24 February 2027 · Latin Rite
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“just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”” Matthew 20:28
Jeremiah has spoken God's word faithfully, and now the people plot against him. They say: let us bring charges against him and not heed any of his words. The prophet turns to God in pain: “Is evil a recompense for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.” He had prayed for the very people who now want him dead. Jeremiah is a figure of Christ, the innocent one who intercedes for those who reject him. The Psalm puts the words of trust on our lips that Jesus himself prayed on the cross: “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.” And again: “My times are in your hand.”
In the Gospel Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, tells the Twelve for the third time what awaits him: he will be handed over, condemned, mocked, flogged and crucified, “and on the third day he will be raised.” At that very moment the mother of James and John kneels before him and asks for the best places in his kingdom. Jesus answers gently: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They say, “We are able,” not knowing that the cup is suffering. And the other ten are angry, perhaps because they wanted the same places. So Jesus teaches them all: among the nations rulers lord it over others, “It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.” Then he gives the reason, the heart of the whole Gospel: “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” In Lent we follow him up to Jerusalem. The question is not which seat we will have, but whether we will drink his cup with him.
Theme: “Not to be served but to serve.”
The persecuted prophet, the cup of the Lord and the greatness of service.
“Is evil a recompense for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.” Jeremiah 18:20
“Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”” Luke 23:34
Apply: Pray by name for someone who has repaid your good with evil.
“Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.” Psalm 31:5
“But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.”” Matthew 20:22
Apply: Accept one difficulty today as a sip from the Lord's cup, and offer it with trust.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
“just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”” Matthew 20:28
Apply: Choose one person this week whom you will serve without expecting anything back.
The innocent prophet points to the innocent Son.
The way to greatness in the kingdom is the towel and the cup.
Take-home resolution: Take the lowest place in one situation each day this week.
Dear friends, Jeremiah had prayed for his people, and they plotted to kill him. He cried to God: is evil a recompense for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them (Jeremiah 18:20). He is a picture of Jesus, who prayed for those who crucified him.
In the Gospel Jesus tells the Twelve for the third time that he will be condemned and crucified and raised on the third day. And at that very moment the mother of James and John asks for the best seats for her sons. We do the same: we bring Jesus our ambitions while he is speaking of the cross.
Jesus answers: you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? (Matthew 20:22). The cup is his suffering. Later, James would be the first of the apostles to die as a martyr. He did drink the cup.
Then Jesus teaches all of us: it will not be so among you; whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant… just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:26–28). This Lent, let us stop asking for seats and start taking up towels. Amen.
Children, two friends of Jesus wanted to be the most important. Jesus said: the most important person is the one who helps everyone. Jesus came to help us and to give his life for us. Today, help someone at home without being asked!
Lord Jesus, you went up to Jerusalem to give your life as a ransom for many. Free us from the desire for the first places, teach us to drink your cup with trust, and make us servants of all. Into your hands we commit our spirit. Amen.
Today’s readings look towards the Cross by way of two men who are paying the price of their mission. Jeremiah’s enemies plot against him though he has prayed for them. Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, tells the Twelve what will happen, and on that very road two of them ask for the best seats. The answer turns our ideas of greatness upside down. The key words are plot, cup and ransom.
Setting.
Jeremiah preached in Jerusalem from about 627 BC until after its fall in 587 BC. He warned that the nation was on its way to ruin, and for this he was regarded as a traitor. Earlier in this chapter he has gone to the potter’s house and heard God say, “Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand” (18:6). The people answered that they would follow their own plans (18:12).
Our reading is part of a group of passages that scholars call Jeremiah’s “confessions”, or laments (for example 11:18–12:6; 15:10–21; 20:7–18). In them the prophet pours out his heart to God. Few other prophets let us see so far inside. The Lectionary stops at v. 20. In the verses that follow he prays for disaster on his enemies. It is an honest prayer from a man in pain, and it shows how far the Gospel will go beyond it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah” (18:18)
The speakers are not named. The next line shows that they are at ease with the religious order: priest, wise man and prophet, each with his proper gift. They are saying that the system will go on very well without him.
“Give heed to me, O Lord, and listen to what my adversaries say!” (18:19)
They said, “let us not heed any of his words” (v. 18). He asks God to heed. When no one will listen to him, he brings it all to the one who will. The Catechism says that the prophets drew light and strength for their mission from such encounters with God (CCC 2584).
“Is evil a recompense for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life.” (18:20)
The hurt is personal, and the question has no answer.
“Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.” (18:20)
This is what makes the pain so sharp. He had stood before God on their behalf, as Moses did (compare 15:1), and those he prayed for are the ones now digging.
How the Church reads it.
Christians have long seen in Jeremiah a figure of Christ: the innocent man, rejected by the leaders of his own city, who intercedes for them. People in Jesus’ day thought of him when they saw Jesus (Matthew 16:14). Jeremiah asks God to remember; Jesus goes further, saying, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). This also corrects a misuse of such texts: the plot is the work of particular men, and Jeremiah, like Jesus, belongs fully to the people he loves.
Setting.
This is the last stage of the journey. Jesus now speaks of his Passion for the third time in Matthew (after 16:21 and 17:22–23), and this third prediction is the most detailed. Only here among them does he say “crucified”.
Mark tells the same story with James and John making the request themselves (Mark 10:35–37). In Matthew their mother comes with them, kneeling. Her question comes straight after Jesus has spoken of mockery and flogging, and the Gospel lets us feel the gap between what he has said and what they have heard. She will appear once more, among the women looking on from a distance at the Cross (27:55–56).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised.” (20:19)
Jewish leaders and Roman power both play a part in the story, and neither is the whole of it. The Church teaches that sinners, all of us, were the authors of the Passion (CCC 598). The prediction does not end in death. “He will be raised” is a passive: this is the Father’s work.
“But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”” (20:22)
He does not scold them. He asks whether they can share his way. They say, “We are able,” and they have no idea what they are saying, but he takes them at their word.
“You will indeed drink my cup,” (20:23)
And they did: James was the first of the Twelve to be martyred (Acts 12:2). John, according to tradition, lived long and bore his witness in other sufferings. As for “right” and “left”, those two places are filled at Calvary: “two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left” (27:38).
“It will not be so among you;” (20:26)
A short sentence that has stood in judgment over Church life ever since. The Church has a different way of being great, or it has forgotten who founded it.
“just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (20:28)
The ground of the whole teaching. Jesus does not merely recommend service; he describes his own life. The Catechism says that “many” here is not restrictive: it contrasts the whole of humanity with the one Redeemer (CCC 605).
How the Church reads it.
This verse is one of the chief sources of the Church’s understanding of the Cross as a sacrifice for us. The Catechism sets it in the plan of the Father’s love and the Son’s willing gift (CCC 604–605, 608). It also grounds all office in the Church: ordination is a call to service, and those who receive it are servants of Christ and of the people (CCC 876). In the Latin text of the Mass the words over the chalice are pro vobis et pro multis, for you and for many, an echo of this same language.
A ransom is paid to someone. To whom did Jesus pay it: to God, or to the devil?
The image should not be pressed that far. It tells us the cost of our freedom and who bore it; it does not name a receiver. St Gregory of Nazianzus raised this very question and refused both answers: the devil had no right to such a price, and the Father did not demand it as if he delighted in blood. He says the Father accepted it out of his plan of love, so that humanity might be made holy by the humanity of God (Oration 45, in substance). The Catechism also speaks of the Son’s willing love and the Father’s love as one (CCC 604, 606).