Who's in Charge?

“Who is in charge here?” If you have ever participated in a team environment, or a group setting, or even an informal meeting, you know that question inevitably comes up. Who is the person responsible? Who has been charged with authority? Who can I turn to for some answers?

That question is at the heart of our readings today. Throughout the history of mankind’s relationship with God, human beings have struggled with wanting to be in charge of how and when we relate to God. We want God’s love and presence and assistance, but only on our terms. But this week, our readings remind us that our covenant with God is one that necessitates we understand that he is the one truly in charge, and that is for our benefit.

The reading from the Old Testament – about the Spirit coming down to rest upon the various members of the Israelite community – is a foreshadowing of the event we call Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Apostles and the other disciples after Jesus’s Ascension. This is not an abstract reality, but something that really happens even today – that by means of the sacraments, especially baptism and confirmation, the Holy Spirit doesn’t just dwell among us, as the Christian community, but *within* us as individuals.

But this returns us to the question I asked at the beginning: “who's in charge?” God wants us all to share in his authority, which is why he gives us the graces of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of the Spirit to lead and guide us. But while we are his instruments, the authority always remains his. It is the Lord who must be in charge of our lives, not us. When we forget that, we become like the apostle John in the Gospel. He is dismayed, perhaps even jealous, that those who were not explicitly followers of Jesus were displaying signs that they too had received the Holy Spirit. Take note of Jesus’s response – basically, he says, “Leave that to me – I am in charge here, not you.”

Contemplation (1896) by Jozef Israëls

Jesus wanted his disciple John to be attentive to his own self, and so does he ask the same of us. We must be on guard against causing scandal, and giving others a reason to sin. We must be aware of how even things we consider small or unimportant can separate us from the love of God and prevent the Holy Spirit from being active within us. We need to be careful in our attitude toward acquiring wealth and focusing on material things, as St. James tells us in the second reading. Often, we acknowledge the Lord’s authority in simple, concrete ways: by resisting temptations to jealousy, by committing ourselves to sharing what we have with those who are less fortunate, by examining our own attitudes to see where we might be living hypocritically, not in accord with what we profess in faith. If we are going to acknowledge the Lord’s authority, then we have to be committed to submitting to the Lord’s authority in all things.

So, brothers and sisters, when we think about our lives, our futures, our daily interactions with others, we can ask, “Who's in charge?” The answer must be God – not that we should abandon all agency and action, but rather that we should always be aware of how we must make space in our lives for the Lord’s action in us. Let us pray that his Spirit, whom he has given to us in baptism and confirmation, and who prepares us now to receive the Sacrament of the Altar, may the Spirit strengthen us to live in the truth of Christ and give witness to him in all things.

Attentive to Whom We Receive

Human beings, especially adults, have an innate attentiveness to children. This has been shown even scientifically. We are naturally attuned to hear the voice of a crying baby over other noises, and people innately know to watch their language or what they’re discussing, if a child is present. If a person sees a child struggling with something, like opening a door or carrying a heavy package, they are more likely to stop and be of help. None of this should be surprising, of course, but it does show us something interesting: we treat children – even those who are not our own – differently than we tend to treat others.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tries to get the disciples’ attention by placing a child in their midst. He has been telling them, both in last week’s Gospel and again today, that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die in order to rise after three days. But they aren’t getting the message. They are too busy discussing their own achievements, their own greatness, and most likely arguing with each other about it. They probably are doing exactly what James warns us about in today’s second reading: existing in “jealousy and selfish ambition,” with conflicts and covetousness and envy dominating their attitude.

Perhaps we can see now the point that Jesus makes at the end of the Gospel. He doesn’t correct their attitude by words so much as by drawing their attention to the presence of that child. How silly they must have felt with all of their boasting and jealous ambition, compared to the tender innocence of the child in front of them. His point is this: true greatness comes not from striving to inflate ourselves, by focusing on what we have achieved and what others haven’t, but by adopting an attentive ness to those who are lowly and seeking to serve them.

Fritz von Uhde, "And Calling a Child to Him..." (c. 1904)

Notice that this is not the Gospel where Jesus encourages us to be childlike ourselves, to become like children in order to inherit the kingdom of heaven. That certainly helps! But what he’s really saying here is that we must seek to receive in his name those who are children, and all others like them: those who are vulnerable, who are insignificant in the eyes of the world, those who are not playing the game of trying to get ahead, those who are the “nobodies” of the world. It’s with precisely those folks that Jesus identifies because he will be one of them himself, especially when he is rejected, accused, arrested, tortured, and put to death. That’s why he tells us that whenever we receive them – whenever we are attentive to them, seek to serve them, try to meet their needs and thereby accord them the dignity they have – when we receive them, we really receive him, and his Father who sent him.

