Sunday 29 (B-2006): The Mission of Baptism

Read: Mark 10:42-45

At first sight, Jesus seems to be contradicting himself in today’s Gospel.

He tells the Twelve not to boss people around, but he does it in a rather bossy manner!

Listen to the way the Gospel describes Jesus: “Jesus summoned the Twelve ... It shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant ... will be the slave of all.”

Perhaps we can put it in familiar OT language: “Thou shalt not boss others around!”

In other words, that we should serve, not dominate, one another is a commandment, a top priority of Jesus.

So there is no contradiction.

Jesus becomes forceful throughout the whole Gospel only when he is dealing with evil, be it actual demons, the stubborn evil of the human heart or indeed, as is the case today, to forewarn his listeners from giving in to evil.

Jesus is warning the Twelve about falling into the sin of domineering power.

Just before this warning, the Twelve are in fact engaged in bickering about which one of them is the greatest. Akin to political campaigning?

So Jesus, in a very formal and solemn way, lays it out very clearly: with me there is a new approach to greatness and to being first.

Greatness consists of service, not authoritarianism.

Being first means being last.

Peter will later show that he has still not understood this when he initially refuses to allow Jesus to wash his feet.

Jesus makes it clear to Peter that if anyone refuses to accept him as the servant-leader of humanity, that person can have no share in his life.

To put it more starkly, God is at man’s service.

He wants to wash the stinking feet of each one of us!

Take a few minutes out today, and imagine his doing that for you.

Our natural reaction is to do what Peter did. “No, Lord, you can’t do that! I am not worthy! Let me do it for you!”

It is hard for us to accept that the second Person of the Trinity would lower himself to take care of us.

That’s because we often have the wrong idea of God!

God shows his majesty in his humility, his power in his love.

Therefore, unless we let go and allow him to serve us, that is to love us, we cannot really know Him, nor can we really serve one another.

Leadership in the Church comes from this experience of first being washed by Jesus, the servant-God, and then doing as He did.

Leadership means, therefore, going out towards others in the strength of that transforming experience of being loved by Jesus, and loving them.

This is just another way of talking about mission.

Being washed by Jesus, experiencing his transforming love, is just another way of talking about baptism.

So, baptism leads necessarily to mission.

If baptism means being loved by God, mission means loving as God because God’s love is now in us.

How can you be transformed by the love of Jesus and not want to show it to others by loving them, not want to tell it to others as liberating, joy-filled good news?

But let us be truthful. And I include myself in this.

Baptism can mean, at least sometimes, very little to us, not because of bad will or bad faith, but because the dust and fluff and cobwebs of life cloud our vision and cool our fire.

Other priorities, other values, other motivations take over the dynamism and direction of our hearts and minds.

The things that really matter most to us are defined more by the consumerist culture than by the eternal gifts of Christ.

Parents want the best for their children. That is good.

But what is this best? Is it what money can buy, or what no money can buy?

Married couples want to be happy, get on in life. No one can argue with that.

But what is happiness? What does it mean to “get on”?

Is it really possessions, making a name for yourself in a society that lays little store by personal integrity and applauds arrogance and ruthless competitiveness?

What’s the point of being praised by the vanity of others? Is not their praise also therefore vain, i.e. empty?

What’s the point of having prestige in the face of crooks at the price of honesty in the sight of God?

What use is a fat bank account, when your marriage is bankrupt of quality time and love?

What use is it to sign your child up for every imaginable sport and extra-curricular activity, and fill their wardrobes with clothes and their rooms with toys, when their little hearts are sad and empty because they only see dad sleeping on the sofa on Saturdays, or they only see mom one hour a day?

What’s the use of pushing them to build on the sand of human achievement when you don’t show them and teach them how to pray, how to trust in God, how to build their house on rock of divine truth, fidelity and love?

Baptism is the beginning of a new life, a life marked by the servant love of Jesus, a love which bore our guilt, our profanity and our superficiality and crucified it in death.

Baptism is like a spring of clear, pure running water which wells up more and more until the barrenness and dryness of our human existence is saturated and bears abundant fruit at every level of our being and activity in the world.

That water is the extreme, servant love of Jesus.

Through that love he perfects in us the work he began when he created us. He desires above all to fill our minds with his truth and our hearts and wills with his love.

If our minds are filled with his truth, or at least are open to it, we will see the emptiness of the false priorities the world seeks to impose on us. We will discern the authentic choices to be made and the right way to go.

