XXIX Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Commentary on Isaiah 53,10-11; Psalm 33; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45
Greetings in Christ Jesus.
The word of God on this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time draws our attention to the mystery of the Cross of Christ. The readings the liturgy offers us today speak of what happens when our convictions and certainties are overturned after embracing change. It does so by focusing on the figure of the suffering servant.
The first reading, taken from the fourth Song of the Suffering Servant in the prophet Isaiah, tells of a just man who “offers his life in atonement”, who shares in God’s plan to cleanse people from their sins. With the figure of the servant of the Lord, Isaiah prophesies that the Messiah will choose exactly this path to save humanity. He will not present himself as a ruler, but as a servant who will “offer his life in atonement” for the sins of the people. He will walk the path of “torment.” By this path he will fulfil “the will of the Lord” and only in this way will he “see the light” and “justify many, taking their faults on himself”.
The Messiah will save humanity by offering himself as a sacrifice, thereby taking on people’s sins to free them from condemnation. The prophet Isaiah’s reference is explicit and direct: the Lord will crush the future Messiah with suffering. He will offer himself as a sacrifice of reparation. As a result, he will see his heirs, he shall have a long life and through him what the Lord wishes will be done.
In these famous poems of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, we realise that suffering is not an end in itself, but has as its destiny salvation. The servant of the Lord will, in fact, “after his inner torment, see the light and be satisfied with the knowledge of it. My righteous servant will justify many, and bear their iniquities.” This text is among the most quoted in the Old Testament in reference to the mystery of the Lord’s passion and death on the cross.
Psalm 33, our responsorial psalm, invokes conversion, for the word of the Lord is faithful and all his works to be trusted. Conversion passes through justice and right. In the face of suffering, our help and our shield is God, who comes to meet our fragility. God forgives our sins and transgressions and justifies our repentance.
In the second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews we find the invitation to entrust ourselves to Jesus Christ. He is the high priest who is able to understand our weaknesses, having lived them himself with the exception of sin. The author of the letter invites us to receive mercy from him and find grace when we are in need of help. Accordingly, the text show that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus. He is the high priest who offered himself as a sacrifice for the salvation of humanity. He “participated in our human condition” and “was tested” through the passion and death on the cross. That is why we know that we can draw near to him “with full confidence” “to receive mercy and find grace”. The mission of Christ and his passion and death on the cross is a sure thing.
Completing this reference to the passion and death on the cross of Jesus is the text of the gospel of St. Mark, which places before us an unusual scene involving two disciples of Jesus. In it, Jesus confirms the truth to the apostles that salvation comes through sacrifice, not glory. The two brothers, James and John, eager for a career, ask the Master for important places, next to him, in his kingdom. We could describe it as a request for the most important ministries in the future government of his kingdom. Jesus responds by explaining that authority in his kingdom lies in “drinking the cup” that he himself drinks, that is, participating in his passion. The two brothers answer that they are ready. Jesus admits that yes, they can drink from it, but then goes on to explain a second thing.
God himself gives positions of responsibility in his kingdom, according to his will. Jesus explains that the kingdom of God has logics different from those of our world. Greatness does not lie in commanding, but in serving. This is the logic of God, the logic of Jesus Christ, who came to serve, giving on the cross “his life as a ransom for many”. Salvation comes through the cross, as Isaiah foretold and as the letter to the Hebrews confirms. In the seed of the kingdom of God, which is the Church, the only true power must always be to serve and to give one’s life for God and for his people. To follow the way of Jesus Christ is to suffer. Today we meet Jesus who announced his passion for the third time, but his disciples are still convinced that he is destined to become king. Those closest to him try to secure a position of prestige and arouse the discontent of the others who ultimately aspired to the same things. The cup and baptism mentioned by Jesus are premonitions of his destiny of death and suffering that he will soon have to face. The disciples also declare themselves willing to follow this path, and history tells us that this will happen.
We feel the temptation of power within us, in our daily lives: in the family, in our communities, in our educational commitments, in social relationships, in our professional life, in the tasks entrusted to us. Abuse of power is easy. Demanding from others what we want instead of building together the good of all is the subtle meaning when we speak of the temptation of power. To a greater or lesser extent, this mentality belongs to us all.
The powerful point of the gospel text is this: “The Son of Man came to serve and to lay down his life for people.” The Christian must continually deal with this particular figure of Jesus. Fidelity to the gospel is measured by the courage to put one’s life at the service of the common good.
What is Christianity? Is it a path to power or a path to service?
In this month of October, we are living in the atmosphere of the Church in Synod: COMMUNION, PARTICIPATION AND MISSION. The main objective of Jesus’ mission and presence in the world is to serve the weakest, who are the first recipients of the kingdom. Being Church means walking alongside humanity, especially those excluded from solidarity. It is not, therefore, a socio-political choice that leads us, as Christians, to take on the needs of the poorest, but an inevitable choice linked to the proclamation of the gospel and the following of Jesus. Being missionaries does not only mean going to other lands proclaiming the gospel, praying for those who have chosen this mission, and raising funds. It also means understanding and knowing the circumstances and causes that generate marginalization, poverty, wars, migration, and creating a mentality that leads to change and a climate of welcome and closeness. To be a Christian means to live in service to others without aspiring to any career. The Christian style has the logic of gratuitousness that is born of faith. It can be compared to a small and beautiful, but fragile baby. This gift needs an environment that helps it grow in order to overcome difficulties and remain steadfast, especially in times of trial. We must live our faith in daily life, in choices, in the coherence between what we profess in words and the actions we manage to perform.
The Christian experiences human pain seriously, but realizes that God can also find him there. It is necessary to understand pain even in the most complex of situations by putting ourselves in the place of the other. We place ourselves in his or her history. We do so not through ideology, but theology. We enter into his or her world not through ideas and philosophies, but through God’s eyes. This takes into account the dramas of loneliness, of abandoned women abused by a jealous partner, of women who cannot continue their pregnancy, of children tossed from one to the other because they have lost their parents. Through this theology, we respect human pain and we venerate it, like the Bread preserved in the tabernacles of our churches.
Jesus continues to answer even today that there is no first or second place, right or left in heaven. Let us go to heaven through faith, love, and hope in him who is our eternal salvation. No one goes to heaven on recommendation or by reservation of seats. The logic of the gospel is that whoever wants to become great must become the servant of all. We know that ‘to serve’ is a difficult verb to conjugate in our time. It is often devoid of true love and full of self-interest. To love and serve means not to command and be served. The only way that we will rid this world of masters is for everyone to serve everyone else. Therefore, in the Church we should label no one. We should discard no person.
Do we have attitudes of harshness, disdain, anger, shouting, slander, malice? How do we react? Have we ever gone through moments of discouragement, tiredness, disappointment, depression? Not erasing these moments, let us rather try to reconstruct them in a journey of conversion.
I wish you all a blessed weekend.