Enemies of the World

This Sunday's sermon

The disciples “held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest” (Mk 9:34).

It would be interesting to know what they said. Who would win the game of apostolic Top Trumps? Peter, James and John would be strong contenders, chosen to witness the Transfiguration of the Lord. On top of that, Peter could boast of the keys of the kingdom. James was a close kinsman, a “brother” of the Lord, and would be bishop of Jerusalem. John, the youngest, was clearly a favourite, known to posterity as the “beloved disciple.” And few could compare in zeal for justice to that great activist, Judas, impatient with His master’s peaceful approach to the revolution. They all had their claims to greatness.

But of course, arguments about “greatness” were missing the point. As St James himself would come to see, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (Jas 4:6). And really, they might have seen this sooner. Jesus had, after all, just exorcised a demon from a child which they could not get rid of. He then prophesied His own death and resurrection: “The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day” (Mk 9:31). But the disciples, at this point, did not want to know about that. “They understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him” (Mk 9:32).

Why afraid? Because they were still tied to the wisdom of this world. Their thought was like that of the ungodly, paraphrased in the book of Wisdom, who would give death the final word: “in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave” (Wis 2:1). Dying a martyr’s death was not their idea of glory. They wanted the kind of status that this world offers. They wanted to be the great and good. And it’s understandable, isn’t it? It can be tempting even now, as then, to see the Church as a vehicle for our own self-advancement, for gaining respect in the eyes of the world. The results, especially when clergy act like this, can be disastrous.

So, Jesus makes His point again. His example will show the disciples, and us, what true greatness is. But it is not the greatness sought by friends of this world: “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mk 9:35).

He had made the point first by healing a child of demonic possession (Mk 9:14-29). Now he calls forth a child again. You want to be great? Welcome a child into your company. For “whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me” (Mk 9:37).

A child: those little creatures that many serious, career-driven, modern worldly people seem to see as an undesirable distraction from their goals, an impediment, a nuisance that just needs to grow up. Taking a child seriously, devoting attention to a child, even serving a child: this is greatness, according to Jesus. Not the great deeds you achieve at the peak of your career. Not the books you write, the dollars/yen/pounds Sterling you earn. The simple acts of affection and duty in everyday family and community life. If you aspire to greatness, that’s where to start. Get that wrong, and none of the rest counts for anything. You can get into the high-falutin’ online debates about the state of the Church or the nation, sign up to fight in the culture wars, get involved in social justice activism, climb the career ladder: if you haven’t got the basics right, the little things, then all that is just so much dust.

You see, those people we see as obstacles to our greatness — and they may not be children, but an ailing spouse or parent, an irksome or needy colleague, a pub bore — those people we think cannot really offer us anything, actually offer everything. They bear dimly the image which is perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, and He perfectly bears the image of His Father. That is why by receiving them we receive God. Heaven, not Hell, is other people.

When Jesus makes these great statements and demands of us, they are not arbitrary. When He says and shows in His own person that humility leads to divinity, He is not saying that this is so simply because God wills it, because God likes our self-abasement. “God resists the proud and blesses the humble” is a statement of how things are, a law of reality.

St James shows this to be so as he asks, all that striving after greatness, all that competition, envy and dispute that causes war and strife: where does it come from? “Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” (Jas 2:1) Dispute comes from the heart. And it stops us from ever knowing the “mysteries of God” (Wis 2:22). It holds us back from the order and harmony that are necessary for peace. It keeps us instead in inner turmoil, which then spills out into the world and self-perpetuates. This, St James calls the Devil’s “wisdom.” In contrast, what James calls the “Wisdom from above” (Jas 3:17), that Wisdom who is incarnate in Christ Jesus, demands that we renounce all “friendship of the world.” For “whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jas 4:4).

The solution to our inner chaos, to the demons that afflict our hearts, is the same as the solution to the demon who afflicted the young boy Jesus healed: prayer. Not prayer for further friendship with this world, for the love and honour that the great and good receive, but prayer from the heart to the Father, “thy will be done:” thy will, and not mine. Thy will, and not the will of the world.

It took the death and resurrection of the Lord to persuade the Apostles that there is, in fact, something stronger than death; that someone has “returned from the grave;” and that beside this truth, all worldly greatness pales in comparison. Only in enmity with the world will we find true greatness. To be truly great is to receive the one who became a little child, an infant in Bethlehem, who became a slave and died a slave’s death, and who becomes now a morsel of bread to feed us; and by receiving Him, both in the Blessed Sacrament and in the small and weak and despised of this world, to become like Him, to grow in union with Him, and so to become one with the One who sent Him. There is nothing greater.