would be 'uneasy' among so many who made sacrifices for others and out of place in heaven. Easy come, easy go. Whatever our relationships, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, employers, employees, friends, neighbors and strangers - our glory is serving others, not ourselves, both as benefactors and beneficiaries, all in one, in the sacrifices we make.

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