“Here we go again…” The phrase is commonly used to express emotions such as exasperation, frustration or irritation in response to letdowns or one’s repetitive negligence. Said under your breath, it is also valuable in steeling yourself up when a bore is approaching or about to start his dull stories. Perhaps an equivalent of such a phrase sprang into Jesus’ disciples’ minds when he droned on again about his impending demise: “The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.” We heard something similar last Sunday; in that instance, Peter loudly protested and was quite harshly put down by Jesus. Then, in the course of St Mark’s gospel, Peter and two brothers, James and John, accompanied Jesus on the mountain and witnessed a glimpse of his glory. It made them mesmerised, enraptured, almost intoxicated with happiness, as if their hopes and dreams were about to come true. But on the way down, Jesus ruined it when he “ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9). “Here we go again…” Having previously been harshly rebuked, Peter and his companions “kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” (Mark 9:10). When they and Jesus returned to the rest of the pack, they found them surrounded by a great crowd and arguing with some people. It turned out that it was all about a possessed boy whom the disciples hadn’t been able to exorcise. Jesus successfully did so, and the disciples and the crowd were enthralled. (Mark 9:14-29). But he ruined it again, as we heard in today’s gospel: “The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death, he will rise again.” “Here we go again…”
I wonder if Jesus used it, too, in his reaction to the disciples’ inability to grasp his teachings. Three times in quick succession, he’s been talking about his mission, its purpose, and the means to achieve it, and yet it looked like this had no traction in their minds. On one occasion, they tried to persuade Jesus to change his mind (as we heard last Sunday). On the second one, they kept quiet, giving it only a fleeting thought. In today’s passage, “they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him,” so the disciples quickly fell back to a more crucial and practical matter of arguing about their importance within their group. When Jesus overheard that, perhaps he thought: “Here we go again…” It was time to try a different approach from last Sunday’s harsh words and dressing down.
Firstly, Jesus didn’t intervene in their silly arguments on the spot. He let it go until the disciples got themselves stewed up in the bickering and eventually fell silent, sullen, and brooding. Some time later, his opening question, “What were you arguing about on the road?” exposed the silliness of their showdown. “They said nothing” as they realised their petulance and pettiness. Perhaps they were ripe for listening, and more attentively this time around. “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.” Though he used different words, essentially, Jesus repeated the message we heard last Sunday: “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Jesus’ ways of achieving genuine greatness were modesty, humility and service to others. Unfortunately, they were counterintuitive to the common perception there and then, just as they are nowadays. The comments made in today’s second reading from the letter of St James remain as relevant today as when they were written: “Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony and wicked things of every kind being done.” We are exposed to such dangers because we live in a world where individual ambitions and desires trample over those of others. The language might sound outdated, but the diagnosis stands: “You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force.” That’s how we instinctively deal with life and its challenges, whereas following Jesus’ model requires mindful effort and an attentive mind. Sometimes, a failure or misfortune can be the moment to stop and, like the disciples in today’s gospel, no matter how sulky we are, sit down with Jesus and open up to listening attentively, bearing in mind what St James beautifully described in his letter: “the wisdom that comes down from above is essentially something pure; it also makes for peace, and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good; nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it. Peacemakers, when they work for peace, sow the seeds which will bear fruit in holiness.”
