LIKE CHILDREN

September 27, Monday

TWENTY-SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

 

      Today’s chapter of Zechariah is a later addition by his disciples. It pictures the restoration of a remnant, with faithful people, young and old, in the streets of Jerusalem, and God living among them.

      Childlike, but not childish… We are God’s children, yet not infants. We have to grow up constantly to the maturity of Christ, to remake with the help of the Spirit, our unity, the center of ourselves.

 

First Reading: Zechariah 8:1-8

And then these Messages from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

“I am zealous for Zion—I care!
    I’m angry about Zion—I’m involved!”

God’s Message:

“I’ve come back to Zion,
    I’ve moved back to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem’s new names will be Truth City,
    and Mountain of God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
    and Mount Holiness.”

A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

“Old men and old women will come back to Jerusalem, sit on benches on the streets and spin tales, move around safely with their canes—a good city to grow old in. And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing—a good city to grow up in.”

A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

“Do the problems of returning and rebuilding by just a few survivors seem too much? But is anything too much for me? Not if I have my say.”

A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

“I’ll collect my people from countries to the east and countries to the west. I’ll bring them back and move them into Jerusalem. They’ll be my people and I’ll be their God. I’ll stick with them and do right by them.”

 

Gospel: Luke 9:46-50

They started arguing over which of them would be most famous. When Jesus realized how much this mattered to them, he brought a child to his side. “Whoever accepts this child as if the child were me, accepts me,” he said. “And whoever accepts me, accepts the One who sent me. You become great by accepting, not asserting. Your spirit, not your size, makes the difference.”

John spoke up, “Master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t of our group.”

Jesus said, “Don’t stop him. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.”

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
your Son Jesus Christ became a child of people.
He made children the privileged symbol
of the truly adult disciple.
May we have the openness and receptivity
of the child: humble, authentic,
and open to your love and to your gifts.
For only then will you fill our emptiness
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection :

The Greatest Vs the Weakest

Today’s Gospel speaks of some on-the-job training for the disciples of Jesus. Jesus identifies two attitudes of the mind and heart – jealousy and envy – that are obstacles to true discipleship. The disciples are going through their schooling during their three years with Jesus.

“An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest,” narrates Luke. Perhaps this was Luke’s way of addressing the issue of power-struggle in his own community. Luke explains the meaning of power and greatness in the eyes of Jesus.

Normally “power” is understood as the ability to control things or people according to one’s own will. For Jesus, power is the ability and willingness to gift himself entirely to the cause of the Gospel. We understand power as domination, Jesus understands them as surrender, sacrifice, capacity to love … The disciples of Jesus must have been trying to establish their chances of being in important positions when Jesus would establish his Kingdom. They put forth their credentials for the job and there is an argument.

The situations have only moved from bad to worse. We live in a world that promotes a relentless fight in which the weak disappear and the strongest and the best prepared ones alone succeed in life. The law that moves our world today is the law of “competitiveness”.

The apostles of Jesus experienced it as we read about it in today’s Gospel. They believed that because they are from the group of those close to Jesus, because they were the first ones to follow Jesus, they “deserve” an important place. And It seems logical and normal.

But Jesus puts a child in front of them. This image of the child may not be that easy to understand in today’s world. Today, children occupy the most important place in our homes, in our societies. They are the treasure of today’s society. But the Jewish society of the time of Jesus was different. Women and children had no voice in the society. A child represented the weakest in the group. And when Jesus picks up the child and places it in the centre of their discussion, he was advocating a reversal of priorities.

In God’s scheme of things, the weakest, the poor, the abandoned and the sinners occupy the centre stage and they are the most important people in God’s Kingdom. Attending to these important people of the Kingdom is the only criterion to find favour with God. To welcome and surrender to the last as a way to be “the first”.

 

Video available on Youtube: The Greatest Vs the Weakest