To follow Christ, we must rid ourselves of any sense of entitlement
Oct. 20, 2024—29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Is 53:10-11; Psalm 33, R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.; Heb 4:14-16; Gospel–Mark 10: 35-45
It is important, for a better appreciation of this Sunday’s Gospel, to set the context as our first point for reflection.
The second point for reflection is the invitation to servanthood, or more specifically, servant leadership.
Finally, we close our reflections on the Lord’s final statement on service and being a ransom for many.
This Gospel passage comes after the prediction of the passion. They are also on their way to Jerusalem for the final time, since Jesus already knew he is to fulfill his mission through his passion, Cross, and Resurrection.
The other important context is James and John were the ones asking for the places of honor. Note that the two were the privileged witnesses to key moments in Jesus’ life—the Transfiguration, the Agony in the Garden, the raising of Jairus’ daughter.
We can consider this as the first lesson in Christian leadership. To be a leader is to be a follower, a disciple, to follow Jesus in his passion, Cross, and Resurrection, and to rid ourselves of any sense of entitlement or special privileges.
This was what James and John missed in this narrative. They failed to realize that there is only one path to living out our Christian vocation or identity and mission. The only path is the way of the disciple, the follower of Jesus living the pattern of the Paschal Mystery.
This is the foundational element of being a servant leader and of Christian service.
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.” (cf. Mark 10: 35-45)
Jesus critiqued the prevailing leadership paradigm of the religious authorities, and very bluntly put it that “it shall not be so among you.”
The true leader is a servant and the slave of all, the servant leader. This was a concept and a term popularized by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s. Since then, this has grown into a movement and a philosophy that have branched out into other related models of leadership.
Servant leadership
At the heart of all this is the servant leadership of Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on the Cross.” (Philippians 2: 6-8)
The servant leadership of Jesus and for all of us Christians as we follow Jesus, is humility—the self-emptying that allowed total loving obedience to the will and mission of the Father.
It is both doing what God wants us to do and how God wants us to do it. This is total loving obedience.
It must be emphasized that what brings it all together is love. The total offering is in love. The obedience is perfected in love.
Jesus further upped the ante. “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The service Jesus talked about was offering himself as “a ransom for many.” He pointed to his Cross and his Resurrection as the highest form of service.
As ransom, he took on our sins and the death that comes from sin. His dying on the Cross as an expression of his loving obedience became our ransom from sin and death.
“I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” (John 10: 10)
This lies at the core of mission, i.e., the very meaning of being sent is to be life-giving. The life-giving element of mission is the fullness of life, which is a fullness of life here and now, and the fullness of life in eternity.
