Monday in the 26th Week of Ordinary Time, September 28, 2020

Luke 9:46-50

An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest. Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child and placed it by his side and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.”  Then John said in reply, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow in our company.” Jesus said to him, “Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”

It should not surprise us that the Apostles got into arguments with each other.  St. Luke records this one, but others must have occurred.  After all, they were twelve men who had left everything to follow this wonder-working preacher whom they believed to be the Messiah, if nothing more than that as yet.  They moved about constantly on the dusty roads, slept outside, either on the streets of a town or outside in the fields, ate irregularly, and faced a vague personal future.  At the same time, as men they felt a competitive urge that was heightened because of their circumstances.  The stakes were real for them.  If Jesus really were the Messiah, and his words and deeds told him that he was, their hard sacrifices would be rewarded with places in the coming new administration of a reborn Kingdom of Israel.  And the Apostle closest to Jesus would get the choicest position.

Jesus intervenes not by telling which Apostle was most important to him, but by explaining what the position of “Apostle” really meant.  The Lord took a child and set it at his side and told them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”  But what does the Lord mean here about “receiving” such a child?  The Greek word can also be translated as “to welcome”, which is different from merely “receiving”, which can be done with reluctance.  Whoever, then, welcomes and treats with honor the least significant believer, welcomes the Lord himself, and so also his Father.  This is the job at which the Apostle must strive to excel.  This requires a change of heart, a change of vision.  It means to live and work with the little ones of this world, teaching them the Faith by what we say and do.  We “welcome” Christ in the little one in that it is Christ who brings him to us, and also in that we can learn about the Faith from such a one in ways we couldn’t imagine.  To be the greatest saint we must become the greatest servant.  This may remind us of how Pope St. Gregory the Great called himself “the servant of the servants of God”.

“Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name.”  This sounds like an unrelated question rather than one directly connected with the preceding.  John, with his brother James “the sons of thunder”, probably is expecting the Lord to order his Apostles to take action against this person.  At the same time, when he says “someone casting out demons” he means “attempting” to cast them out, since without Jesus giving him the power and authority to do so, he could not.  To this, the Lord replied, “Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”  That is to say, Don’t borrow trouble.  But we might also recall how St. Paul rejoiced when the heathens who hated him tried to make his incarceration at Rome worse by saying all sorts of things about the Lord Jesus: “Some out of contention preach Christ not sincerely: supposing that they raise affliction to my bands. But what then? So that by all means, whether by occasion or by truth, Christ be preached: in this also I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1, 17-18).  We learn from this that even people who mischaracterize the Lord and his teachings lay themselves open to gentle but firm correction, perhaps beginning with a question: You raise an interesting point.  Where did you hear that?  By showing genuine interest in the person we may win a convert, something we probably not accomplish if all we want to do is to win an argument.