Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist
We can be competitive people. I don’t like to lose, and it is easy to take nearly any activity and make it a competition. You can find boys sitting around a table bragging about who eats more food. We can compete over cars, marriages, who is busier; just about anything. So when I saw the little moment of competitiveness in John’s Gospel, today about who ran faster, it felt pretty familiar. I want to draw two points from this: the first is to draw out some positives from competition and the other point is a negative component.
I think John notes that he ran faster than Peter because, as we have traditionally held, he was the youngest Apostle. This little bit of competitiveness comes from his youthful spirit. He has the vivacity to have fun and make games out of the littlest things. You rarely see adults racing each other to the car, but that is a common activity for kids and young people who want to make a mundane trip a little more fun.
Not only does this show youthfulness, it also shows the fellowship that John talks about in the first reading. Peter and John were in community together. Sometimes we act like the Apostles were strangers who awkwardly stood next to each other listening to Christ. But 3 years together would have brought some true community and fellowship into the lives of the twelve. You can almost imagine John retelling the story of the race to the tomb with a playful smirk on his face as he calls Peter “an old man.”
I also think this falls in line with Pope Francis’ recent admonishment to not assume that seriousness means we all have to walk around with “funeral faces.” Or in the words of Fr. James Martin, “If you are always deadly serious, you’re probably seriously dead.”
Those are the positives. The negative is not so much with competition as with the way we do it. Because we can make anything a competition, we can sometimes make our faith a competition. This is why I love the line from the litany of Humility’s petition “That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should. Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.” These words are directed at our temptation to become competitive Christians. Do you think you do it? I do.
I find myself more upset if someone is interrupting me by talking in Mass than I am grateful that they are there in church. I can judge people if they don’t know things I think should be commonplace instead of compassionately offering them an explanation. I can spend more time watching how other people receive communion rather than preparing my heart for an intimate encounter with the Lord that cost His life and requires Him to come in the utmost humility; as bread and wine. Worst of all, I can do all of this believing I have a better poker face than others, rather than asking for Christ to deliver me from my pride.
I think John in today’s Gospel is telling us to have fun and live a little. Race your friends to Mass or whatever. But don’t let your pride be the motivator of your competitive spirit. For though you may win the footrace and reach the tomb first, we’re all moving toward the same goal; to enter the tomb and believe so that we might all share in the victory that Christ won for us, because we couldn’t do it for ourselves.
-Spencer Hargadon