Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 30 of Season 7 for the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time  - September 22, 2024. Our Gospel reading is from Mark Chapter 9, verses 30-37. 

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

The Gospel of the Lord 

“Conversations,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

When we stop and think about it, a great deal of our lives are comprised of conversations that we have with others; conversations. And these various daily conversations take many different forms. Sometimes they're more superficial, sometimes they're more egocentric and about ourselves, or sometimes they reflect a deeper awareness that we've cultivated in the depth of our souls that is shared then with others. The many faces of our conversations. But if we look and reflect upon how we have conversations and what their substance really is all about, we begin to discover that they reveal an incredibly large amount about ourselves. You know for certain we cannot hide. We think we may be hiding ourselves from others, but we most certainly do not. What we say, how we say it, if we say it, and how we present ourselves to others reveals so much about who we are.  

As you consider the various conversations that you have day-to-day with different folks along the journey of your life, what do those conversations reveal about you? What do your conversations reveal about you? You may not like the answer you receive. Conversations are at the heart of everything. We even find them in sacred scripture. We see the prophets having conversations, God having conversations, Moses. We see conversations in the Book of Wisdom. We see Jesus having conversations. The disciples have conversations with Jesus and with each other. Today's Gospel is a perfect example of the disciples conversing with one another along the way. It's often a great spiritual technique to try to put ourselves inside of scripture and to imagine what may have really been going on behind the scenes of what we read. And today's an opportunity to do precisely that. We have disciples walking along the way. We're not told exactly how many there are, but let's assume there were quite a few of them. They just heard what Jesus said. And what's also interesting about all of our conversations, and it's true of ourselves, it's true in sacred scripture, it's true throughout the ages of humanity. We don't always communicate what is true. Sometimes we communicate to someone something that is false and in error. And so the disciples had just listened to Jesus talk about him suffering and dying; they listened to him preach. They're not new, out-of-the-box here in terms of learning about Jesus and discovering who he is. And even with all of that knowledge, they're walking along the way, and what's on their minds?  Not suffering for the Gospel, not preaching justice to a broken world. Not possibly being crucified and dying for their faith. They're worried about who's first. Who among them is better than the other? Who's Jesus' favorite? That was what was on their minds.  

Now, I gotta imagine during this conversation that we are told became an argument, they were arguing amongst themselves who was the greatest. As with any gathering of folks, is it possible, is it the least bit possible that in this group of disciples, there were one or two that may have knew precisely who they were supposed to be, and that this conversation was off-track, and that what was being discussed was truly in error and misunderstood? Is it possible that there could have been one or two? Let's assume yes. That not all of them got it wrong. Why didn't they speak up? Because that's exactly what happens when you and I are in groups and we're conversing with each other. Something may be discussed that we know is in error and is wrong, but yet we sit back and we remain silent, passively in the corner. Why? Because we may be afraid to speak up. We may be afraid to speak the truth. We may be afraid to be ridiculed. We may be afraid to be ostracized. We may even be afraid to be wrong, and so we don’t contribute what is really on our heart and mind and soul out of fear, and so we don't say anything at all, and we just stay in the confines of our fear. Is it possible that a couple of them may have been precisely there?  

You see, one of the things about the Gospel, and one of the things about understanding Jesus if we listen and get the message straight, is that the Gospel is not about our egos. It's not about who's gonna get into first place. It's not about who's more important than the other. The Gospel, the way of Jesus, is really what we call counter-cultural. It's something that goes against the grain, something that does not flow with the tide of the secular world. And so the disciple naturally is gonna stand out. It's part of the badge a disciple wears. 

Well, guess what? Everyone here today is a disciple of Jesus Christ vis-a-vis the fact that you're here in this church. You are a disciple of Jesus Christ. How proudly do you wear your badge? How often do we go out into the world and speak a counter-cultural message? If our families are being torn apart on Sundays because of all of these commitments that pulled at us, all of them look pretty good, but yet they're pulling at us constantly. Do we keep our mouths shut, or do we speak our minds?  

How often is it the case that our discipleship is something that finds its way into conversation? Now, I'm not talking about everybody going out and finding a soapbox, putting it on the corner of Main Street, and preaching the word. That's not what I am talking about at all. There’s a way that we can bring discipleship into our conversations that's done more implicitly, that reflects the values of our faith, that reflects the values put forth by Jesus Christ; things like faith and hope and love and justice and peace that when people are being marginalized, when we witness prejudice, when we witness things going haywire and wrong that we don't keep our mouths shut and sit in the corner, but that the voice that comes out of our mouth then reflects the choice that we've made and the choice that we've made is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ to become a servant of all, not just ourselves.  

So the disciples went back to Jesus. This is the part of the story I love the most, and Jesus corrects their error and basically says, you know, you are a bunch of fools. It's not about being first at all. In fact, you’ve got it pretty much reversed. Because if you think you're gonna be first, guess what? You're gonna be last, and you better be last because that’s where the Gospel puts you: last and the servant of everybody else. So you wanna compare yourselves to one another, there you have it. You're flatlined. You're all at the end of the line.  

So now, how do you feel about it?  

And I'm sure the disciples because they loved Jesus, allowed that to correct their misunderstanding, and I want to assume that they went forward and changed how they conversed with others going forth. So, the questions we can play with this week and kind of dabble within our prayer are these. First of all, what do your conversations reveal about you? What do your conversations reveal about you? Number two, do you ever find yourself afraid to speak the truth? Afraid to speak the truth? And if so, why? And number three: Is Jesus Christ ever allowed into your conversations? Do you ever allow Jesus into the conversations you have with others, if not explicitly, at least implicitly?  And fourth: do you ever allow Jesus to correct the errors of your knowledge? Do you ever allow Jesus to correct the errors of your knowledge? You see, we can certainly speak of faith, hope, and love, of being a servant to others, of the Good News that is given to the world, and of the justice and peace that Jesus wants us to speak of. But if we keep that Good News close to our chest and it doesn't formulate on our lips and become a voice of the choice we've made to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, then what good is it really? 

Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.