Matthew 20:17-28
Perhaps it's that I am on holiday for the week and my mind seems more at ease but the streams of thought are flowing in so any directions. Am I being called to write abaout getting what one asks for? That seems like it would be fertile ground. Yet I feel compelled to offer some kind of confession when I read the line It will not be so among you. So here goes.
I think I may be a bit of a bully. If I thnk about todays passage I at least know that being a follower of Christ cannot be as it is with the resst of the world. That is, who is first, best, or as I've seen on a bumper sticker on more than one occasion, "whoever dies with the most toys wins". That is not how it should be for a faithful person.
So how is it that I am a bully you might ask? Well, one way is to make yourself (at least look) higher or better than your neighbor or brother or sister. Another way is to cut them down a peg or two. You are still in the same spot yourself but everything is relative.
I seem to have a penchant for chastising the Roman Catholic Church. Lord knows it is reeeeeally easy. Between archaic doctrines, the pedophaelia, the covering up of pedophaelia, the general pomposity of the diocesan and hierarchical clergy and general hypocrisy, it is like they have nothing more to do than to shoot themselves in the foot or show the world how not to live. ( Pope Francis not withstanding ). So I suppose I am a bit of a bully picking on easy pickings.
This is somewhat ironic because I myself was bullied as a youth and on into high school. You'd think I would know better. I recall one instance however when a friend of mine was being picked on and I stood up to the bully big time. I actually stood up and threatened the person. What I lacked in ability to back up the threat I more than made up for with sincerity.
It seems to me that we are called to look at our own behaviour instead of looking at others and judging. Judging and always looking at others may work in the rest of the world but it should not be so with us as followers.
While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised.’
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favour of him. And he said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ But Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ They said to him, ‘We are able.’ He said to them, ‘You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.’
When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
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