It is said that when looking for a job, it is not what you know but who you know that counts the most. While working in China for the U.S. government many years ago, I heard people use the term guanxi, “connections,” connections with people in the right places.
Today (Mark 10:35-45) we see two brothers who belong to the innermost circle of Jesus’ disciples, trying to exert their guanxi. Their opening gambit seems modest enough: “Master, we want you to do something for us.” It is an opening that I have fallen for many times. Somebody says, “Would you do something for me?” Next thing you know, I am spending hours working on THEIR problem. But Jesus is not so easily duped. He counters with another question: “What do you want me to do for you?” Remember this question because it is going to come up again in next Sunday’s readings.
Jesus also is asking us. “What do you want me to do for you?” Without spoiling next week, let us give our answer today and see whether we might change it considering next Sunday’s Gospel. Our answer should go to the very root of what we want out of life.
If we just say things like money, or winning the lottery, or having good health, or getting a good job, or being successful, or whatever, Jesus will still ask us, “Why?” “What for?” What do you really want? Happiness, security, peace, or something else?
The two brothers have just heard Jesus speaking of suffering, death and new life. But they miss the point. They already recognize Jesus as the Messiah and heard him frequently refer to “his kingdom”. So they boldly ask, “Give us the two top places in your kingdom.” As Mark comments: their request showed they had no understanding whatever of what Jesus had just told them.
“Can you drink the cup I am going to drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism with which I will be baptized?” Jesus is speaking of his passion and death. But they don’t get it. “No problem!” they glibly answer.
No understanding. It is clear they had no understanding of how this King would triumph by emptying himself to the lowest human level and only then enter his kingdom. This is what Isaiah speaks about in today’s First Reading (Isaiah 53:10-11). He speaks of God crushing the Suffering Servant (Jesus) with suffering as the way for him to have many heirs and live a long life. “By his sufferings shall my servant justify many.”
That is the way they would have to go. They would have to drink the cup to its bitter dregs and be baptized, immersed, submerged in the total self-giving of their Master. And indeed, as Jesus said, they would do this. James would be one of the young Church’s earliest martyrs. They would sit with Jesus in glory. But they would do this by going with him all the way to death and not by any guanxi or back-door deals.
Understandably, when the other 10 heard about this, they were very angry. It was not because they disagreed but because they felt cheated. These two had gone behind their backs and pulled a fast one. Their understanding of Jesus was not one whit better.
So Jesus brings them all together and tells them HIS view of greatness and success in life. There is only one way to greatness, and it is his way. It does not consist of sitting on thrones, living in fine houses, driving luxury cars, belonging to exclusive clubs, eating in fine restaurants, having holidays in exotic places, the things our televisions portray to us every day.
Greatness consists not in what we have, or in what we can get from others, but in what we can give of ourselves to others. The Second Reading (Hebrews 4:14-16) tells us that in Jesus we have a “great” high priest. When is Jesus our great high priest? When he is in a temple built with exotic marble and wearing vestments made of costly cloth and precious stones and people bowing down before him? No, he is our great high priest when he, the priest AND victim, hangs stark naked on the altar of the cross while the crowds mock and jeer below.
Let me use Mother Teresa as an example. Why did she get a state funeral? Surely it was in recognition of her greatness. It was not something she had dreamed about, not something she wanted. Her greatness was in the giving of her whole self to the very lowest, treating them as brothers and sisters and living close to them and like them. And the people of India recognized that. We need to remember she was doing this long before Malcolm Muggeridge made his TV program about her and made her famous. Her greatness was not in her fame or even in her reputation for holiness but because of her spirit of service to those most neglected and in need.
Mother Teresa was a great missionary bringing the Gospel message of service to the very poorest. She was not only an Albanian who became a missionary in India. She and her sisters went on missionary work to New York and Los Angeles, to London and even Rome. A missionary in Rome?! Yes, there too.
Like James and John, like the other disciples, like Mother Teresa and like many others, we are ALL called to be missionaries, most of us right where we are. To be good missionaries we must hear Jesus’ words about where real greatness lies. It is a message that is not always easy to hear above the noise of our secular society.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!