The Buddha was right about many things. He was certainly correct when he observed that to live is to suffer. This is not to say that life only consists of suffering. For most of us, thankfully, it does not. Digging beneath the surface a bit, most of us also know from experience that to love is to suffer.
From a Christian perspective, suffering is necessary, as troubling as that may sound. Let’s remember Jesus’ call to discipleship, which, in Mark’s Gospel, He issued a few chapters before the chapter we are currently reading:
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it1Lest we fetishize it, you do not need to go in search of suffering. If you live and love enough, suffering will find you, practically guaranteed. It is also important to recognize that, in philosophical terms, God is never the formal cause of anyone’s suffering. In other words, God does not plan and carry out your suffering. It is self-evident that God permits or allows suffering in the world. This is the problem of theodicy. Understandably, it is something with which many people struggle mightily.
Our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews provides us with a deep and divinely revealed insight into the mystery of suffering when the inspired author notes that Jesus, our “high priest,” can “sympathize with our weaknesses” because, like us, He “has…been tested in every way.”2 Yet, unlike us, he passed His test without sinning.
Being sinless, even though he was tempted, none of the Lord’s suffering was the result of bad choices. part. What should worry you more than suffering as the result of making sinful decisions, is prospering through sinful and even wicked choices.
Much suffering, maybe most, comes unbidden. It just happens. Such things are not God’s punishment for other, unrelated, things you’ve done. God is not petty nor hellbent on exacting revenge. God is love and, as such, desires your salvation. By recognizing this, you can use everything that happens to you not only for your own salvation but that of others.
Earlier in Hebrews, in a passage we heard two weeks ago, the inspired author observed that “in bringing many children to glory,” God made “the leader of their salvation perfect through suffering.”3 The leader of our salvation is Jesus Christ. This brings us back to Jesus’ invitation to take up your cross and, by a roundabout way, to today’s Gospel.
I love the original, British, version of the television comedy The Office (I have never sullied my eyes by watching the American knock-off). David Brent, the lead character played by Ricky Gervais, is a cringe character and the entire series is cringe comedy. James and John asking Jesus if they can sit on his right and on his left when He comes into glory is similarly cringeworthy.
Rather than simply tell them, “the places you ask to be reserved for yourselves are not mine to give,” Jesus asks them if they can suffer in the way he will suffer. Clearly clueless, which is often the state of the Twelve in Mark’s account, they reply- “We can.”4 Jesus, then, effectively tells them, “So be it.” He then lets them know their suffering in no way guarantees them what they ask for. Jesus entered His glory on the cross, where the places on His right and left were reserved for two thieves.5
The Lord only gets around to the cringe worthiness of their request when He responds to the equally shallow indignation the other ten show toward James and John. The way to be great, Jesus tells them, contra mundum, is to be small. The way to have more is to seek less, or even nothing at all. It is having the courage to be a nobody. A corollary to Jesus’ assertion is that the way to not be happy is to make your own happiness your focus.
God shows His preference for the nothings of this world over and over. Consider Saint Bernadette Soubirous, Saints Jacinta & Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, all lowly peasant children to whom Our Lady deigned to appear. Think of the much-loved Little Flower, Saint Therese of Lisieux, or the simple Capuchin friar, Padre Pio, who never ventured beyond the southeastern part of his native Italy, or the patron saint of parish priests, who struggled through seminary, Saint John Vianney, to mention a few, familiar, and recent saints.
One who is genuinely great is the one who, like Jesus, seeks to serve and not to be served. Being “large and in charge” has no place in God’s kingdom. The English word “servant” is a translation of the Greek noun diakonos. Translated literally, diakonos is “deacon.” The words “serve” and “served” are from the Greek verb diakoneó.
Going beyond this, Jesus gives the Twelve the key to Apostolic leadership. Because they are the Successors of the Apostles, this refers to specifically to the office of bishop (everything in the scriptures is not directed at everyone).6 Not only are they to be "deacons" of all but doulos, that is, slaves of all. As Saint Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible.”7
While deacons are ordained and sacramentally empowered for the threefold diakonia of liturgy, word, and charity, every Christian, by virtue of baptism, confirmation, and genuine participation in the Eucharist, is empowered for Gospel service, for evangelization, for spreading the Gospel. Just as there is a priesthood of all the baptized, there is a diaconate of the all the baptized.
And so, dear friends in Christ, strengthened by the Eucharist, it is this service, this ministry, we are sent forth to engage in at the end of Mass. In essence, it is evangelization. It is to “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”8
1 Mark 8:34.↩
2 Hebrews 4:15.↩
3 Hebrews 2:10.↩
4 Mark 10:39-40.↩
5 Mark 15:27.↩
6 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium], sec. 20.↩
7 1 Corinthians 9:19.↩
8 Roman Missal. “The Order of Mass.” The Concluding Rites, sec. 144.↩
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