May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
In a world that is so full of violence, greed and evil, I do believe it is because there is a lack of love.
We find in the gospel passage for today that for a second time, after last week’s announcement, Jesus is announcing His death and resurrection again. Also, after last week, He again instructs His disciples on discipleship.
Now I believe most of us here this morning know the song, “Love, love changes everything”, and also how it ends, “Love will never let you be the same”. I also believe that most of us here have experienced some form of love within our life time, whether it be parental love, family love, romantic love, friendship love or whatever other form of love, but we all know what love is and how to love.
From the gospel passage for this morning, we find the disciples arguing with one another who is the greatest among them, as they were headed towards Capernaum. Now this greedy world filled with so much destruction has taught us all, just as with the disciples, that power and position is much more important than loving and serving our brother and sister.
However, when you journey with Jesus, like the disciples did, you have no other choice, but to see things differently, as He comes and teaches a whole upside down teaching.
He took the child, which in their day was not much within society, if I can phrase it that way. For children up to a certain age were put in the care of women and they were the responsibility of women, not of men.
But here comes Jesus and says, like this child, those whom we think are undeserving of our love, prayers, kindness, gentleness and so much more, it is through such that we welcome God into our own lives. It is when we are patient with the person that irritates us the most that we are welcoming God. It is when we are kind towards the person who hurt us the most that we are welcoming to God. For it is through these acts of love that we let go of that ego within us and allow God to take the centre place.
For you see the disciples, after Jesus had told them that he will die and rise again, paid no attention to that, their focus was just on who will be the next leader (teacher), after Jesus.
As we continue on our journey this week, let us reflect on what are the areas where:
- when someone speaks to me, am I actually listening to this person’s heart, or am I just focused on what is in this conversation for me?
- where are the areas in our lives where we still struggle to let go of pride, possession, ego and self-centredness?
- where in my life can I be of better service to my neighbour?
- where in my life can I just be so loving, that I can help this dark, evil and destructive world to be a better place of all of God’s creation?
Amen.