Readings: Job 1:6-22, Ps.17, Luke 9:46-50
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.
UNDERSTANDING WHERE TRUE GREATNESS IS FOUND
As human beings, we often desire to be great and do whatever will make us feel great. Hence, our lives become competitive and comparative because greatness adds ego to our status. This competitive and comparative way of life is what the disciples of Jesus displayed in our Gospel passage today, where we heard how they were arguing about who was the greatest among them.
This is quite surprising for them to be arguing for such an intention just after Jesus had told them that he was going to be betrayed. This shows that his disciples had not grasped his teaching thereby exposing the danger between the mission of Christ and human ambition as a result of ignorance.
For Jesus, knowing the intentions of his disciples, showed them the way to identify true greatness and one who has such qualities using the image of a humble child. Here, Jesus surprised his disciples by linking true greatness to the humility and simplicity of a little child and also showed how children can be the subject of a parable that reveals the vanity and deception found in some great persons. Because children are docile, humble, teachable, loving, forgiven and dependent.
Thus, Jesus explains that in the kingdom of heaven, true greatness is found in humility, and children serve as a symbol of humility, for they are dependent on adults for everything, just as we also are dependent on God. Little children serve as a concrete symbol of the simplicity which is a condition for entering the kingdom of heaven. So, in children we see these great virtues of simplicity and humility being placed.
And these acts of simplicity and humility are what characterised the life of Job in our first reading today, where Satan said to God that Job’s faith was only strong because he was so blessed and protected by God, but if he should lose them all, then he would surely abandon God and curse him.
This was while God allowed Satan to attack Job and take away everything he had: his great possessions and his family. But Job, in simplicity and humility, remained faithful to God, saying: " Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord!’
Dear friends, today we see in the lives of the disciples the danger between human ambition and the mission of Christ especially in the midst of ignorance and pride. Therefore we are reminded that true greatness and ambition are found in humble service to others.
But this is exactly what many of us are lacking. For we are so proud, greedy, and selfish, for we are deeply attached to the pleasurable things of this passing world, which prevents us from seeking true greatness that leads to the heavenly kingdom.
LET US PRAY: Lord God, amidst the danger of human ambition in relation to your mission, we have become so engrossed in the competitive activities of this world, seeking to be great in things that are passing away, grant that, we may embrace true greatness rooted in the humble service of our neighbours, we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Have a blessed and fruitful week ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment