Humility Against Fear

(25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, B)

The gospel we hear today continues the section of St. Mark we read last Sunday. Recall how we heard St. Peter make his great confession of faith, “You are the Christ.” But when Jesus explained what it will mean be to the Christ of God—that he will have to be rejected, suffer, be killed, and rise after three days, Peter did not understand and even tried to rebuke Jesus. At that point Jesus turned it around and rebuked Peter instead, identifying him with the tempter himself, saying “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

After this, as we hear today, Jesus and the disciples then begin a journey. While they are on the way, Jesus continues to try to teach them what it means that he is the Christ: “The Son of man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”

But the disciples still don’t get it, and, as St. Mark tells us, they are afraid to ask. In fact, the gospel reveals in a subtle way the confused spiritual condition of the disciples. On the one hand, they discuss on the way the question of “who is the greatest.” But on the other hand, these alleged candidates for greatness are afraid to even ask Jesus a question! If they’re so great, what are they afraid of? A very human truth is revealed here. So many times when people are full of themselves, think that they’re great, are stuck up, bossy, or conceited, the truth inside is that they are insecure and afraid.

By even concerning themselves with ‘who is the greatest’ the disciples are indulging themselves in a spiritual dead end. But by his act of placing the child in the midst of them, by his embrace of the child and his words, Jesus cuts through the fear and arrogance of the disciples in two ways.

First, Jesus teaches us that if we love God, if we desire the presence of God in Jesus Christ in our lives, then we must receive him in those who are vulnerable and powerless in this world. “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.” This is the self-denial that we as disciples of the Lord are called to; this is what it means to take up our own cross. We must forget about ourselves, sometimes even about how religious and holy we are, and cast our attention on receiving the poor and vulnerable around us. It is in these that the Presence of Christ is hidden.

The second teaching is the other side of the first. Each of us has ways in which we are poor, needy, and vulnerable, at least on the spiritual level. Thus, each of us, like the child Jesus embraces—a powerless nobody in society at that time—can be a bearer of the Presence of Christ to other people in our lives. But this only works if we are willing to accept and embrace our spiritual poverty, to admit our brokenness, to confess that we are all more or less at fault for the fallen state of the world. If we try to cover up our fears, anxieties, and other spiritual poverties by pretending to be great, we prevent the Presence of Christ from shining through our weakness and poverty, and deny that Presence to the people around us.