Homily for Sunday Ordinary 29 B

This past Tuesday, October 15, was the feast of the Spanish Mystic, Teresa of Avila. I read this wonderful quote this week from Teresa, “It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.”

I have Mass on Sunday, October 20 
at St. Isidore @ 9:30/11:30 am
at St. Andrew @ 5:00 pm

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark. 
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." He replied, "What do you wish me to do for you?" They answered him, "Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left." Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" They said to him, "We can." 
Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized. But to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John. 
Jesus summoned them and said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. That 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. 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 Gospel of the Lord 

Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, teaching his disciples for the third time that torment and death await him there. They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them, and those who followed were afraid. 
In asking for the places of honor, it seems that James and John are hoping they might skip the part about suffering. 
Richard Rohr writes, "It's not that suffering or failure might happen, or that it will only happen to you if you are bad, or that it will happen to the unfortunate or to a few in other places, or that you can somehow by cleverness or righteousness avoid it. No, it will happen and to you." But Rohr continues, "There's more to the story. All of this is a necessary and even good part of the human journey." 
In the fourth song of the suffering servant, the prophet Isaiah proclaims, "God's servant justified many through his infirmity and afflictions, not through his strength and victories." No wonder the earliest followers of Jesus frequently read Isaiah's four songs. It was akin to looking into the eyes of Jesus. 
Jesus enters into solidarity with us, stooping to wash our feet. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. Jesus invites us to enter into solidarity with him by following his example. 
Jesus answers the request of James and John with another question. Can you drink the cup that I will drink? 
In the scriptures, cup is frequently used as a metaphor for suffering. That meaning is clear in the Gethsemane scene, where Jesus begs God to let the cup pass him by if possible. 
Likewise, baptism here signifies being plunged into suffering and going through the throes of death to emerge into new life. 
On our first trip to the Holy Land in the year 2000, we were in the old city of Jerusalem when we found ourselves on the Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross. The street was crowded and noisy, vendors were hawking religious trinkets, and many groups of pilgrims were praying and singing the way of the cross. It was chaotic and confusing. It was anything but prayerful. 
James Carroll recalls a similar experience in his memoir, The Truth at the Heart of the Lie. On his first visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he was taken aback by the rudely jostling pilgrims fighting for the best places. When he returned a few days later, he saw it with new eyes. I saw for the first time what it actually meant that Jesus Christ was a human being in the thick of human life, with all its chaos, treason, and ruined dreams. The Holy Sepulchre, as I saw it now, was a sacrament of Christ's part in our human condition. 
As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, "We do not have a high priest who was unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way." 
When James and John request that they sit one at his right and the other at his left when Jesus comes in glory, Jesus replies that those places have already been reserved. Later, Mark tells us who will occupy those places, and with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and the other on his left. 
In his book Can You Drink This Cup?, the Dutch spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen writes, "All of our lives are filled with both blessings and burdens. Only when we are willing to drink the cup, accepting the life we have been given, will we come to recognize that God is present in both our joys and sorrows. Joy, Nouwen explains, is not the absence of suffering, but the capacity to find hope and gratitude in the midst of suffering." 
This past Tuesday, October 15, was the feast of the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila. Teresa taught a simple method of meditation. She said it's like having a cup of coffee with a friend. I read this wonderful quote this week from Teresa. "It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves." 
God comes to us disguised as our life, as Paula D'Arcy says. 
In his memoir Just Jesus, My Struggle to Become Human, Walter Wink writes, "And this is the revelation. God is human. It is the great error of humanity to believe that it is human. We are only fragmentarily human, fleetingly human, brokenly human. We see glimpses of our humanness. We can only dream of what a more human existence and political order would be like. But we have not yet arrived at true humanness. Only God is human, and we are made in God's image and likeness, which is to say, we are capable of becoming human." 
In chapter 5 of Romans, Paul reminded us that in the waters of baptism, we died with Christ and were buried with Him. Our life is hidden now with Christ. So that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. The pattern of Jesus' life, dying and rising, is the pattern for our life as well. 
When you walk with God, you walk without fear. When you walk without fear, you allow for vulnerability and cultivate love. When you walk with God, death is no less, but love is much more. 
Love is, as David's son Solomon wrote, "as strong as death."