Wisdom from above

Here is the text of the reflection I shared with those who came to pray with us this week: a reflection on the meaning of discipleship and a call to action.

Not only on the mountain

I think that Jesus’ disciples enjoyed the experience of being on the mountaintop with him.  After all, Jesus always climbed to the top of a mountain when he had something important to say or when he had some marvellous experience to share, and the disciples were often given privileged positions – right up close to the action – on such occasions, but Jesus would inevitably lead them back down the mountain, as he did at the beginning of today’s gospel passage.  The disciples weren’t so impressed with the climb down the mountain, either literally or figuratively.

It was impressive to hear him speaking; he was a good orator.  He would have made a great politician, but when Jesus started to explain that the love he had been speaking about on the mountaintop would inevitably lead to him being betrayed into human hands, that they would kill him and that three days later he would rise again (Mk 9:31), they weren’t so impressed.  In fact, they didn’t even want to hear anything about it. 

The disciples were just like us: there are times when we are happy to listen to Jesus: when he speaks about his love that will never fail, perhaps we think about an experience of love that we ourselves have had; when he speaks about joy, perhaps we get excited as we contemplate the excitement that is often a part of happy encounters; and when he speaks about peace, we can easily understand it as a concept that is absent in situations of conflict that are taking place in other parts of the world … but that’s just the tip of the ice burg.  Jesus invites us all to be disciples, but this means that we must allow him to teach us that his greatness is not found in places where we can look on the world from the safety of distant places.  His greatness is found in the fact that he wasn’t afraid to be betrayed, to suffer and even to die because he knew that three days later he would rise again.

Last weekend, Peter spoke about the haunting images of refugees who have been flooding into Europe from Syria and from other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.  It would be easy to think of their plight as being far away from us, something that we can see and hear about but something that doesn’t affect us, however this is precisely the kind of situation that Jesus is speaking about.  These are the modern-day suffering innocents that the Book of Wisdom speaks of today (Wis 2:12, 17-20).

In today’s bulletin, you will find a copy of an open letter that was written by Bishop Plouffe.  It outlines a number of ways in which we can respond to the refugee crisis.  During this past week, I have already heard one priest who is working with some of his parishioners toward the possibility of sponsoring a family from among the refugees.  There are also a number of agencies, like Development and Peace that are working with the refugees, responding to their immediate needs.

Saint James reminds us today that we should seek wisdom from above: the wisdom that is pure, peaceable, gentle … and full of mercy … (Jas 3:17) so that we will be able to put behind us the prejudices and fears that stop us from acting in such situations, and learn the true wisdom that Jesus came to teach us: Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me (Mk 9:37).