Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

Reading 1 Jer 18:18-20

Responsorial Psalm 31:5-6, 14, 15-16

Gospel Mt 20:17-28

There is an amusing side to today’s Gospel reading. The ambitious sons of Zebedee approach Jesus with their mother in the hopes of being granted a place of honor in His Kingdom. Jesus asks them, “Are you able to drink the chalice that I am to drink?” They reply, “We are able” (Matt 20:22). So far so good. But then comes the funny part. Jesus congratulates them on being willing to embrace the chalice of His passion, but only now informs them that the place of honor is not His to give!
One can imagine James and John feeling a little nonplussed, having agreed to suffer on Jesus’s behalf only to realize they weren’t being promised anything in return. In this passage one clearly sees Christianity’s inversion of pagan values. Jesus calls out the Gentiles’ approach to lordship, and in its place He establishes that central paradigm of humility, which we saw in yesterday’s readings.

To be clear, Christianity doesn’t just take pagan ethics and add some icing on top. On the contrary, Jesus inverts pagan values, transforms pagan virtues, and offers us a radically new perspective on what it means to be fully human. In the moral and social decline that threatens to engulf our contemporary culture, it is not difficult to see that when we begin to neglect this Gospel vision, chaos ensues. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” St. Paul tells the Romans (12:2). Such is Jesus’s message to His disciples, the same message He delivers to us today.

Do I at times compromise or downplay my Christian faith out of a desire to be liked or a fear of being shunned?

If so, how can I become more courageous and counter-worldly in the way I live out the Gospel?

Reference:

Journey Through Lent: Reflections on the Daily Mass Readings by Clement Harrold