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29^th Sunday, Year B: Homily by Fr. Isaac Chima

Theme: Selfless service and sacrifice: essential components of leadership.

Readings: Is 53:10-11; Heb. 4:14-16; Mk 10:35-43

Dear Friends in Christ, today is World Mission Sunday. On this day, the Church asks us to pray for all missionaries and for the success of missions, as well as to remember that Jesus still needs people who will continue to spread the Good News to all corners of the world. The readings outline some of the fundamental characteristics that missionaries ought to have; they also highlight a common mistake that some people have frequently made in their mission to lead and serve. 

In the first reading, Isaiah describes the Suffering Servant, who will suffer tremendously and be treated unfairly by men because of the sins of others. He will be despised, yet he will endure all his sufferings till the end. By His endurance and suffering, He shall make others righteous and win victory and salvation for them. He will become great by suffering for His brethren and, consequently, become an instrument through which others will be freed from the clutches of the evil one and saved.

According to the second reading, Christ was this Suffering Servant. It revealed that although He was tempted, He didn’t sin. Even though He is God, He humbled Himself and took the form of man. Through His mission on earth, He served humanity: He healed the sick, fed the hungry, raised the dead, and liberated those who were imprisoned by the devil. He was rejected and subjected to great suffering by men, yet He endured it all. He willingly offered Himself to die a shameful death on the cross in order to save mankind from sin. By His suffering and endurance, He saved mankind.

The gospel reading, however, revealed that the men He called to continue sowing the seed of salvation in the hearts of men across all generations did not understand the kind of service He expected of them. They were not considering themselves as servant leaders – leaders who will lead by serving the least of the members of their group. Rather, they thought that being a leader puts one in a position to command and be served by others.

Today’s gospel reading stated that James and John requested to sit at the right and left sides of the throne of Christ in order to reign with Him rather than to serve with Him. When the other disciples learned of the selfish ambition of James and John, they were enraged with the two brothers because they too had their sights set on those positions. Jesus used that opportunity to remind them and all of us, to whom He had given the mission of spreading the good news to the ends of the earth, that He called us to offer humble service to others and to sacrifice everything in us as we do so, rather than to lord it over others or to turn those we are meant to serve into our slaves.

The wrong conception of the mission to serve didn’t end with James and John and the other apostles at the scenario of today’s gospel; it still rears its ugly head in many of us who have been commissioned by Jesus to carry on His mission on earth, the mission to lead others to a better life on earth and to eternal life in heaven. Therefore, in a world where many people who are in leadership positions, both in the church and in the secular society, feel that leadership means to be served by others and to enrich themselves with public funds, and in a world where people think that being great means having people who serve them, Jesus is inviting us to understand that what defines real greatness and leadership – greatness and leadership after the mind of God – is service and sacrifice for the good of others. We must carry out our mission of leading others to a better life on earth and eternal life in heaven through humble service and sacrifice rendered in love.

Peace be with you.

Fr. Isaac C. Chima