Daily Gospel Reflection – Feast of Saint James, Apostle
July 25, 2023
Feast of Saint James, Apostle
Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 20:20-28
The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons
and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something.
He said to her,
"What do you wish?"
She answered him,
"Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom."
Jesus said in reply,
"You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?"
They said to him, "We can."
He replied,
"My chalice you will indeed drink,
but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father."
When the ten heard this,
they became indignant at the two brothers.
But Jesus summoned them and said,
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and the great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the mother of James and John asks Jesus in their name that they might play leading roles in his kingdom. This Gospel reveals that the brothers are in a bad spiritual place. We have to move from the play that we are writing, directing, and starring into the play that God is directing.
To be fair to them, their request makes a certain amount of sense, as the Messiah was expected to be a new David, and David was a man of tremendous power and honor. Power is the capacity to get things done; without it, nothing of value would ever have been accomplished. Honor is a way of signaling to others something that’s worth noticing.
But James and John are asking for these two things in the wrong spirit. When the ego grabs power and honor for itself, things get dysfunctional very quickly. So what must we do? In other versions of this story, Jesus places a child in the midst of the Twelve, showing someone who had neither power nor honor. Here he simply says, "Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave."
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