Homily:
- We all know the hard work, financial sacrifices and rigorous testing that goes into acquiring an education. Schools are as much knowledge and skills based as they are corridors of cultural enjoyment and physical exercise.
- Some would argue that they are only incubators for the giant industrial complex of modern society; where value is equated with money and money with status.
- Our society is very competitive and stress and anxiety befall those who slip behind.
- Power plays out at every level. And it is believed that success and position bring happiness, while the ordinary achievements translate into a bleak mediocrity.
- The Gospel story reflects, in the past, what we still believe about the present. The top dog has the best view on life.
- Jesus lives a life that contradicts the prevailing wisdom of his and perhaps every age.
- Life is not found in merely in being successful and powerful. All human life unfolds through a process of maturity. For Jesus, this means suffering and death.
- Our own tolerance for such a view is low.
- But accepting Christ means accepting the life of Jesus as the guiding rule that trumps the prevailing wisdom.
- Setbacks and disappointments are inevitable and are given to every human life. But a Christian does not see them as defining the future.
- On the contrary, they signal growth and maturity; a fragility that allows God the space to grace our existence.
- It seems strange to welcome hardships but contrary circumstances are not the end.
- We are people of faith not fright – a faith that calls us to walk to the steps of Jesus Christ.
- We are with the disciples, called into a huddle, where Jesus explains the meaning of it all.
- Jesus’ words cannot be easy to understand or accept. Even harder it is second teaching, namely, that there is no hierarchy of importance in God’s Kingdom, except the hierarchy of service.
- With this teaching, Jesus turns to a tender gesture, lifting a child in the air, with the words that it is to this vulnerable, fragile and innocent child that God bestows all importance.
- So it will be with us. With nothing to lose, no status, position or reputation, the child images for us the truth of God’s love for all men and women.
- Finally, the last will be first, contradicting a certain logic, because, with nothing to lose, they have everything to gain. While, the first have only one path, holding to what they have, they inevitably face loss.
- Our Church too must learn the lessons of its Master. No status, inherited importance, except that of service. No loss of hope in the midst of storms and the shame of hypocrisy that can expose us all.
- As Pope Francis said last week: “We can all be hypocrites: even me”.