2018-5-22

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣为门徒指出他们的榜样是一个小孩。耶稣清晰地告诉门徒自己在耶路撒冷将要面临的一切：祂将被拒、受尽折磨、并且被杀。众门徒对此毫不在意，反而争论他们当中谁最重要。对于耶稣，通向伟大的途径在于指向加尔瓦略山和忘我之爱的苦路；对于众门徒——还有古往今来大多数人——则在于不断自我膨胀。

 

解药何在？耶稣向这些野心勃勃的门徒提出以小孩作为活生生的模范。我们首先注意到耶稣坐下来，双手抱着这个小孩，以身体语言来表达自己与小孩的相似性。为什么？小孩子不懂得如何伪装、如何口是心非。他们表里如一、言为心声。

 

为什么四部福音书均有记载这个关于耶稣把自己等同于小孩的故事？因为这个故事接近耶稣的生平和传道的核心。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus presents a child as the model for his disciples. Jesus lays out for his disciples what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem, how he will be rejected, tortured, and killed. Oblivious to this, the disciples are discussing who among them is the most important. For Jesus, the path to greatness lies on the road to Calvary, to self-forgetting love; for the disciples—and for most people of most ages—it lies along the road to ego inflation.

 

What is the antidote? A child is proposed as a kind of living icon to these ambitious disciples. We notice first how Jesus physically identifies with the child, sitting down at his level and placing his arms around him. It is as though he is saying that he himself is like a child. How so? Children don’t know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest nature.

 

Why was this story of Jesus’ identification with children preserved by all of the synoptic Gospels? Somehow it gets close to the heart of Jesus’ life and message.

 

2018-5-23

朋友们，在今天的福音中，若望对耶稣抱怨有外人以耶稣的名义驱魔。耶稣回答：“不要禁止他！…因为谁不反对我们，就是倾向我们。”这种态度是多么令人惊叹和宽宏大量啊！

 

若望无疑很生气，因为圈外人将得到大众的好评。如果你认为这种事情只会发生在圣经时代，那么你在教会呆的时间还不算长！我是个自豪的神职人员，而且热爱和钦佩所有对基督王国有着莫大贡献又不求回报的好人。但是，在教会呆了这么久，我也在众多教区职员、主教管区办事处、神父寓所、教区社团当中看到过这种事情。我们过份忙于这种小博弈、维护自己的地盘、确保一切不违反现有的官僚结构，以致于忘记了真正的使命。

 

耶稣明白真正重要的是使命。把天主的爱带给世人、成为恩典的传导体：这才是最重要的。我们的个人荣誉、地位、特权——这一切终究是无关重要的。

 

Friends, today in the Gospel John complains to Jesus that some people not of their group were driving out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus responds: “Don’t prevent them.…whoever is not against us is for us.” What a wonderful, generous attitude!

 

John was undoubtedly angry that someone outside of their little circle was going to get credit. If you think that this sort of thing only happened in biblical times, you haven’t spent too much time around the Church! I’m a proud churchman, and I love and admire all of the great people who do so much for Christ’s kingdom, and for very little compensation. But I’ve also been around long enough to see this problem on parish staffs, in diocesan offices, within rectories, and among parish communities. We get so tied up in our little games and protecting our turf, and making sure things go according to the bureaucratic structures that we have established, that we forget what the mission is about.

 

What Jesus saw was that the mission is what matters. Bringing God’s love to the world, being a conduit of grace: that’s what matters. All of our personal glory, position, privilege—all of that is finally a matter of indifference.