Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time October 20, 2024

Fr. Goni and I have been watching and listening to classical music on YouTube. It got me thinking about the late great conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Once Bernstein was asked which instrument in the orchestra was the most difficult to play.

The maestro gave a surprising answer. “Second fiddle,” he said promptly. “I can get plenty of first violinists. But to find someone who can play second fiddle with enthusiasm—that’s a problem. Yet, if there is no one to play second fiddle, there is no harmony.”

I was reminded of Bernstein’s insight when I read today’s gospel. James and John want to play first violins in this new kingdom Jesus is inaugurating. They want to be concert masters, sitting in the chairs of authority. And this seems to be true, not just of James and John. We read, “When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.” In other words, they’re all jockeying for position. In Bernstein’s terminology, they all want to play first violin. And as a result, there is no harmony in that group of Apostles.

Getting ahead, achieving, wanting to get to the top, trying to be better than everybody else: that seems to be in the DNA of a lot of people. Now, wanting to do your best, wanting to use your God-given talents—there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s exemplary. It’s only when we want to step on others, only when we’ve thought of nobody but ourselves, only when we’ll do anything to get to the top that it’s a problem.

And for Jesus it is a problem. He tells them that they can’t be “lording” over others. That’s an interesting word to use, is it not? Wanting to lord, wanting to be the Lord. That job has already been taken.

But Jesus then goes further, taking his disciples in exactly the opposite direction from the one they seem to want to go. “It shall not be so among you,” he says. “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”

And guess what? That job has already been taken, as well. “For the Son of Man [that is, Jesus] did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” To serve, from the bottom up, not from the top down. Serving, not lording: that’s key. Serving, not lording. This is who Jesus is, and this is who his followers are called to be.

Someone who, I think, really got this message was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now officially a Saint within the Church. I came across an interesting quote from Mother Teresa, a statement about why she did what she did, and what gave her the strength to do it. Here’s the quote: “To those who say they admire my courage, I have to tell them that I would not have any if I were not convinced that each time I touch the body of a leper, a body that reeks with foul stench, I touch Christ’s body, the same Christ I receive in the Eucharist.” [Donald H. Calloway, MIC, Eucharistic Gems, Marian Press, Stockbridge, MA 2023, p. 95]

Mother Teresa was able to reach down, to be the servant of all, to be the slave of all, because it is precisely when she touched the bottom of humanity, that’s where Jesus was—serving from the bottom up, not from the top down. Like Jesus, Mother Teresa never wanted to play first violin.

Which makes you think, doesn’t it? It makes me think, what kind of attitude adjustment do I need when I see someone begging at a busy intersection? When I encounter people that are not high achievers? When I think about people from other nations, many poor, many fleeing for their lives? If Jesus saves from the bottom up, and we insist on getting to the top by putting others down, we’ve got things upside down, don’t you think?