HOLDING FAST TO OUR CONFESSION
[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD]
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B
October 18, 2015
HOLDING FAST TO OUR CONFESSION
The first reading talks about the patient suffering of the
prophesied Messiah, the suffering servant, through whom, “the Lord’s will shall
be accomplished.” The second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews is some
kind of a pep talk to people ever tempted to give up on what they believed.
It was a plea to fellow believers to hold on, “since [they]
had a high priest who has passed through the heavens.”
The Gospel passage reminds us of a temptation that is every
bit as real as the temptation to give up – the ever lurking danger and
temptation of asking for what is not due us, looking for something greater than
us, and aiming for something that is not meant for us.
I know the feeling. Who among us has not at any point in our
lives aimed for something that is beyond us? Who among us has not wanted to get
something that we really do not deserve, no matter our pretensions and utter
convictions that we deserved it?
What child has not made tantrums because he or she wanted
that toy at all cost for Christmas? Who among us can honestly say we have not
secretly pined for something we didn’t have just because it simply dawned on us
that we wanted it?
I know the feeling. I know the deed. I know what it means
for James and John to be asking the Lord to put them one at his right and one
at his left. Remember … they were just as human and real as you and me.
And human and real also mean being ambitious and covetous,
unmindful of the consequences of our wants and desires, most of them unbridled
and undeserved.
Let me focus today on these consequences …
The Lord chose to follow the Father’s will. The prophesied
suffering servant accepted his call and everything else that came with it: much
pain and suffering, like we are told by Isaiah.
There is no doubt about the decision and choice of James and
John to follow the Lord. But today, after they made their desires known to the
Lord, the Lord made them realize the consequences of their choice: “You do not
know what you asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with
the baptism with which I am baptized?”
As of latest count, more than a dozen have filed their
candidacy for the Presidency alone. Scores more aim at becoming senators and
hundreds, aim to be congressmen, while thousands want to be mayors or governors
in next year’s national elections.
They don’t know what they are asking. (But many of them sure
know what they are getting!)
And this is where the good news and the bad news lie. The
bad news is this … Many people are just like James and John version one … They
just wanted the perks, not the works. They just desired the position, not the
responsibility.
This, too, was the plight of the Hebrews. They were being
tested to the core. They were undergoing immense trials. They were choosing
whether to give up and go back to Judaism or persevere and follow the path of
the suffering servant, put to death, and silenced ostensibly by the Jews, in
cahoots with Roman officials.
It appeared like a no brainer to many of them. Why continue
to suffer? Why go on following the teaching of someone and end up like him,
slaughtered by the powers-that-be, or beheaded by people who hate God and who hate
what God stands for?
It was the perfect temptation to apostatize altogether and
begin unraveling one’s life complicated by faith in Him who suffered, died and
rose for our salvation.
The good news then, is this …
We are still face to face with the need to decide … the need
for us to make a choice. The Hebrews were told by the letter writer to hold on,
to plod on. We are told the same thing today by the same Lord who made his
choice clear. And he lived and died and rose to prove to the world that He meant
every word He uttered. “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to
serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Is your choice clear?
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