If our hearts and wills are filled with his love, or at least are open to it, we will make the courageous decisions that forestall the fake joys and counterfeit pleasures around us. We will place the Lord God at the center of our hearts, our homes, our schedules.

We will constantly be asking ourselves, “What does the Lord God, the servant love of Jesus ask of me in this situation?” and not entrust our future to “google” and TV publicity.

What does the Lord God ask of me, what does he want for me? These are the questions which ought to drive every waking hour of the baptized.

There are three naysayers which will try to make you skeptical of what I have been saying.

First, the Devil will seek to convince you that you cannot do this.

He will try to make you think, “This priest is talking over my head. He has no idea what real life is about. He doesn’t have a clue what people have to contend with every day. He knows nothing relevant for me. ....”

But the Devil was, is and ever shall be a Liar!

I know very well the trials of daily life, both of my own and of the many who confide their struggles and pains to me.

And anyway, who among us can fully understand the pain of everyone else, or even of anyone else?

As Pope Paul VI once said, if there is anyone who should be more likely to understand the pain of others, it is the priest. For, in the name and in the person of Christ, his very vocation is to help carry and ease the suffering of Christ’s sheep.

Yet, irrespective of all this, the defining reality of human life is not pain, suffering or problems, but the call, the grace, the truth and the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

While human suffering is real, it is ultimately destined to pass. The “real” reality, then, or the “realest” reality, is not the misery of human wretchedness, but the mercy and majesty of divine grace.

The second naysayer is possibly your own weakness: “I just can’t live the way Jesus demands. I’m too weak.”

But since when was weakness the last word on how to live? Surrender your weakness to Christ! Don’t hold onto it; don’t idolize it; don’t let it fill you with negative propaganda about yourself.

Many people are afraid to let go of their problems because they are afraid of who they might really be behind them!

Thy cling to them in case they no longer recognize who they are without them.

And they defend themselves with dubious pearls of wisdom such as, “well, that’s the way I am.” And, of course, we should read between the lines, “and that’s the way I intend to remain”!

Goodness knows it is surely difficult to extricate yourself from certain habits which seem engrained in the very fabric of your being. The Lord surely understands this!

But the problem lies in accepting the situation without trust or hope in the power of grace and even in the power of your own freedom.

Because the Lord understands your weakness, does not mean that it is what he wants for you or from you.

He came, not to bless our brokenness, but to heal it! He came, not just to visit those enchained by sin and weakness, but to liberate them!

Then there is, in the third place, guilt.

Guilt weighs down.

Of course it weighs you down if you hold onto it!

If you were shipwrecked, you wouldn’t hold on to the anchor to stay afloat!

For the Christian, there is no reason to live with guilt. Jesus bore all our guilt in his body on the Cross.

Baptism removes our sin and our guilt.

“Yes,” I can hear you say, “but that was a long time ago, Father. Life is difficult, complicated ....”

Very well. Whatever happened to the sacrament of confession? It again liberates us from guilt and restores the innocence of baptism.

If you hate your guilt, is it reasonable then to say you hate this sacrament, and not rather to long for it ardently?

Or is the truth that you would rather hold onto your guilt and the sins that go with it?

To hold onto guilt is to ignore, if not deny, the Cross of Christ. To say your guilt is too heavy, too much, too engrained .... is to say that Christ means little or nothing to you.

The Cross does not stand before us as a peculiar work of art. It stands before us so that we might let it gradually stand within us, deep within our hearts and their shades of darkness.

Christ wishes his blood and water to flow from his crucified wounds into our hearts.

He wishes his words of crucified forgiveness to his murderers and to the good thief to be heard echoing within us.

He wishes us to embrace his Mother and ours.

He wishes us to breathe in his dying breath, the Breath of the Spirit, to enliven us, to empower us, to purify us, to restore our dignity, and to enable us again to cry out “Abba, Father!” to his Father and ours.

Another way he washes your feet is to carry your guilt for you, so that you can be free to run in the ways of his truth, his grace and his love!

So let neither the Devil, nor your weakness nor your guilt hold you back.

Stand up to them with Christ’s Cross in your hands, in your head and in your heart, and you will be strong, holy and free.

And the hope of eternity will shine in your eyes, and through your eyes will instill that same hope into those who look to you to experience the everlasting love of the servant Lord.

Msgr. Peter Magee

October 22^nd, 2006

Annunciation, DC: 1.00 pm