29th Sunday in ordinary time, Cycle B. Today’s readings: Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45 (shorter form: 10:42-45).
The Maltese word ‘qaddis’ (saint) has a dual meaning; beyond the dictionary definition of someone acknowledged to be particularly holy or virtuous, there is also a second, darker, sense. It refers to the kind of patronage and connections (political or otherwise) that allow someone to obtain positions or services which they might not otherwise have been entitled to.
If it’s any consolation, this is not a uniquely Maltese thing, apparently. Today’s Gospel shows us two disciples, the brothers James and John, seeking their own ‘qaddis’ and demanding from Jesus positions of honour at his right and left in his glory. Their request is especially tactless when we consider that it comes immediately after Jesus has foretold his impending passion and death to the disciples for the third and final time. His previous two announcements were met with similarly inept responses: the first occasioned Peter’s disapproving protestations, the second left the disciples first confused, then squabbling for position.
That two of Jesus’s earliest and closest disciples would make such an outrageous request is exceedingly significant, because it means that absolutely no one is immune from a self-serving attraction towards power and position. At least Mark the Evangelist spares James and John the indignity of telling us – as Matthew does in his 20th chapter – that it was actually their mother who presented the two brothers’ request to Jesus!
The other 10 disciples don’t fare much better, becoming indignant that Zebedee’s sons had dared make such a demand (ahead of the rest of them, presumably). Yet Jesus turns his disciples’ weakness into a teaching opportunity. First, he reminds John and James that being with him involves sharing in his suffering, a lesson made all the more poignant when we recall that during Christ’s crucifixion, the positions at his right and left were occupied by convicted criminals.
Then, to all the disciples together, Jesus delivers a teaching about authentic leadership. As Mary Healy writes in The Gospel of Mark: “His disciples are to display a radical and countercultural attitude towards leadership. There is no place for self-promotion, rivalry or domineering conduct among them. Jesus does not deny that there will be offices of authority in the community he is establishing, the Church. Neither does he reject the aspiration to greatness that lies deep in the human heart. Rather, he reveals that the only way to greatness, paradoxically, is by imitating him in his humble, self-emptying love.”
The only way to greatness, paradoxically, is by imitating him in his humble, self-emptying love- Mary Healy in The Gospel of Mark
Today’s readings about redemptive suffering and servant leadership are timely reminders that Christ’s lesson remains relevant to every generation because human beings will always be lured towards dominion and prestige. The Church, sadly, offers especially fertile ground for this; by way of example, politicians (running the gamut from Trump to Pelosi) always relish a photo-op with the pope, however widely their policies may diverge from the Church’s own.
As for the Church’s ministers themselves, it is relatively easy to pinpoint and denounce a supposed craving for power and esteem when it comes dressed in the external trappings of Catholic tradition and pageantry: the embroidered chasubles, the red and purple mozzettas, the birettas and the lace cottas.
It is vastly more difficult to identify and eradicate the cancer of unbridled ambition and clericalism – so rightly decried by Pope Francis – when it occurs behind the scenes, whether in Curial offices (Roman or local) or in parishes and convents.
This is why the lesson that ‘to lead is to serve’ must keep echoing insistently in our churches and communities through all generations. This message is at once a challenge and a consolation. Because as Martin Luther King Jr preached in a sermon about today’s Gospel on February 4, 1968, exactly two months before he was assassinated, “everybody can be great, because everybody can serve”.