TO BE THE SERVANT OF ALL

XXV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - James 3:16-4:3

Throughout the history of humankind, wars have been always there. It seems that people are not able to live without fighting, moved by a strong desire to destroy the others, whom they see as enemies. We may ask ourselves why is it like that. The apostle James gives a straightforward answer: 

“Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force” (James 4:1-2)

We are moved by jealousy and ambition, and “Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done” (James 3:16). We cannot see someone who is better off than us, as if those have stolen from us, and then we want to reclaim it and get it back, even by force. If the other does not give up willingly, we are ready to silence him, so that we will no more be confronted by him. We feel threatened by the others and, in order to overcome that fear, we get rid of the threatener. Since the beginning, it has been like that. Cain considered his brother to be better off than him. Then, his jealousy and envy became hatred and he couldn’t stop worrying about that; instead of a brother, he started seeing an enemy that should be destroyed. And so he killed him.

We do not accept ourselves with our limitations and then, in order to measure how we are faring, we compare ourselves to others and blame them for our shortcomings. Like Cain, we make ourselves the victims and react against the aggressor. In the end, Cain was the only aggressor and he stopped at nothing to get rid of his brother.

We are in need of the wisdom that comes from God, the one that “makes for peace, and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good; nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it” (James 3:17).

We may think that the Church is or should be immune from enmity and infighting, but is not so. And this Sunday’s gospel puts it very clearly. On their journey through Galilee, the apostles, unwilling to understand and to accept Jesus’ prophecy of his impending death, started quarrelling about who would take the first places: “they had been arguing which of them was the greatest”. Within the Church, there is as much ambition as in the world and this ambition brings all kinds of infighting, creating factions, which are ready to use any means to obtain influence and power. If they cannot get it, they are ready to betray or to go into war. There are people who see themselves in danger and are ready to destroy their supposed enemy. The desires and the passions within ourselves make us blind to our faults, while wide opening our eyes to the shortcomings of the others.

Jesus has a completely different attitude and presents us with a different way of life: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35).