DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Jesus and His disciples came to Capernaum. When He was in the house, He asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.  Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” – Mark 9:33-35

I would rather be known as a good and godly man than to be known as the greatest, richest,  most powerful man in the world.  Why?  Because the former is of a nobility of a far higher kind, the nobility of a humble servant.  Yet, we live in a time and place where so many seem obsessed with being the greatest, richest, most powerful nation in the world, and so few hope that we will become a good and godly nation.  And herein is the worldly sin of nationalism and nationalist arrogance and lust for being the greatest among us, the children of God.

So many preach that we are a nation based on Christian values, yet we totally ignore this value that Christ required of His disciples.  You must not seek to be greater than one another but that you might be as servants to one another.

Now this lust for worldly power is rather consistent through the history of nations, but it becomes unbridled when the people of faith collaborate with these worldly forces.  The prophetic voice collaborates with the powers of this world, and the martial values of the nation first exploit and then cast aside the support of the godly.  Eventually this collusion, this alloy of worldly power and heavenly power, is a smoldering treachery that ends up as but ashes in a hellish forge.

In Christ, we are called to be servants, not merely in lip service but in our day-to-day devotion.  We are there among the poor of the poor and the least of the least.  We are among the oppressed and not among the oppressors.  We are people of the soup kitchen and not penthouse.  We are not Caesar, but rather we are Christ.

And yet … from time to time there are those who succumb to the Tempter who showed Him all the nations of the earth and said, “You can be greater than all of these.”

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz