Feast of St. James, Apostle
In today’s gospel reading from Matthew (20:20-28) we are reminded that Jesus isn’t about power and status and striving to be first. Jesus uses the question posed by James’ and John’s mother to instruct his disciples in what they (and we) should be striving for: to serve others. Jesus poses the question to the brothers, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” And although they say “yes”, they don’t yet get what is being asked of them. How many of us have been eager to say “yes” in life, perhaps with a youthful enthusiasm, only to later realize that it would be harder than we thought?
Life is hard. And in some ways it seems like it just keeps getting harder with age! Paul, who suffered more than his share of trials and tribulations, however, offers words of hope in today’s first reading (2 Corinthians 4: 7-15) that we read last month as well, “We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.”
And if I may borrow from the next verse of Paul’s letter, “Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day…for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” (vs.16,18)
In Paul’s poetic words, our bodies are “earthen vessels” in which the treasure of our Lord is held. He reminds us that the instruments God uses are human and fragile. I find Paul’s words encouraging as I am about to begin a new decade of life, aware of the realities of aging. Our bodies are fragile, we do suffer, we don’t live forever, yet we have hope in “knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus…” (vs 14)
May we find strength in that treasure within our “earthen vessels.” And may that treasure shine forth from our fragile (even broken) bodies to all we encounter and serve this week, this month, this year. Amen.
—Eileen Miller