Readings for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Jesus turns again to tell the disciples about his death and resurrection. The disciples seem to have no response at all. Were they listening? Did they ignore Jesus? I wonder if they did not completely ignore Jesus because no sooner does Jesus predict the cross than James and John ask for something contrary to the cross: “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left” (Mark 10:37).
Jesus remarks that they do not realize what they are asking. They expect glory. Jesus retorts with the expectation of loss and self-diminishment. He asks them, “Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38) Uncomprehendingly, James and John say, “sure we can.” But again, they do not know what they are saying. For to drink the cup Jesus drinks is to share in his cross. It is a question for all of us.
Can you drink the cup that I drink? Can we let go like Jesus? We identify with Jesus when we practice detachment and spiritual poverty. We are in deep spiritual solidarity with Jesus when we lose ourselves in God. In other words, by practicing the way of the cross, we become united to Christ Crucified. Can we drink this cup, that is, can we live the cross?
The mystics recognize the identification that happens between the disciple and the Master through letting go. After all, Jesus says we will drink the cup he drinks. Jesus promises that we will be one with him in letting go. St. John of the Cross makes this clear in The Ascent of Mount Carmel: “At the moment of his death he was certainly annihilated in his soul...And by it he accomplished the most marvelous work of his whole life…that is, he brought about the reconciliation and union of the human race with God through grace. The Lord achieved this, as I say, at the moment in which he was most annihilated in all things: in his reputation before people…in his human nature, by dying; and in spiritual help and consolation from his Father, for he was forsaken by his Father at that time, annihilated and reduced to nothing, so as to…bring people to union with God. David says of him: [‘I was reduced to nothing and I did not know’] (Ps. 73:22), that those who are truly spiritual might understand the mystery of the door and way (which is Christ) leading to union with God, and that they might realize that their union with God and the greatness of the work they accomplish will be measured by their annihilation of themselves for God…When they are reduced to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between their souls and God will be an accomplished fact.” Just as Jesus was reduced to nothing on the cross, a disciple must be reduced to nothing by letting go, self-abandonment, surrender, detachment, or losing one’s life. In doing so, the disciple identifies with Christ Crucified.
Jesus then connects letting go and identifying with him to service. We let go into God and become servants of one another. He contrasts the ways of worldly power with Gospel power: “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45).
We do not use power manipulatively or authoritatively. It shall not be so among us, Jesus asserts. Rather, we use it by letting go of it. We show power through the cross. By letting go, we identify with Jesus. And this identification continues in service. We let go to serve. Here we have a vital connection to the Synod on Synodality. We discern where the Spirit wants the Church to go so we can better serve the world. We serve by proclaiming the Gospel with our lives, that is, by showing others the power of God in our own practice of letting go.