A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 47)
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – October 19
“To Give One’s Life”
BIBLE READINGS
In the October 2003 issue of Reader’s Digest is Lynn Rosellini’s remarkable story about a veteran skydiving instructor who sacrificed his life to save a student tumbling out of control in midair during a training session. If a student’s chute is not open by 2,000 feet, the U.S. Parachute Association requires instructors to release the student and deploy their own chutes. But Robert “Bobo” Bonadies held fast to Cindy Hyland, plummeting past the cutoff point. The heroic instructor, in making sure that she would be okay, would not have time to pull his own rip cord. According to Lynn Rossellini’s account: “Bobo Bonadies died on impact. He slammed into a pasture near the airport. His chute was in working order, FAA and police investigations later showed. But he hadn’t had sufficient time to deploy it. He was too busy saving Cindy Hyland’s life. In a wake that spanned six hours, more than 1,000 people waited to pay respects to Bobo in a line that stretched out the funeral home door and around the building … Bonadies’s real legacy is in the hearts of his family, friends and students. Bobo, they feel, taught them how to embrace life, not run from it.”
This beautiful story of Bonadies’ self-sacrificing service gives us a glimpse of the utmost life-sacrifice extolled in this Sunday’s Gospel reading, about the Son of Man who did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mk 10:35-45). In this Gospel passage, Jesus affirms that there is no greatness, no ranking first, unless there is the giving of one’s self, even the giving of life “as a ransom for many” (Mk 10: 45).
The meaning of today’s Gospel account can be better gleaned if we consider the third prophecy of the passion that precedes it (cf. Mk 10:32-34). According to the biblical scholar Philip Van Linden: “As the end of Jesus’ way draws closer, the more explicitly he identifies himself with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, who would heal his people by the very stripes, chastisement, and harsh treatment he would endure for their sakes (Is 53:1-7). Jesus knows where they were headed and what awaits him in Jerusalem. But the disciples follow, ‘amazed,’ and the crowd trails along in fear. Mark hopes that his unfolding Gospel drama will have a more lasting effect on his Christian readers. He hopes that they will consciously choose to model their lives on Jesus, the Suffering Servant, who walks ahead of them.”
The request of James and John to sit at Jesus’ right and left in glory, to which he responded with a cogent teaching on leadership with service, makes up the second to the last scene before Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, the place of his death (Mk 10:35-45). The last scene before the eventful and decisive Jerusalem entry is the healing of the blind man of Jericho who followed him along the road (Mk 10:46-52). The ambitious request of the sons of Zebedee is totally inappropriate in the context of Jesus’ repeated predictions regarding his imminent passion as the Suffering Servant. The response of the Divine Master to the obtuseness of his two close disciples is a radical challenge: “Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized?” (Mk 10:39). Since the images of the cup and baptism are symbolic of his forthcoming passion and death, it is obvious that Jesus was challenging his disciples to participate in his paschal destiny of suffering and death that leads to glory. Indeed, Christian discipleship is an intimate sharing in his role as the suffering Servant of Yahweh who according to the prophet Isaiah is the one “gives his life as an offering for sin” and “shall justify many through his suffering” (cf. Is 53:10-11). It is only through paschal sharing that the disciples would experience the messianic glory.
The outrage of the other ten disciples to the ambitious streak of James and John is understandable for it mirrors their own selfish expectations and, with some embarrassment, they saw the absurdity of it all (Mk 10:41). The Divine Master, patient as ever, responded by rectifying his disciples’ selfishness and covert tendency to engage in a power game. Calling them together, he said to them: “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all” (Mk 10:42-44). Indeed, to be a Christian disciple is to take an uncompromising stance against false values as “lording it over others”. To be first and the greatest according to Christian norms is to excel in service – in serving the needs of others. Jesus’ challenge presented in today’s Gospel is particularly relevant to anyone in a leadership position in the Church. It is a call to “servant leadership”. Philip Van Linden remarks: “The church’s leaders are meant to be the first to drink the cup, daily serving the needs of their brothers and sisters, whatever those needs are, wherever they are perceived.”
The last sentence of today’s Gospel pericope is a succinct summary of the three sayings about the fate of the Son of Man (cf. Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34). Jesus’ affirmation: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10: 45) crystallizes the way of servitude that he lived at the service of the Father’s saving plan. To give one’s life in loving obedience to the divine plan of redemption as the Servant of Yahweh is the key to glory. Indeed, the manner in which Jesus as the Son of Man offered his life was of eschatological benefit to humankind. Those who bear his name are called to the same life offering and self-giving.
Do we have an ambitious streak that prompts us to ask: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you … Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left” (Mk 10:35, 37)?
Are we ready to respond to the Christian challenge: “Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mk 10:38)?
In the light of Jesus’ affirmation, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45), how do we live our Christian discipleship?
(Intercessions from the Liturgy of the Hours, Evening Prayer, Monday of Holy Week; assembly’s refrain adapted from Mk 10:45)
Leader: Redeemer of the world, give us a greater share of your passion through a deeper spirit of repentance, so that we may share the glory of your resurrection.
Assembly: You did not come to be served but to serve and to give your life as a ransom for many.
Leader: In their trials, enable your faithful people to share in your passion, and so reveal in their lives your saving power.
Assembly: You did not come to be served but to serve and to give your life as a ransom for many.
Leader: You humbled yourself by being obedient even to accepting death, death on the cross, give all who serve you the gifts of obedience and patient endurance.
Assembly: You did not come to be served but to serve and to give your life as a ransom for many.
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45).
ACTION PLAN: Pray for Church leaders that they may be truly animated by the spirit of Christ’s “servant leadership”.
ACTION PLAN: List the names of three persons you know who have given their lives in the service of others. Pray in thanksgiving for their self-sacrificing lives and ask them to intercede for you that you may imitate Christ’s servitude in God’s saving plan.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM