To be or not to be a child of God

Sep 20, 2024

25th Sunday in
Ordinary Time (B)
Readings: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20;
James 3:16 — 4:3;
Gospel: Mark 9:30-37

Each person’s worldview can be simply divided into what they can see and understand as good and evil. Even the most complex of thinkers and the most intelligent among us will essentially reject what they think is not good and accept what they believe is good. We can say that we are caught up in our own thinking of what we truly believe is good. This I mean, regardless of being Catholic or not, we humans are generally making decisions constantly from the time we wake up until we go to sleep. As long as we are conscious, we are making decisions knowingly or unknowingly based on what we think is good and true.

When the disciples decided to follow Jesus, they recognised initially someone who is greater than them personally. Someone who could give them something more than what they have, even though they may have not even realised what exactly it is that they were seeking from Him. Someone who teaches things that they could not understand and does things that completely baffles them and yet they could identify in Him something totally good and pure in whatever He was saying and doing.

In the second reading today, we see this being spoken by James as if he’s speaking about some sayings or proverbs, but when he writes “the wisdom that comes down from above is essentially something pure” and continues further with the description of it as making for “peace, kindly, considerate, full of compassion and shows itself by doing good, nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it”. He’s essentially describing the person of Jesus, whom he had been walking with, especially as mentioned in today’s Gospel reading from Galilee to Capernaum. James’ exhortation about jealousy and ambition is precisely what happened in that private journey, when Jesus asked them, what they were arguing about, even as He was teaching them privately about His own passion, death and resurrection. But they did not understand Jesus and more so did not understand the Father, who was sent by Jesus and hence they went back into their own understanding and own desires and ambitions which grew into the argument of who among them was the greatest.

How apt it is for us to realise this, for even as they were present physically with Jesus, they were not in ‘true prayer’ with Jesus and hence could not truly hear and could not really desire to understand what Jesus is saying and more importantly, who Jesus truly is and what He is actually doing for them; even as He is instructing them privately and what actually they must do, for them to be doing His work so that others who are like the child may see that Jesus sent them and more importantly the Father who sent Jesus. Why is this so important for us in the current godless climate of the world? For us Catholics, our essential identity is based on the ‘Wisdom’ that comes from above, since by embracing Wisdom’s wisdom, we can lean not on our own understanding but on every word that comes from the mouth of God, from the mouth of Christ, from the mouth of the 12 apostles, from the mouth of the Church. In that way, we can understand what James is trying to say to us since just like the 12, most of us may have not really understood the event of Jesus being handed into the hands of men, being put to death and rise again after three days. If they who much later experienced that grief of loss and the joy of the resurrection could not fully understand what was truly happening, how much more we, who were not there physically but now baptised in Christ could really say we understand the joy of the resurrection, if we have not truly grieved over His death for us. How could we, if we have not spent time with Him to truly listen to Him and really desire what He desires for us and to know what He says and teaches us which is truly good for us and not what we think is good for us.

For we who were godless at one time or another, are always in danger of rejecting the virtuous man who in this instance is Christ Himself in our life since He comes to annoy us, opposes our way of life that is not His Way, reproaches us for breaching His teachings especially on loving one another as He has loved us, and accuses us, not in order to shame us but in order to draw us back to the one who sent Him, our Father. For to do so means, we must be like the child whom Christ embraces, ready to be loved by Christ and to be taught and sent out into the world, to witness to the one who sent Him. Are you then a child of God or a child of this world? Who could say that, when they see you, hear you and witness you in life, that you were sent by Christ and more so by the Father. Let us ask for that grace of humility that seeks not our own desires but only that of Christ, for our greater good and the good of the world through Christ our Lord.