October 20, 2024
by Tom Lenz
Creighton University's Department of Pharmacy Practice
click here for photo and information about the writer

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 146

Isaiah 53:10-11
Psalms 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22
Hebrews 4:14-16
Mark 10:35-45 or 10:42-45

Praying Ordinary Time

Over the past couple of months, I have had the opportunity to participate in a Jesuit Faculty Seminar with my colleagues at Creighton. At our meeting earlier this week, the leader of our group invited us to reflect on a passage “at gospel depth.” This is the first time I have heard this phrase, “at gospel depth.” It has stayed with me all week and seems to apply to how I see the world around me in almost every situation – including small work tasks, my relationship with others, and even my interactions with nature. So naturally, as I engaged with the readings for today, I tried to do so at gospel depth.

As I let the readings sink in for a couple of days, I was struck by the way they all fit together around a common theme. Sometimes, when I read all the readings on a particular Sunday, I’m unable to do this. But the more I read and reflected, the more excited I became about recognizing the theme. In the First Reading, the Prophet Isaiah makes a rather bold and even scary statement that “The LORD was pleased to crush him in infirmity.” But as the remainder of the First Reading proceeds, it is in this “crushing” that we are able to see the “light in fullness of days.” In my usual surface-level reading, I tend to interpret the literal meaning of the readings. But my patience this week to read at gospel depth showed me something different – and amazing. God is not rejoicing in my crushing and suffering, but rather that I am making my way through the process of seeing more clearly. The crushing that Isaiah is referring to is my own journey of seeing past my surface-level and ego-driven self so I can recognize my True Self – the me where God resides. Not the part of me that is the hard outer shell that contains my titles, accomplishments, and popular labels that I hope the world gives me and provides me with a social identity. But rather the loving and compassionate me that God knows. This process of letting go of the hard outside me and living into the compassionate inside me can feel like dying – like being crushed because it requires me to let go of a part of me that I take too seriously – my titles and accomplishments. But if I can let go and move in this direction towards connection, compassion, and love, then I “give my life as an offering for sin” (sin being the disconnected and self-centered me). And “Because of this affliction [I] shall see the light in the fullness of days.” So, God is not an angry God who finds joy in punishment and suffering. But rather a loving God who “is pleased” by the dying of a small self in exchange for the living of the True Self. And the Responsorial Psalm confirms this. In each section, it tells us about the “kindness” of the LORD. How reassuring.

So, the pattern that seems to be embedded and themed through all of the readings for today is one of self-emptying. If we are able to let go of our socially demanded parts of ourselves that we take all too seriously, the part that makes us feel in control, separate, and superior, then we can see the light of fullness – but it requires a kind of dying to get there. Paul takes us even further on this theme in his Letter to the Hebrews. He tells us that we are not alone in this process of self-emptying because Jesus has already shown us how. He tells us that Jesus “sympathizes with our weaknesses” because he went through the same experiences of letting go and self-emptying. As Paul says, Jesus “has similarly been tested in every way,” and therefore, we can “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.” In other words, as we move through our dying process of self-emptying, God will be with us and provide us “timely help” when we need it. Further, the Alleluia from Mark confirms this: Jesus came to show us the way and demonstrated for us what self-emptying actually looks like “in every way.”

Finally, Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, provides the clearest teaching about self-emptying of all the readings from today. We read about James and John, who, being caught up in their small ego-driven self, ask Jesus if they can sit with him at the highest point. James and John (as well as the other disciples who were angry that they even asked) were still living within the part of themselves that perceives achievement, glory, and an upward trajectory of accomplishment to be the ultimate goals in life. To this, Jesus so beautifully replies, “You don’t even know what you are asking.” He tells them that they will be tested to let go and self-empty just as he does and will do (i.e., “The cup that I drink, you will drink’). But we must all go through the process of self-emptying. It cannot be granted to us at a request. And, most importantly, it is God who grants the grace to “sit at my right or my left” and Paul assured us that mercy and grace would be there when we do this self-emptying. Further, Jesus makes it even clearer by telling his disciples that we do not achieve this “seat” as the rulers of the Gentiles try to do. But rather through the self-emptying of becoming the servant and the slave. In other words, let us not take so seriously our achievements, titles, and authority, but instead assume a posture of service and give up the ego-self for our True-Self.

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thomaslenz@creighton.edu

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