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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

September 23, 2018

Mark 9, 30-37

There is no way to water down the message of next Sunday’s Gospel. We are trained in this world to think of ourselves as special, and we are urged by everything around us to be unique, to celebrate being different. In that light, this Gospel seems strange and unwelcome. Being average is just about equal to being nothing by some standards, but it just might be that in the values of Gospel living, and in the way of being a disciple, average might be a very acceptable way to be. When you consider the kind of people Jesus gathered around himself, they look very ordinary. When they dreamed of being special, powerful, and in some way exceptional in the eyes of others, they missed the point. Even Jesus struggled with that temptation. That’s what was going on in the desert with the devil: a temptation to be extraordinary. He forms disciples who shy away from the spectacular and become more like children. A people who have begun to discover the presence of God in the ordinary see beauty everywhere. Perhaps we ought to be less concerned about being special, unique, and spectacular, and find a little more comfort in being average. Perhaps, after all, being just average people who have average struggles, pains, and trials every day and who deal with them in no special way except to be faithful to the effort without worry about success is just what we are called to be, and it may be when we are at our best as disciples.

Fr. Tom Boyer