Today’s Gospel leads us to a scene where the disciples argue among themselves, trying to understand what Jesus was saying about dying and rising again but were reluctant to ask Him.
How many of us have not struggled to understand certain teachings of faith, but felt reluctant to ask questions for fear of exposing our ignorance? One too many times, I suppose.
Jesus teaches us in this passage that for us to be successful or get ahead in the spiritual world is to become like a child.
Back when children and women were seen as little more than property, children were deemed to be useless until they are old enough to help with housework. In simple terms, they were humble and lowly.
The child referred here represents all of us. The greatest people in God’s kingdom are not the rich and the powerful, but the poor and the helpless; not the ones with the most servants, but those who serve others the most.
If we spend more time devoting it to causes for the lowly, sick, humble, the oppressed, we become successful from God’s point of view.
We are like the disciples sometimes when we think of success in our worldly ways. We fall into using our ambitions to get ahead. We are afraid to ask questions to understand and fulfill the will of God but forge ahead with the wrong idea of true greatness and power.
I don’t think any of us would want to end up conspiring with people bearing such distorted ideas.
It can be difficult to let go of our earthly desires to succeed in life. Part of us being human is the need to be in control, to be independent and reach our goals no matter what it takes. But there are many things life can offer us that lie in God’s hands.
And that is always possible. A servant’s heart and hand is a humble heart and a humble hand that leads us to the road to greatness. True power and success, as Jesus came among us, comes in the form of serving others with God in control.
Prayer renews and refreshes our desire to be like and for Jesus in the world. Let us pray to be like a child, a new birth, to start anew and march on to serve others—to be well on our way to the new road to happiness.