There are really only two choices: me or Jesus. And isn’t it funny that everything that defined my life this past week really comes down to those choices. Was it about me or was it about following Jesus.
Like with Cain, who in a moment of jealous rage, killed his brother Abel. You remember the story. God liked Abel’s sacrifices best, and Cain just couldn’t stand that, murdering his brother out of green-eyed greed. But then Abel’s blood, we are told, cried out from the grave for revenge and this resulted in Cain wandering the earth in punishment for his crime, marked as an outcast. Thus Cain’s act of violence, propagated misery, loneliness and death.
And if only he had known there was another way, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us today. For while the blood of innocent Abel cried out for revenge, the innocent blood of Christ, crucified by equally evil men, looks down on his tormentors and prays “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Abel’s blood cries out for vengeance. Jesus’ blood brings mercy and forgiveness. It is “the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” (Hebrews) and which teaches us how to live.
And then there are the Disciples of Jesus who send their mother to ask that they have the best seats in the Kingdom of heaven: one at his left and the other at his right. They wanted the best seats because, as their mother kept assuring them, no one was a handsome or as smart or as successful as they were.
But then you remember what Jesus did. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God through whom all things were made, knelt down in front of them and took a child in his arms and said unless you become like a little child you cannot even enter the Kingdom of God.
And there he is in “the home of one of the leading Pharisees,” no doubt in the seat of honor, as he turns to his important hosts and says: “go and take the lowest place.”
And then there’s the rich man. You remember him. And Lazarus, the poor wretch who used to beg for food on the front steps of the rich man's house, and how the dogs used to come and lick the sores on Lazarus' body, while the rich man turned his head the other way and stepped over the beggar on his front stoop. He’d go inside and feast sumptuously with his friends. And you remember how Lazarus went to heaven and the rich man went to hell because he failed to love Lazarus.
And Jesus is very clear. The way to hell is to enjoy the filet mignon with all your powerful friends while the poor man starves out on your doorstep. No, Jesus commands. When you throw a banquet invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind! And then you will be repaid, not by Lazarus, but by the Lord on the Day of Judgement.
Exposition
For there are two ways of being: the way of Cain and the rich man and the ambitious disciples, and the way of Jesus.
Sirach understood this choice well when he advised you to “conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.”
As did Saint Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, when he described how God came to save us. He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, he said, but rather the Lord humbled himself and took the form of a slave, obedient even to the Cross.
He humbled himself. The Greek word is tapeinophrosyne, the opposite of the pagan virtue of megalopsychia, or pride. For humility is never boastful or arrogant. It does not seek to make a good impression on others. Indeed, the humble person does not seek to be someone important, because he already knows that he is a child of God, and what more could he ever want to be?
For the proud man, the all-knowing “self” is the center of the world. But for the follower of Jesus, God is the center of the world, for he is the way, the truth and the life. And in worshipping him I learn the true secret of life: that smallness and obedience in the presence of the Almighty God, is the only greatness there is. And the only true happiness lies in pleasing God and being what he has made me to be.
It is a secret preached better by Martin, who today makes his First Holy Communion, than it ever will be my me. For Martin knows the secret. He knows that Jesus loves him so much that he became a little baby out of love for him. He knows that Jesus loves him so much that he died for him on the Cross. And he knows that Jesus loves him so much that when, for the first time, he receives Jesus in Holy Communion today, Jesus will remain with him and give him the grace to grow in wisdom and grace for the rest of his lives.
Martin knows. And maybe that’s because he is still little. He knows that the least shall be the greatest, the last shall be the first and the one who serves will be the most blessed in the Kingdom of God.
