The Meaning of Discipleship

09-19-2021Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

The geography of today’s Gospel is significant. Jesus is completing his ministry in Galilee and beginning his journey to Jerusalem, where he will meet both death and resurrection. The prediction of his death placed here is the second of three in Mark’s Gospel, and as usual it is the occasion for an important teaching on the part of Jesus. Today that lesson is tied to the need for his disciples to embrace a ministry of service. A play on words in Aramaic would have linked the words “child” and “servant,” thus turning Jesus’ gesture of placing a child in their midst into an illustration of his understanding of himself as the Servant of the Lord.

It is that same awareness of the meaning of their ministry that Jesus (and Mark) wishes to instill in the disciples. Theirs must be a ministry of service if they are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. And that service might even require of them that they be “handed over” to death. What would have been—in the culture of Jesus’ day—an ordinary discussion of social status (“who is the greatest”) becomes in Mark’s context a key insight into the meaning of discipleship for the disciples and for us.