In this Sunday's Gospel passage, Jesus states: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me” (Mark 9:37). Later in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus adds: "Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it" (Mark 10:15). To understand the words of Jesus more fully, we need to consider the different status of children in the society of his time. In today's culture, children tend to be the focal point of the life of a family, with lots of time, energy, and resources invested into their development, education, entertainment, and overall well-being. Much of a family's decision-making revolves around considerations involving the children.
Children were important to ancient families too, but they did not get nearly the same amount of attention as children do today. In the ancient world, children were very much at the bottom of the social hierarchy and families made much fewer decisions on the basis of what would be best for their children. We have to bear in mind this cultural difference when we seek to understand the meaning of the words of Jesus.
In the Gospel passage for this Sunday, the disciples are arguing about who is the greatest among them. In the deeply hierarchical society of the time, one's social status defined a person's worth. While our contemporary culture tends to emphasize status too, our society, at least in principle, is founded on the assumption that all people are created equal. Thus, in theory at least, our cultural inclination is not to see a person as having less worth merely because he or she might have a lower social status.
But not so in the ancient world. The first disciples all came from a humble, lowly background. But now they have a chance at social advancement, or so it seems to them. Their understanding of the Messiah is that he will be a great military leader, who will overthrow the Roman Empire and will usher in a new age of glory and power for the people of Israel. Once Jesus establishes the new kingdom, the apostles can take high-ranking roles in his new government, receiving all the honor that their new social status will entail.
But Jesus redirects their way of thinking. Instead of anticipating great hierarchical status, they are to focus on receiving the lowliest, the least important members of society into the community of Christ. By doing so, they will receive Christ himself. What is more, the disciples, including all of us who are Christians today, are to submit to Christ as children - as the children of ancient society were expected to submit to parental authority, without question or resistance.
Furthermore, as discussed in prior reflections, Jesus also redirects the thinking of the apostles with regard to the true mission of the Messiah. He would not conquer the world through military power. He transforms the world through his self-sacrifice on the Cross. As we follow Christ, we too must be ready to be crucified, to lay our lives down for one other, in various ways, in self-giving.
I have reflected on our calling to carry the Cross in previous articles. This week, I will focus on one of the key internal requirements to be able to accept the Cross in our lives. In the Second Reading, St. James describes our disordered inclinations, our out of control passions, which need to be reformed in our hearts. Each of us was born with an inner hunger, a deep, existential yearning for something greater than ourselves. We go through life trying to satiate that hunger with something - success, forms of pleasure, relationships, hobbies, among many other things.
But only God can fulfill that inner hunger within us. Only when we have God in the center can we have true contentment, a true sense of inner peace. When God is in the center of our being, we also have a well-ordered relationship with everything in life. For example, we can enjoy food without overindulging. We can follow sports without letting our lives revolve around it. We can have friendships or a relationship without becoming emotionally needy and obsessed. When God is in the center of our lives, our passions become well ordered. We can suppress unhealthy inclinations and channel our healthy desires in life-giving ways.
Embracing the Cross and being willing to unite our suffering with the suffering of Christ is essential for our ability to center our lives correctly. When we put anything other than God in the center, we start to worship a false idol in God's place. We might say that there is no such person as a non-worshipper. Everyone worships someone or something. If not God, then some aspect of created reality. But as discussed, only God can give us true fulfillment, so when we worship anything other than God, we experience fundamental disorder in our lives.
But embracing the Cross helps us to let go of the idols we have set up in for ourselves. By uniting our suffering with the suffering of Christ, we are gradually purged, so that we make room for God in our hearts. Paradoxically, only by being willing to suffer for Christ can we arrive at a state of true joy.
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The readings for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B are:
Wis 2:12, 17-20
Ps 54:3-4, 5, 6 and 8
Jas 3:16—4:3
Mk 9:30-37
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: The Site of the Crucifixion at Golgotha in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. (c) 2016 by Zoltan Abraham.