(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
Grandma is dying and we grandkids are arguing about who gets her car or which of us is grandma’s favorite. We do not understand what is going on at the moment.
This is like what the disciples were doing. After Jesus announced his coming death, the disciples started jockeying for position in the kingdom. They did not understand what was going on. They only thought of their own position.
I find it common among us humans, that we tend to think of ourselves first, before all else, as if the world turned about us instead of about the sun. The world will not end when we die. We live for the totality, not for ourselves alone.
We could look at it another way. We are all rich and wealthy when it comes to ourselves. We tend to hoard our riches because we do not want to live in the poverty of not having our own wealth. The disciples were like us in this respect. They had the wealth of their own position in their own eyes and they did not want two of them to get more wealth than they had from Jesus. In the wealth of their own eyes, they wanted first positions in the kingdom.
When we surrender the wealth we think we have from our own self-estimation of our worth, we gain the real wealth of God. Jesus shows us how to die to self in order to live for God. Because his wealth was living for God, Jesus is named and exalted as the Christ, the Son of God and given the name above every name, that of Lord to the glory of the Father.
I am considering my wealth and my desire to dominate. I must learn the lesson of service given and not service-to-be-received-by-me. I must, you must: we all must.