Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20 – The wicked prepare to ambush the just man.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 53(54):3-6, 8 – The Lord upholds my life.

Second Reading: James 3:16-4:3 – The wisdom that comes from above makes for peace.

Gospel: Mark 9:30-37 – Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.

Last week we talked about how our very idea of God could become the last obstacle that stands on our way towards discovering God. But we also lamented the unwillingness of many people to drop the primordial idea of God they formed; and how they are willing to maim and kill in order to defend that idea. Sometimes we ask how people could find nothing wrong in killing or harming others in the name of God. We question why people can be so wicked as to do terrible things without any qualms of conscience. Well, people are not naturally born wicked. Wickedness sets in when people form one ideology or the other and begin to defend it. That ideology could be the concept of God they have in their minds. But it could also be an ideology that springs from the belief that once something or somebody is different from the rest, then that thing or that somebody is therefore wrong. Others believe that once somebody opposes their style of life, that person deserves to die. Unfortunately, these types of ideology have been entrenched in the psyche of most human beings; and it is from there that all forms of evil machination arise.

The Book of Wisdom describes in today’s first reading, how the wicked and the godless plan to destroy the virtuous man simply because the latter’s way of life is at variance with their institutionalized sin and lawlessness. The only “crime” that the virtuous man committed is that his life is opposed to the status quo. He could not beat them, as the saying goes; but he refused to join them either. He rather continued to oppose their way of life even if it meant standing alone in the crowd and being isolated. But the crowd were not satisfied with isolating him; they planned to treat him with cruelty and torture, and, if he failed to succumb, to condemn him to a shameful death.

When we read passages like this, the tendency is to think that they are referring to what happened in the distant past; that they are not speaking to us in the present. But this and similar passages in the bible are speaking to us today. If we take into consideration how our society has institutionalized sin, and how it has relegated righteousness to the periphery, then we must realise that we couldn’t have had a better reading to describe what is happening in the world today. In every society, there is always tension between those who insists on sustaining what currently is and those who aspire to bring about what could and should be. In the end, those with aspiration for a better future are often regarded as opposing the status quo and therefore, are treated with contempt. When some individuals benefit from the mess that the society has created, they will always oppose any effort to clean up the mess. Their selfish interests are placed over and above the overall interest of the society. They then form the ideology that those opposing their ways of life are wrong and deserve to die.

But what can make people turn a blind eye to the ills of the society without wanting any change? The one obvious answer to this question is ambition. People are propelled in life, not by rationality as we erroneously believe, but by personal ambition. It is this ambition that drives them into forming ideologies which in turn leads them into committing all sorts of atrocities in order to defend those ideologies. St. James put it beautifully in the second reading: “Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony and wicked things of every kind being done”. The desire and ambition to become “somebody” has created a society of monsters. St. James traces the root of all wars and battles to the desires fighting inside ourselves. When people want something that they have not got, or, when they cannot satisfy their ambition, they are prepared to kill and have their way by force. In this way, they think they have become important by eliminating others. In fact, T. S. Elliot said that “most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important”. And we can add that most of the trouble in the church is caused by people wanting to be important. This is not just a joke. The gospel of today narrated how power-drunk the apostles were. Jesus was telling them about his suffering and death, but they were more interested in power grab. The apostles have formed this ideology that they cannot be happy until they have become “somebody” by being regarded as the greatest. They are prepared to castigate and lacerate one another in order to fulfil their personal ambition of becoming the greatest. But Jesus used the occasion to teach them that greatness has nothing to do with power or wealth or position; it has rather everything to do with humbling oneself and becoming the servant of others. By using children as an example of greatness, Jesus teaches us that greatness is not about being first or being important or being somebody. Greatness is rather about humility, simplicity and kindness. If only we could recover the “child” part of us that have been lost when we struggle to become “somebody”!

Prayer can get us safely to a place where ambition cannot get us to violently. This is why St. James admonishes us that instead of trying to get what we want by force, we could pray for it. But in praying, we must make sure that we know how to pray properly, otherwise our prayer would not be effective. Praying for something to indulge our desires is not a proper way of praying. To pray properly, our prayer must be God-centred. The first lesson that Jesus gives when he teaches us to pray is to begin our prayer with God; to be concerned about the coming of his kingdom; about his name being glorified; about his will being done on earth. If we begin our prayers with our self-indulgence, we have not prayed properly. Of course, Jesus will make us pray for ourselves too. But he bids us ask for three things for ourselves: for our daily bread (for bread, not luxuries!), for spiritual strength, and for forgiveness of sins. Praying properly also entails praying in Jesus’ name. However, praying in Jesus’ name does not mean beginning our prayer by shouting “In Jesus’ name” and then following that up with every nonsense coming out of our mouth all in the name of prayer. People have not learnt to pray in Jesus’ name because they have not learnt the language of God. The language of God is not Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or speaking in tongues. The great German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Meister Eckhart said that “Nothing resembles the language of God so much as does silence”. If we are to pray in Jesus’ name, we must not ask in our prayers what Jesus would not have asked for. And we must learn the language of silence which Jesus used throughout his earthly life. Our noise has made the language of God most inaudible.