25 February 2020 - ask rightly

Today's Readings

(Audio)

You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.

We have disordered passions within ourselves. We do not want the right things for the right reasons. The large and obvious symptoms of this are the wars and vast systemic inequality in the world. But even in our own lives there is discord introduced by desires which are not God given. Jesus invites us to be poor in spirit. He warns that it is hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. We resist this invitation, desiring things which God does not intend us to have, which will not give us joy. Jesus invites us to delight ourselves in him so that he can satisfy us (see Psalm 34:4). He calls us to seek first the Kingdom so that the other things that our Father knows that we need can be added unto us (see Matthew 6:33).

You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly,
to spend it on your passions.

Jesus does want to bless us with good things. Our Father knows the things we need. He even knows those things which will give us delight if we receive them as gifts from him. He does give such gifts and we in turn are thankful. James is not saying that we must only ever have the bare minimum in our lives. Instead, we are called to avoid the desires that stem from pride, jealousy, or entitlement. Anything for which we would be ashamed to offer thanksgiving to God should be avoided.

But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.

If we are ashamed to tell Jesus that we were arguing about being the greatest it is because there was something wrong with our desire. Maybe it stemmed from fear about the place of the Cross in the life of Jesus and our own lives. Maybe it stemmed from a sense of entitlement about what we felt was our due as Christians.

Let us stop asking wrongly, to spend it on our passions. Let us start asking for gifts that we can offer back to God.

Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,   
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

Jesus calls us to a humility which we need if we really want to put the Kingdom above all else. If we really want to be able to love even the least of his people with nothing to offer our passions will not provide us motivation. We need to learn from the one who came not to be served but to serve. He will give us the grace to follow in the way he leads us.

Cast your care upon the LORD,
and he will support you;
never will he permit the just man to be disturbed.