Homily - Sunday 25 Year B - ‘Who is the Greatest?’
In the London Olympics a familiar figure was present among the sporting celebrities who came as guests to the event: Mohammed Ali. I was reminded of how, when in the Millennium year the Olympic Games were hosted by Australia in Sydney, Ali was also present, featuring as the TV cameras scanned the crowd. A commentator on that occasion drew viewers’ attention to the former heavyweight champion:
‘Here we can see the greatest sportsman of the decade’, he declared, ‘the greatest sportsman of the Millennium!’ No matter in what high regard the former world champion boxer is held we may consider that evaluation to be rather ‘over – the – top’.
Everyone knows that Mohammed Ali at the height of his career used to say of himself ‘I am the greatest’ – but to my mind what he fought in his later life gives him better reason to think of making such a claim.
In his post-boxing years Ali was active in the battle against racial prejudice in the USA, and against the oppression of the poor by international market forces. And he showed great personal courage in contending with the debilitating Parkinson’s disease with which he was afflicted.
In today’s Gospel the disciples ask Jesus ‘Who is the greatest?’ - conscious that throughout history it seems to be those with power and possessions. But Jesus opposes that point of view. ‘It is not those who lord it over others who are great’, he says, ‘but those who serve’.
To Jesus it is not the person who asserts his self regardless of others but the one who willingly denies his own interests for the sake of others who is noble. For Jesus, greatness shows itself not in the ability to exploit or manipulate others according to one’s own will but rather in the capacity one has for self-sacrifice for other’s welfare.
In such sayings, and in many other ways, the Spirit of Christ contradicts the spirit of the world. As the first reading puts it: ‘The ungodly say: ‘He opposes our way of life…let us see if his words are true…let us test what will happen at the end…let us see if God will deliver him’.’
Jesus was indeed put to the test – and he won. Christ was humbled…but he was then exalted; the ‘outcast’ became the centre of world wide spiritual renewal; the one who was put to death lives forever.
Certainly the Way of Jesus seemed at first to be unsuccessful leading as it did to his crucifixion…
Instead of strength and power we see weakness and vulnerability; in place of status and recognition we find abuse and mockery; in place of beauty, disfigurement; in place of wealth we see Christ stripped of his very garments, dispossessed of everything, forsaken by his closest friends, apparently abandoned by God in whom He put His trust.
But the proof of the wisdom of the Gospel way is that it leads in the end to Resurrection, to the fullness of life: ‘Christ as the first fruits, and then to all who belong to him’.
Called to follow Him we are to measure our personal success - our ‘greatness’ - not by the acquisition of worldly wealth and power but rather by our spiritual development – that is, by the growth in us of virtue and grace; by the manifestation in our lives of the characteristics of our Lord.
We are truly great if, like Him, we are people of courage and perseverance; people who defend the weak and poor; people who are imbued with faith, hope and an ever-generous love.