Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 22nd September 2024.
Lectionary Readings: Jeremiah 11 v18-20; Psalm 54; James 3 v13-4 v3, 7-8a; Mark 9 v30-37.
Welcome
Jesus said, “When you welcome even a child because of me, you welcome me. And when you welcome me, you welcome the one who sent me.” (Mark 9 v37).
Jesus was responding to his disciples desire for recognition, honour and status. (see v 33-35).
Jesus placed a young child in front of the disciples, someone who was a dependent, a non wage earner, a person of no economic or social standing and a person whose views and opinions were routinely disregarded by male adult members of society.
Jesus was challenging his disciples to think about the kingdom values he had taught them and to contrast them with the values of their contemporary society.
Jesus said that if because of their loyalty to him and the kingdom values he taught, they welcomed another person, even a lowly child, into the family of God, they would also be welcoming God. Their desire for recognition, honour and status would be satisfied by the embrace of the most honoured guest they would ever encounter.
Jesus taught that we are all made in the image of God, all equally loved and everyone equipped with gifts and talents to contribute to the good of society. If the disciples wanted to belong to God’s kingdom, they would have to adopt kingdom ways of living and relating to each other.
Honour, wealth and status within contemporary society counts for nothing compared with the love of God and membership of his kingdom.
Jesus said, “If you want a place of honour, you must become a slave and serve others!” (v35b).
Hymn writer Richard Jones encourages us to follow the way of Jesus together with Christians of other denominations. (Singing the Faith No 678).
Come, all who look to Christ today, stretch out your hands, enlarge your mind,
together share his living way where all who humbly seek will find.
Come, all who will from every place; find new powers of unity
accept the Spirit’s strong embrace which binds us in community.
Come, young and old from every Church, bring all your treasuries of prayer,
join the dynamic Spirit’s search to press beyond the truths we share.
Bring your traditions’ richest store, your hymns and rites and cherished creeds;
explore our visions, pray for more, since God delights to meet fresh needs.
Come, trust in Christ and live in peace, anticipate the final light
when strife and bigotry shall cease, and faith be lost in praise and sight.
Bible quotations taken from the Contemporary English Version.