Sometimes it is hard to know what we want. Although, that is not a problem for James and John in the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday (Mark 10:35-45). They walk up to Jesus and demand: “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
Perhaps not the best way to start a conversation, but as full cousins of Jesus, they felt they had the right to speak to him in that way. However, in the Gospel of Matthew, written 25 years after the Gospel of Mark, the same request is made in quite a different way. It's their mother who approaches Jesus. She kneels and gently asks a similar favour for her two sons. Little does she realise that James would be the first of the twelve disciples to be martyred because he was a follower of Jesus. He was killed with a sword on the orders of King Herod Agrippa I of Judea. Her other son, John, would be banished to work as a slave in the Salt mines on the Island of Patmos for the same reason. If they knew what lay ahead, would they have asked for something different? We will never know.
However, what gave me pause for thought in this Gospel episode, were the two questions Jesus asked in response to their requests. To James and John, he asked: 'What do you want me to do for you?' In the Gospel of Matthew, he asked their mother: 'What is it that you want?' Both are good questions for us to ponder as well.
Knowing what we want for ourselves or our closest and dearest is not always easy. Yet on each occasion that Jesus asked the question, there was something in him, or in the way, he responded to their question, that birthed a longing for who they could become. So they might discover for themselves what was important in their search for meaning and purpose for their lives.
Is that not also similar for us? Do we not have a longing deep down inside us for who we can become? Yet, often beneath our own conflicting emotions, desires and hopes, it is not always easy to know what is ultimately best for us. On those occasions, we need to allow our questions to become our guide to help us sort out what we desire and what brings us a sense of joy, as suggested by the Jesuit, Michael Buckley:
We all face the same universal longing for meaning and purpose at some point in our life. 'Who am I?' 'What do I want?' 'What is it that I seek?' 'What does my heart long for?' And our question throw themselves back to us to find our answer. And we must, because the answers will often open doors to new possibilities as Buckley goes on to suggest:
So how would you answer the question asked by Jesus in the Gospel for this Sunday: What do you want him (or God) to do for you? What purpose, direction, or contour would you like to see in your life? Do you expect God will do anything? Or are we responsible with our gifts and experience to sort out our lives for ourselves?
The Monks of New Skete offer us this wisdom to ponder:
The God who sees into our depths, who knows us as we really are, isn't interested in some phoney fantasy of what we think we are. God is interested in us as we really are. It's only when we try to own ourselves in our totality, when we respond to life as it truly is, that we can truly relate to God.
That's the work of our spiritual journey.
Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.
Phil
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.1 Buckley, M. SJ “What Do You Seek?—The Questions of Jesus as Challenge and Promise”, Eerdmans (August 11, 2016)
2https://eerdword.com/what-do-you-seek-the-questions-of-jesus-as-challenge-and-promise/
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