29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(B - cycle)  September  18,  2009

In the Gospel about a month ago, the Apostles exasperated Jesus by arguing about which of them was the greatest. To teach them, and maybe to shame them, Our Lord put a little child in their midst, as if to say, “Look, even this little child knows he’s a dependent. How come you don’t know that you’re dependent on God for any greatness you may possess?”

In today’s Gospel, it appears that two of the Apostles, James and John got the wrong message. Maybe they thought Jesus was telling them to be childish, because that’s how they were acting in asking Him to give them the best seats in the Kingdom of God, affording them a big edge on the other 10.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite movies, “Big”. That’s the picture in which a twelve year-old boy wakes up one morning still a pre-adolescent in mind and heart, but with the body of a full grown Tom Hanks. When his hysterical mother won’t believe that this seemingly adult stranger is her son and threatens to call the police, he goes to nearby New York City and tries to make a life for himself.

Using his computer skills, he gets a job at---where else?---a toy company. His co-workers are a sad lot, engaged in false sophistication, office politics, gossip mongering, turf marking, power grabbing, and rival bashing. The boy is oblivious to this nonsense. All he cares about is doing his work creatively and well, and he finds much joy in it, in contrast to his sour colleagues.

When one of them asks a woman he is sweet on why she is attracted to the Tom Hanks character, she replies, “Because he’s a grownup.” Ironically, there is a connection between child-likeness and maturity, because the child-like focus on what is really important. Childishness with its emphasis on me-first is more akin to arrested development. The child-like build community. The childish destroy it.

James and John were childish in today’s Gospel; they were child-like by the end of their lives. Something had happened in between. From the cross they learned to die to themselves and live for others. Through the crucified Christ they had become saints, which is another way of saying they had become real grown-ups.