This document provides a summary and analysis of the gospel reading where Jesus teaches the disciples about humility. It makes three key points: 1) The disciples were arguing about who was greatest, focusing on ego and superiority, while Jesus teaches them to have the humility and openness of a child. 2) Throughout history and today, people continue to judge others and assert dominance over each other, rather than relating with genuine love and humility. The Church itself has shown this problem. 3) We are called to let go of ego and relate to others, especially the marginalized, with genuineness, seeing the image of God in everyone. If we do, walls between people will fall and we will experience unity

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September 23, 2018 25th
Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B Princeton, N.J.
In this morning’s gospel from Mark we find Jesus taking his twelve disciples off on a journey
to get away from the crowd so he can speak to them of his pending passion, death and
resurrection. And again, not surprisingly, the disciples have no idea what he is talking
about…or at the very least do not want to discuss it. But instead they have something much
more important, in their minds, to talk about. And it is this portion of today’s Gospel that
provides us Christ’s core teaching on the two contrasting ways of communicating, interacting,
behaving, caring, and loving the other person.
The first example we are given just may be one of the earliest instances recorded in the Bible
of clericalism, for we hear the disciples arguing as to who, among themselves, is the greatest.
Their discussion is based on superiority and ego. And let’s face it - at some point in time we
all do it...it is deeply engrained in our culture. Our interactions are often rooted in a win-lose
relationship – where one always has to have the upper hand over the other. The second
reading warns against this, when it says, “where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is
disorder and every foul practice.
But Jesus hearing what is going on provides the alternative way he wants us to relate
to each other by wrapping his arms around a child and placing the child in front of the
disciples telling them that they must be willing to receive such a child in his name.
And we find throughout the gospels, time and time again, Jesus using a child and
telling his followers that in order to enter the kingdom of God they must be converted
and transformed to be like a child. On the surface this may all sound a bit absurd – for
don’t we all spend our life “growing up” moving away from our childhood? And yet
Christ calls us to be transformed to be like a child.
Why a child? Because the healthy interaction with a young child is an inherently a win-win
relationship that fosters the flow of mutual love. The child has no ego and is not competing for
who is best and thus... fighting for superiority makes no sense. Parents or grandparents know
that when dealing with a child the necessary conditions that allow a child to learn is time filled
with tenderness, patience and love. Thus we are so much more generous and forgiving in the
way we deal with young children versus each other.
In return the child responds with a mutual love mainly because they have not yet moved into
that linear, judgmental, left brain consciousness. It is an age where everything is still an
enchanted universe... where it is still possible to believe in what you do not see…it is the age
where one does not judge…one does not exclude…one does not care about race, creed,
color, politics nor care about power, prestige or possessions. They have the “ability to connect
with everybody without feeling the need to eliminate anybody.” But yet the problem we all
face, like that of the disciples, is that we unlearn it in so many ways.
That is why we hear throughout the Gospels Jesus bringing forth a child when he continues to
come across the disciples arguing who was the greatest….or the tax collectors reaping their
wealth…or the Pharisees determining who was allowed in and out of the temple. And the
biggest challenge we all face is that nothing has really changed in 2000 years!
Deacon Jim Knipper

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For like the disciples we usually want to be on top, but Jesus calls us to be happy on the
bottom. We want to the boss, be he wants us to be the servant. We want to be grown-up, but
he tells us to be like children. We want to achieve a lot, but he says we need to receive a lot.
And we want to determine who is worthy, according to our personal criteria – but Jesus says,
“Be like the child, do not concern yourselves with separating the weeds from the wheat - leave
that to me.”
But we all seem to fall into this game of who is in and who is out, who is on top and in control
who is on the bottom, beholden to another. We see this example in today’s Gospel with the
disciples arguing who is the greatest…we see it throughout the country’s history of slavery,
racism, discrimination and exclusionism, and most recently we see it in the our Church, as
was evidenced in the recent report from the AG’s office in Pennsylvania... as well as the
public uncovering of some 40 years of abuse by Cardinal McCarrick, known for decades
within the Church leadership and left unchecked.
More so than ever before, we need to take notice of this Gospel and the Christ centered way
we are called to relate to each other - in an honest and unpretentious way – modeled to us by
a child. We need to relate in a way that fosters an honest-to-God relationship filled with a
sense of being truly genuine in who we are, what we do and how we treat others. Genuine in
our interactions, our transactions, and our communications. Genuine in the fact that we are
all, equally made in the image and likeness of God.
When we do this, what happens next is perhaps best described by African American author
and theologian, Howard Thurman, who was a key mentor to Martin Luther King, who wrote:
“Now if I hear the sound of the genuine in me and if you hear the sound of the genuine in you,
it is possible for me to go down in me and come up in you. So that when I look at myself
through your eyes having made that pilgrimage I see in me what you see in me and the wall
that separates and dives us will disappear and we will become one because the sound of the
genuine makes the same music.”
You see, my brothers and sisters - this is the music we are called to make with each other -
not the banter of who is the greatest, or who is on top, or who is in control - rather the music
of being genuine to and for each other, especially those who live on the margins.
As a deacon I am often asked of what I think of all that is going on in the Church today and
besides praying for those abused, what can we do about it? My answer is always the same:
we need to support our local parish that does so much good work and… at the same time we
need to hold the Church leadership accountable for their past decisions and actions. But to
never forget that change has to begin with each of us and…how we raise future
generations…for the bottom line is we all have a daily choice on how we relate, how we act,
how we love - which this Gospel outlines for us: we can continue to live an ego-centered
game of who is the greatest (which by the way - no one wins, for the ego hates losing, even to
God)...or we can actually try to live this Gospel…by letting go of the need to be superior to
those around us...and to be more like the child who is genuinely opened in heart, mind and
body to the real presence of God in all of our lives.
Deacon Jim Knipper

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Deacon Jim Knipper