Last week’s gospel, in which Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do you say I am?’ marked a turning point in the gospel of Mark. Having established in the minds of the disciples that he is indeed the Messiah, Jesus now begins to explore with them what that really means and also what it means to be a follower – a disciple – of the Messiah who must be put to death. Having finally come to some level of understanding that Jesus is the Messiah, the disciples have latched on to a very limited understanding of Jesus’ Messiahship. They have assumed that being Messiah meant that Jesus was going to lead a triumphant victory over all the woes of the Jews – it was a common understanding and expectation of what the Messiah would do. With this in mind, the disciples begin to argue amongst themselves about who will hold positions of respect and power in the aftermath of Jesus’ great triumph. Despite what Jesus had just said about being put to death and rising again, the disciples simply couldn’t grasp what he was saying and fell back onto a familiar picture of the Messiah.
To really shake up the disciples and try to make them pay attention to what he was saying to them, Jesus put his arms around a small child and told the disciples they had to welcome little children in his name. Like so many gospel images there is more going on here than meets the eye. Children were regarded as complete nobodies in the culture of the time. They had no status and absolutely no authority. Jesus is saying to the disciples, don’t argue about who will be the greatest; this child – this nobody – is greater than anyone who lords it over others. If you treat a nobody like this with respect, you treat me with respect.
© Greg Sunter
Read more from here Parish Bulletin_22.09.2024
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