Who is the Greatest?

Good Morning! I hope you had an amazing weekend and are ready to get this day started right. Be sure to READ and/or LISTEN to the readings for today.

In our Gospel reading today, we see the disciples behaving like normal human beings. I think sometimes when we read scripture we want to place the disciples on a pedestal and elevate them to a different status that us because they walked with Jesus. Yes, they are special and we learn a lot from them, however, they are human to. They have the same human desires and have the same human sins we do.

Our Gospel starts with the disciples arguing about who is the greatest! For real, they are arguing about who is the best! As children, we have proabably all done this, especially if we had siblings, but how often have we found ourselves doing this as adults, or at least thinking it at some point?

As they are arguing, I imagine it hurt Jesus heart a little bit. He knew what was in their hearts and what their intentions were. To prove a point, Jesus brings a child over and uses the child as an example.

"Whoever receives this child in my name receive me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest."

Luke 9:48 (NABRE)

Why the heck would Jesus use a child as an example of being the greatest? I think some of this has to do with the pure heart and intentions of a child. Children are also totally dependent on their parents and must have total faith and trust in them. 

This is how we must be with God. We must humble ourselves and realize we are nothing apart from Him. We must see that we can do nothing on our own and everything we have, do and are come from Him. 

By bringing ourselves to a low position, we allow Jesus to elevate us to a higher one!

Our Gospel wraps up with John asking Jesus about someone else who is casting out demons in Jesus name. Jesus says "Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you."

I am not going to lie, I struggle a little with this answer, because we see false prophets all around us. When we look at these two passages together, we see something different. Jesus is looking at our hearts. Was John so concerned about false prophets, or was he concerened about someone else doing the work that they were doing? Did John think that only they were "cool" enough to do God's work? 

Regardless, we need to keep ourselves humble. We need to have childlike faith and we need to not stop people from doing God's work.