In today’s Gospel, we heard the sons of Zebedee, James and John, asked Jesus to allow them to “sit one at [his] right and the other at [his] left.” In response, Jesus helped them to understand what they are asking and, more importantly, what is required of them, saying: “The chalice that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared." In other words, to be disciples of Christ and to come and follow Jesus is to suffer with Jesus, but eternal glory is for God the Father to judge and give to “those for whom it has been prepared.”
My sisters and brothers in Christ, what this means is for us to realize that when we pray, when we fast, and when we give alms, we do all these things out of love for God and our neighbors, not for power nor vainglory, in this life and certainly not in eternal life. All the good we do in our lives, we do for God because of who God is to us and what He has done for us. Saint Peter tells us in the first reading: we “realize that [we] were ransomed from [our] futile conduct. . . not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious Blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished Lamb. . . so that [our] faith and hope are in God. . . [We] have been born anew [through Baptism], not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God. . . the word of the Lord remains forever.”
This is what it means to be a servant leader, of which our Lord Jesus Christ is the model par excellence, as he tells us, saying: “[The] Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” This is what it means for us to drink the chalice that Jesus drank from and be baptized with the baptism with which Christ was baptized, for us to be a servant of the Suffering Servant, who was born of the lowly servant - the Blessed Virgin Mary. When we become leaders who seek power and our own interests, we cause others to be “indignant” because these types of leaders “lord [their authority] over” others. Rather, Jesus calls us to be servant leaders who unite others in faith, hope, and love, just like Jesus did and continues to do in the world today.
It is as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once said, "The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness." That greatness lies in Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant, the Crucified One, who is the servant leader par excellence, because “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11).
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