This Gospel gives us a lot to reflect upon. If a child asked for our help, or if we saw one in need, we would assist right away; and if Jesus himself were the one in need of aid, even more so. But why do we fail to see the presence of Jesus in those who are childlike: the poor, the migrant, the addict, the mentally ill, the teenager who is rebelling, the spouse who is emotionally frayed, the young person who wishes to be validated, the elderly person who is lonely and forlorn. In each of these, and more, Jesus offers us the chance to turn outward from ourselves a bit – to detach from our own inward self-centeredness and our striving to be great – and to receive him and to serve him, to love him, in the presence of those with whom he identifies. And eventually this should become our default way of relating to everyone: to be truly great by serving everyone, especially the least.

Friends, in this and every Eucharist, the Lord becomes humbly present for us. Under the appearances of Bread and Wine, he nonetheless draws us to profess our belief that what we see, and touch, and receive is really him: his Body and his Blood. And he gives us this gift not just for ourselves, but so that with his Presence in us we can then go and find his presence elsewhere, in the needy, the lowly, the childlike, all of those with whom he identifies – so that by receiving them we might receive him, by loving them we will love him.

Following Jesus in Suffering

Any form of entertainment – watching a movie, reading a book, turning on the ballgame – usually needs some twists and turns along the way to keep our attention. If the plot happens just how we expected, if the game goes just the way we thought, we probably won’t find it all that interesting. What usually entertains us are the things that keep us guessing.

Plot twists in real life though are very different. Unexpected occurrences and surprising events are often not entertaining, but instead traumatic and even disorienting. For example, many of us this weekend have been thinking back to the 9/11 attacks, and to where we were twenty years ago when we heard about them. The great loss of life was devastating, but perhaps just as traumatic was the shock of it – of being attacked here on our own soil. That was a painful plot twist that perhaps we could not have imagined before the attacks twenty years ago.

In the Gospel today, Peter also experiences a painful shock. Having just confessed his faith in Jesus as not just a wise man or holy preacher, but as God’s chosen, anointed Messiah, Peter finds out that Christ is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die, and to do so knowingly and willingly. The idea of God’s own Son dying at the hands of sinners was surely not a plot twist that Peter anticipated. But as Jesus himself says, any suggestion to the contrary – to think that such couldn’t happen or shouldn’t – is to think “not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Jesus then takes this plot twist one step further. Turning to his disciples, and the crowd at large, he says that his followers must also deny themselves and take up their cross. It’s a pretty clear rebuke of the mindset that Peter had: that suffering was somehow incompatible with what God wills. That attitude is still around today, and it presents an ever-present temptation to us who say we are followers of Jesus. Sometimes, we can fall into the trap of thinking, “Jesus suffered so that I don’t have to.” There is an element of truth there, but it needs a little expanding: Jesus suffered death so that I won’t suffer eternal death – eternal separation from God in hell. That is the deepest and most joyous truth of our faith. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to suffer at all. In fact, as we hear today, we should instead say, “Jesus suffered, therefore I will have to suffer also.” To follow him, we must follow the path he took – not by avoiding the Cross, or finding some way around it, but by passing through it.

Titian, Christ Carrying the Cross (c. 1565)

Suffering, of course, is never pleasant. However, it can have meaning when we approach it as Jesus approached his Cross. Jesus went to the Cross out of love and a sense of purpose: he knew it would be the manner by which God would remake the world, opening the doors of salvation for all of humanity. That work of redemption that began with Jesus continues in our lives and helps remake us in the image of the Son, especially when we intentionally unite our sufferings to those of Christ. For the Christian, life’s unexpected turns are never just cruel twists of fate: losing a job, being diagnosed with an illness, or a family member passing away suddenly. These are not just random traumas, but opportunities to embrace the Cross, to share more deeply in the redemptive love of Christ. Or when we consider the more routine but nonetheless painful experiences of the day to day: stress at work, challenges in our marriage or in raising children, betrayal from those who should be our friends, discouragement or emptiness in our spiritual life. These sufferings don’t mean that God is absent or doesn’t hear our prayers; rather they are invitations to learn how to be remade into Christ’s image, and to bear well the Cross in order to share what comes after.

