Twenty-Ninth Sunday In Ordinary Time; 29th Sunday B -- Can You Drink The Cup?

Jesus asked James and John, “Can you drink the cup that I drink?”

To answer, One can use Theology as Drama. e.g. A supervisor and a nurse did a re-enactment when a patient was going to have an operation on her thumbs the following day.

The nurse asked, "Why? What's the matter with it?"

The patient said they didn't work properly, and slowly pulled back her sleeves to show the very limited movement of both of her thumbs—together with the deep, thick scars which covered her arms and hands. The patient said that she had burned herself on purpose and had been in a psychiatric hospital before.

For training purposes, the supervisor suddenly handed the nurse a wine glass that happened to be on a nearby shelf. The "director" asked the nurse to "lose" her thumbs by tucking them into her palms.

It was uncomfortable and difficult to hold the glass.

The nurse said, “I was amazed how difficult it was to have any grip and to hold the glass securely or with any stability, quite apart from trying to drink from it: and it soon became very painful. I explained this to the group and that I wanted to have someone take the glass away from me. However, the supervisor encouraged me to stay with it for a bit longer... Until it became almost unbearable and then the supervisor said, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?"

I immediately "heard" the words of Jesus in Mark's gospel: the Scriptures were opened to me.

This is the cup of sacrifice that God requires to help me to serve others in a new spirit so that others can really be heard and understood by me and can say that I had "been there with them" which makes all the difference.

Source: Practical Theology, January 1, 2009, Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?:

A Reflection on the Significance of Pastoral

Supervision in Health Care Chaplaincy, by

Deborah Ford.

We all have to drink from the chalice of self-sacrifice, renouncing our own illicit desires, our evil inclinations, or our own exaggerated desire for comfort, while at the same time embracing what sacrifices life asks of us, whether material or physical or moral, social or spiritual.

As Fr. Henri Nouwen said, lifting the cup “is an invitation to affirm and celebrate life together.’ It means joining in community and sharing our hopes and dreams, appropriate vulnerabilities, and giving others permission to do likewise.

2). Our First Reading said that through Christ’s suffering, many will be justified, and their guilt he shall bear.

This was the saving sacrifice of reparation by Jesus. It was diverted to one individual.

When we are offered the chalice filled with Precious Blood at Mass, Jesus is asking us: “Can you drink the cup that I drink?”

What is our response? Our “Amen” is our deliberate “we can!”

--Randall Metz tells about a sacristan who put a nice gold chalice near the altar before Mass. Her little nephew pointed at the beautiful cup and said, “Wow! Who is going to get that trophy?!”

Every kind of suffering is no longer a punishment, it was redeemed at the root. There is a pearl at the bottom of this chalice.

There is a freedom of surrender in the service of others.

Psalm 16:5, “Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.”

ACTION ITEMS

Max Lucado said that when fishermen don’t fish, they fight, like James and John against the others.

They learned, in effect, that leadership is "taking the initiative to influence people to grow in holiness and to passionately promote the extension of God's kingdom in the world"

Source: Servants of the Servant: A Biblical Theology of Leadership, page 3; by Don N. Howell, Jr.

Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2003.

Learn to recognize “James and John McZebedee” at our parish--they just want recognition. If they are students, they just want recognition and the best grades on their terms and not what the teacher wants, so they will ask for special favors from the teacher.

They don’t care about offering the cup that overflows with mercy and grace to those who are so very thirsty.

Eg. refugees, undocumented workers, those who are ill, those who can’t access health care, those experiencing homelessness, and all the others who challenge our comfortable, complacent lives.

C.S. Lewis says that “until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.” This is true not only in Christianity but in human psychology. It is not inner rings but friendship and service that offer us real belonging.

As Jesus explains in his reproach to James and John, the kingdom is not about who is in and who is out, nor is Christian greatness about who is on top and who is underfoot.