29th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME MISSION SUNDAY
This Sunday we celebrate Mission Sunday, that is the day when we celebrate the missionary outreach of the Church in the World. For many years the Irish Church has sent men and women to the mission fields bringing the faith to many people. As baptised members of the Church we are all called to be missionary people where we are bringing the message of Jesus to the people of our own time and place.
In today’s Gospel two brothers James and John the sons of Zebedee are asking Jesus for a big favour to ensure their privileged seating arrangements when they come to meet Jesus in glory. They want to sit, one at Jesus’ right hand and the other at his left. While they don’t specify which of them should sit at Jesus’ right no doubt that problem would have emerged later they imagine themselves in a cosy triumvirate of their own making. Of course Jesus blows this notion out of the water when he tells the two brothers that they don’t know what they are asking. Their request is to share Jesus’ power when he comes into glory, so timing their appointment to begin when the suffering is over but this was not the way of things. The two disciples mention nothing about the suffering of Good Friday but Jesus brings the conversation back to what happens before the glory which is suffering the glory comes as a result of the suffering. Jesus’ kingdom is not about who wears the crown, but who wears the crown of thorns and bears the cross .
So he asks the brothers as he asks us today: “Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptised with the baptism with which I must be baptised?” They boast that they can. The message is clear: there is no short cut to God’s favour. Jesus does what he asks all of us to what we need to do: that is to serve, not to be served; to give love freely, not to exact everyone’s worship; to reach out to those in need. Christian discipleship and missionary endeavour which we celebrate this weekend are a vocation of service and there is much work out there for everyone to do. To be servants in the way that Jesus was servant means to live in complete trust that God will look after us. Jesus was not a servant out of fear of a tyrant Father, but as beloved Son, who in turn loved as he was loved by the Father. It is a free service of love, not of fear. Mission Sunday gives us the opportunity to thank god for the faith that we have as well as thanking god for and acknowledging all those faithful missionary men and women who left everything in order to bring the faith to the far corners of the world. We pray that the Lord of the harvest will continue to inspire many people to join the missionary orders and we also pray for vocations in general to the priesthood and religious life.
Fullerton T 