32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 11th November 2018)
Humility and Emptiness – (Mark 12:38-44)
We have a powerful Gospel today. We see this great contrast that is being made for us. Pride and arrogance versus humility and emptiness. Wow! If you really let it sink in, it is one of those Gospel readings that you could hear it and just move on and not give it a whole lot of thought. But it is profound if you really let it sink in. You see, what Jesus is saying is not to be like the scribes and the Pharisees. What they are attracted to are seats of honour and wealth and comfort and nice things, being recognised by everyone and everyone recognising all of the great things that they have done. There is a pride and an arrogance to all of that. However, what is Jesus saying that God is really attracted to? A little widow who goes into the Temple and gives her last pennies. That is humility and emptiness. She does not have a whole lot to give but she gives everything that she has. Let that sink in today. I can honestly say that it is one of the most jarring moments of my life to come to this realisation that the things that I am attracted to are not the things that God is attracted to. I am attracted to nice things and I am attracted to wealth and doing well and people thinking good about me. That is what I want. I want to be acknowledged, honoured, held up and people esteeming me. However that is not what God is attracted to. That is pretty jarring to realise and that is a good thing because if we do not change what we are attracted to, then in the end we are not actually going to be with God. That is how you get to Heaven! By being attracted to the things that God is attracted to. You start pursuing the things that He desires. You start letting yourself be changed and transformed and becoming more and more like God. What Jesus is saying is that this is what the Father is attracted to. He is attracted to emptiness and brokenness and littleness and smallness. That is what He wants from us, that is what He desires us to become like. Wow! That means letting go of all of the things that I want and desire and of the whole framework that is in my head of what I am attracted to.
We are in the final Sundays of the year. The liturgical calendar is coming to an end pretty quickly here and as we are coming to the end of the Sundays in Ordinary Time leading up to the Feast of Christ the King, what have we been reading about? All of the readings are about the end times, judgement and about death really. We see it all around us where leaves are falling off of the trees and we are coming to the end of a year. But really it is the beginning of a new year for us in the Church with the first Sunday of Advent. It is a time, liturgically, where the whole focus is on preparing for the end. That is why this Gospel is so important. You cannot be any more prepared for the end than knowing what God is attracted to and praying for the grace to change.
‘Lord change me, change what I desire in my heart. Change what I am attracted to so that I am attracted to the things that You are attracted to. I want to be more like You. I want to be more like that little, simple widow who did not have much but she gave everything that she had’.