Discipleship is an invitation to die

Our readings for this day clearly invite us to follow the footsteps of the Lord, carrying the cross and becoming his disciples. They speak of a following, a journey, a pilgrimage and a step by step imitation of the step of the Master. The Gospel is not so subdued in giving us a clue of what it is all about. It presents a straightforward description of this following. It is not a journey all would like to be into. It is a march to suffering and death. The path Jesus makes is a path of suffering for future glory.

John had his own mark, certainly that is Baptism. Elijah’s mark was his miracles. Each prophet had his own mark leading the people to God. The mark or identity or character identification of the leaders both in the Old and New Testaments are the very factors for which they have lead their followers and all who listened to them towards God or towards loving God. It is by these marks that these men managed to pull together a following.

The Cross, however is unique to Jesus. The cross is not a goody to look and marvel at. It is not impressive. It is not attractive. It barely created a following for Jesus as it is, for the apostles themselves thought that following Jesus is about being spectacular and great but they missed the point of the cross. Discipleship is not only about feeling good about our own following but about submission to suffering and death.    “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Listening to Jesus saying these words, we could already see that the invitation for discipleship is active and proactive in form. Like the invitation to love, sharing and service; as if urging us to do something. Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it poetically when he said that the invitation to follow the Lord is always and ultimately the invitation for death. This is the life we all signed up for when we express the desire to follow the Lord; to begin and end our life with the crucified master.

If we are to be disciples of Jesus, the cross must be our mark, our guide post and our identity as disciples. The cross is to be our life; reflecting upon the wondrous mystery with which it is used, the divine purpose for which it is employed, and the love with which it is used to be manifested. The wonders of the cross must be seen in our lives, in words and in deeds and must lead us to leave our own marks. While the Cross is the mark of our discipleship, we are invited to leave our own marks, our individual small marks to help people see and follow Christ through our own witnessing. To be disciples is to be disciple-makers.

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READINGS

FIRST READING

Jas 4:1-10

Beloved:

Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?

Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?

You covet but do not possess.

You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;

you fight and wage war.

You do not possess because you do not ask.

You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly,

to spend it on your passions.

Adulterers!

Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world

makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks without meaning when it says,

The spirit that he has made to dwell in us tends toward jealousy?

But he bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says:

God resists the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.

So submit yourselves to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners,

and purify your hearts, you of two minds.

Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep.

Let your laughter be turned into mourning

and your joy into dejection.

Humble yourselves before the Lord

and he will exalt you.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 55:7-8, 9-10a, 10b-11a, 23

R. (23a) Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.

And I say, “Had I but wings like a dove,

I would fly away and be at rest.

Far away would I flee;

I would lodge in the wilderness.”

“I would wait for him who saves me

from the violent storm and the tempest.”

Engulf them, O Lord; divide their counsels.

In the city I see violence and strife,

day and night they prowl about upon its walls.

Cast your care upon the LORD,

and he will support you;

never will he permit the just man to be disturbed.

GOSPEL

Mk 9:30-37

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,

but he did not wish anyone to know about it.

He was teaching his disciples and telling them,

“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men

and they will kill him,

and three days after his death he will rise.”

But they did not understand the saying,

and they were afraid to question him.

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,

he began to ask them,

“What were you arguing about on the way?”

But they remained silent.

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way

who was the greatest.

Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,

“If anyone wishes to be first,

he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

Taking a child he placed it in their midst,

and putting his arms around it he said to them,

“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;

and whoever receives me,

receives not me but the One who sent me.”