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CONCERNING AUTHORITY AND SERVICE

Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Con­tents

Introduction

In this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing, we con­tin­ue to read from the sec­tion of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark’s Gos­pel that reports Jesus’ jour­ney to Jer­u­s­alem. Last week we heard Jesus lament the par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges those with many pos­ses­sions face in order to enter the King­dom of God. This is con­tained in the con­ver­sa­tion between Jesus and a cer­tain man who enquired from him what he must do to inher­it the king­dom of God. A require­ment he was unable to ful­fil, due to his inab­il­ity to detach him­self from his mater­i­al pos­ses­sions. Jesus keeps pre­dict­ing his pas­sion to the Twelve, who are amazed and afraid. In the mind of Mark, Jesus’ words to his closest dis­ciples seem to be inten­ded to pre­pare them for the Jer­u­s­alem events which they are about to experience.

The strange request

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came for­ward to him and said to him, Teach­er, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mark 10:35–37). This strange request was made the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. In Mat­thew, it was their moth­er who made this request to Jesus on behalf of his sons (cf. Matt 20:20–23). Jesus has just announced his pas­sion to his dis­ciples for the third time. And this is how they reacted – the struggle for glory. Each time Jesus announces his death, the dis­ciples seem not to under­stand. When Jesus made this pre­dic­tion the first time, Peter vehe­mently objec­ted (cf. Mark 8:31–32). An objec­tion that made Jesus to rebuke Peter, declar­ing him Satan and order­ing him to get behind him.…..

Conclusion

In the Gos­pel of last Sunday, Jesus taught us that the king­dom of God is not about the accu­mu­la­tion of mater­i­al wealth, titles, hon­ours, and degrees. It is about shar­ing. Shar­ing our mater­i­al pos­ses­sions, our suf­fer­ings, our time, our tal­ents, our good words and words of encour­age­ment, our friend­ship, our spir­itu­al riches, our smiles and our joy. In this Sunday, Jesus comes up with anoth­er teach­ing still on the king­dom of God and the use of author­ity. The king­dom of God is not about occupy­ing pos­i­tions of hon­our. It is not about being the greatest. Author­ity is not about con­trol. It is about ser­vice. James and John (and the rest of the dis­ciples) got it all wrong. They wanted author­ity. They wanted power. They wanted to sit at the right hand and left hand of Jesus when the King­dom of God was estab­lished on earth. They wanted to lord it over oth­ers. They wanted to be power­ful and feared because of their power. They looked for­ward to being in author­ity. They mis­un­der­stood the teach­ings of Jesus about the king­dom of God. They thought.…

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOKTHE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I and II)!! The reflec­tion for the 29th Sunday of the year (B) is found in vol. II pages 467–476. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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