It’s essential not to forget there is an after. On Tuesday of this week, we will celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross – a chance to remember that the Cross was the instrument by which Christ defeated sin and death. Jesus’s victory came not by avoiding the Cross, or trying to go around it, but by passing through it into what followed after: the Resurrection. That’s the best plot twist in history, of course, and Jesus assures us that if we join him in his Cross, we will share in his victory: “whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” If we try to save our life by avoiding suffering, going around the Cross, then we will end up losing everything. But if instead, we enter into our sufferings knowingly, and willingly, and lovingly, then the difficulties and sorrows of the present moment will be more than made up for in our sharing of Jesus’s victory, the Resurrection.

Friends, Jesus assures us today that the mystery of suffering is not meaningless, as if God delighted in keeping us guessing. Rather, it’s through suffering that the Lord redeems the world, and he invites us to look deeply into our hearts today, to see whether we believe that. Maybe, like Peter, we face the temptation to reject the idea of suffering. If that’s the case, let’s ask the Lord for his encouragement, maybe even for a little of his rebuke, as he gave to Peter, to learn to think beyond our human way, but to think as God does – as Jesus did. Let’s ask the Lord to help us to see his presence in the crosses we face, and to find in them an opportunity to love him more deeply, to be remade in his image – so that following him now in our sufferings, we may hope to be exalted one day in his victory.

Opened to Life

The name Anne Sullivan is probably not one that rings a bell for most of us. But the name of her famous student might. Helen Keller became blind and deaf before the age of 2 as a result of illness; deprived of sight and sound, she was more or less cut off from the outside world. However, through her remaining sense of touch, and through the patient and persistent instruction of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, a new world opened up for Helen. She learned to read, write, even to speak, and eventually became a world-famous author, lecturer, and human rights activist. It was all possible because of the gift that she had been given by her teacher: not just to learn to read and speak, but to experience life in a totally new way.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives a man a similar gift: not just to heal his physical impediments, to make it possible for him to hear and to speak, but to open him to experiencing life in a totally new way. All of Jesus’s healing miracles have this dynamic: the lame man given the ability to walk again; the woman cured of the hemorrhage; Peter’s mother-in-law cured of a fever; blind Bartimeus made able to see. All of these persons and more received from Jesus some true, bodily healing, but in a certain sense, that healing was a means to a higher end: to open those persons to new life, to experiencing the fullness of life in a way that they had not known before.

The Healing of a Deaf and Mute Man, Ottheinrich Bible, c. 1420

Today’s Gospel probably brings to mind the people in our lives whom we wish to be healed. Maybe we think of someone sick with Covid, or a friend or family member who is battling cancer, or a loved one who is struggling with depression or addiction or some other form of mental illness. We might even think of ourselves! But while we can and should pray for God to heal these persons, we shouldn’t despair if he does not. Why? Because the true healing that God desires is not a bodily reality but a spiritual one. We see this even in the Gospels. Jesus doesn’t stay in every town and village until all the sick people are well. Rather, he works particular miracles at particular times to show everyone that he has the power to communicate life, to transform a person’s life, opening them to something greater.

In a very real sense, that something greater is Jesus himself. When he says, 'Ephphatha', “Be opened,” to the man in today’s Gospel, what he wants to open him to is not to hear any old thing, but to hear *him*; not just to speak any old thing, but to respond to *him*. Jesus wishes to communicate a new and deepened experience of life precisely so that we may encounter him at the center of our life, as our Life itself. In this way, then, this Gospel is applicable to all of us. We might be inclined to think of our friends and loved ones who are in need of healing, but really, we should think of ourselves – *we* are in desperate need of the spiritual healing that only Jesus can give.

Perhaps we might reflect on two questions this week, in light of this Gospel. First, where in my life do I need the transformation that Jesus can give? Where do I need to be spiritually opened to his life – to hear him, to respond to him – in some deeper way: in my prayer, in my relationships, in my moral life? And second, where can I help others to experience the same? Anne Sullivan helped transform Helen Keller’s life through her patient and persistent teaching. Today’s Gospel says the deaf man was brought to Jesus by others, and after his healing, he went out and proclaimed what had happened to him to others. Who is Jesus calling me to speak to, to witness to about the transformation I have received, about the new life that he has given to me?

Friends, this is the basic rhythm of the Christian life: to encounter Jesus, ever more deeply, and then to go and help others to do the same. Our previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, once said, “The happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: Jesus of Nazareth.” May we seek and find that Happiness ourselves, so that finding it, like the man in today’s Gospel, we also can proclaim the newness of life we have found in him.