Service is Joy
Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday – 20 October 2024
What would you have asked Jesus for, if you were James or John in the Gospel today? If Jesus were to say to us, “What do you want me to do for you,” what would we say? What is it that we are ambitious for? What do we ask for in prayer for ourselves?
At the very least there is a total honesty in James and John in their request to Jesus, even if they got it completely wrong. The other ten weren’t any more admirable. They were probably indignant at James and John because they were jealous and wanted those honours for themselves. By this stage it had become clear to these disciples that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Christ. Based on their own understanding of who and what the Messiah would be, they asked for power and status. Their wrong understanding was that the Messiah would be a warrior king who would overthrow the Romans and rule over the twelve tribes of Israel. James and John wanted a share this glory and importance; and the other ten disciples weren’t far behind.
James and John could hardly have chosen a more tactless moment for their request. Just before this request, Jesus had again predicted his suffering and death in Jerusalem. Clearly, they didn’t understand a word of what Jesus had said, or they refused to accept it.
There is a childlike manipulation in the way they approach Jesus, trying to get him to agree to give them what they wanted even before they told him what it was. Jesus didn’t reprimand James and John for their request even though it came at this sad moment of him predicting his suffering and death. Instead, he invited James and John to reflect on the consequences of their request.
To be on Jesus’ right and left in his glory meant to pass through a similar trial as the one he was soon to undergo; ultimately it meant being lifted up on the cross. To drink the chalice that Jesus was to drink, was to share in his suffering; to be baptised with the baptism with which Jesus was to be baptised, was to share in his death.
Today we recognise that there is something of these disciples and their misguided hankering after power and status, in all of us. There is a need in all of us to be acknowledged, to be liked, to be important. Think how easily we are offended, or how badly we take criticism. Like with the disciples, Jesus calls us to himself and teaches us about how to be truly great.
The first reading from the book of Isaiah, which was written about 500 years before the birth of Jesus, describes a Suffering Servant. Through his sufferings this servant justifies others. He takes the faults of others on himself. He offers his life in atonement for others, and in doing so, reconciles them to God. We Christians know that this prophecy is perfectly fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus offered up his life on the cross out of love for us; and in his self-sacrifice he has reconciled us to God.
The second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews tells us more about this Suffering Servant who is Jesus Christ. We see that he is our High Priest. Jesus is the one who stands before the Father for us, interceding for us. He is the priest who has offered the sacrifice that has taken away our sins and made us one with God.
Even more, this High Priest, though divine, took on our human nature. In his humanity, which he still possesses in heaven, he experienced the full range of human experiences, emotions and weaknesses and temptations. This means that he is able to identify fully and intimately with each one of us. He knows and understands our humanity, as one among us.
Unlike us, he never sinned. For us, out of love for us, he provides the remedy for our sin. The reading invites each one of us to be confident that when we ask for it, we shall have mercy from him, and find grace when we need it. We have in this High Priest someone who, out of love for us, has made it possible for us to receive grace and mercy. This is the supreme example of servanthood. This beautiful reading, which is in itself a summary of the Gospel, calls us to faith in Christ. We are invited to cling to this Christ, who loves us and gives himself utterly to us.
Jesus sums it up himself in the Gospel reading. Speaking of himself, Jesus says that he did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. So, there is a wonderful harmony between the three readings, depicting a humble Christ, who is the fullness of love - a love which expresses itself in servanthood and self-sacrifice.
In the Gospel, Jesus teaches that those who wish to follow him must do so, not by seeking power and glory, but by seeking service. His words are that anyone who wants to be great must do so by being a servant, and anyone who wants to be first must be the slave of others. This teaching of Jesus about Christian service, and about himself coming to serve, is perhaps the most radical and revealing teaching of Jesus about himself and about discipleship, in the entire gospel.
We are reminded of the washing of the feet at the Last Supper. After Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet, he said, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” The point is that we are called to give of ourselves in love for people, out of love for the Lord. We are called to be compassionate “foot-washers.” We who bear the name of Christ, we who are called Christians, are meant to do as Christ does.
This revelation of Jesus of himself as a servant and his description of what we should be like as disciples, is contrary to our instinctively self-centred way of understanding the meaning of being the greatest and the first. These words of Jesus may appear to be foolish and impractical in our world. It is only by grace and the example of Jesus, our beautiful servant-Christ, that we can accept this way of understanding greatness.
Each of us, as Christian disciples, needs to seek to know and understand what it means to be a servant in the unique and particular situation of our lives. This being a servant may find its particular expression in being a husband or a wife, a priest or a religious, in being a friend, or in serving in the different helping professions. It also means serving in the smaller more concrete events of each day. The service that Jesus invites us to, is the way of love. We are called to offer ourselves up for one another.
St Vincent de Paul explained the cost of being a disciple of Jesus when he told his followers: “Let us work with a new love in service of the poor, looking for the most destitute and abandoned among them. Let us recognize that before God they are our lords and masters, and we are unworthy to render them our small services.”
So, this Sunday we’re invited to understand Jesus as the ultimate servant and what it means for us to be his disciples. The nature of Christian discipleship is servanthood. As disciples of Jesus, we are on his right and left, not to exercise power, but because we act with him and in his name. Our hands, hearts, souls, and minds will be fully occupied in the service of those who need it the most. The more we know and love this Jesus, the servant Christ, the more we will share him with others in different expressions of service.
Rabindranath Tagore, the 1913 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, wrote a short poem which goes as follows: I slept and dreamt that life was Joy; Then I awoke and realized that life was Service. And then I went to work – and, lo and behold, I discovered that Service is Joy.