Today’s Gospel begins with a seemingly secret sidetrack wherein Jesus leads the disciples out of Capernaum on a journey through Galilee. During this time Jesus shares with the disciples that the Promised One is to be put to death, and will rise three days later.

It is a simple story. In foretelling the passion that He will undertake, Jesus tries to teach his followers, the chosen few, of what will come. But upon their hearing, the disciples fail to understand. Not only were they confused about what they had heard, the Gospel reads, “they were afraid to question Him.” Maybe the disciples did not know where to begin their questions after first hearing this from Jesus. Maybe in their initial shock they wondered; how could anyone die then rise only three days later? Why would the promised one be put to death in the first place? 

But rather than trying to better understand Jesus’s message, they began arguing over which of them will be the greatest. 

It seems as though the disciples were caught in a state of denial about what Jesus’s ministry was leading them toward. The disciples were holding onto a different vision of the Kingdom which they had once hoped the Promised One would bring. Maybe they pictured that Jesus would install them as great military leaders, or appoint them to highly esteemed political offices. The disciples expected the Messiah, the Promised One, to be a ruler of nations, a King of Kings. Why, they wondered, would Jesus be sent to death rather than fuel their nationalist ambitions?

In their arguing, the disciples were not focused on others, rather they turned inwards toward themselves. The way in which the disciples responded, by arguing rather than seeking deeper understanding, makes it clear how tightly they were clinging to life in this world at the expense of living into Jesus’s liberating message. 

I wonder what went through Jesus’ mind after hearing the disciples argue about their greatness. Here He is, emptying Himself unto death for His followers, meanwhile they are arguing about their own importance, their ego? Rather than striving towards personal success and greatness, Jesus’s call to his followers, then and now, is toward justice and liberation in this world. Jesus must have been dumbfounded at this moment, He simply sits down and speaks these powerful words: “If any of you wishes to be first, you must be the last one of all and be at the service of all.”

Yes, we could read this as a personal call to humility and meekness, but we must also expand the message toward our larger communities and society. For the first to be last would require a radical turning over of the status quo. To move toward being the “last one of all” in this US context would certainly begin by retelling our collective story.

In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, a noted scholar on colonialism, said that decolonization can be summed up simply as “The last shall be first,” and further said that “Decolonization is verification of this.” 

For Fanon, decolonization is a transformative process that “fundamentally alters [our] being.” He goes on to say that decolonization will require the creation of a “new language,” and ultimately a “new humanity” (2).

It seems as though Fanon would argue that Jesus’s clarity leads us toward decolonization. 

In our modern context, could it be possible for us to understand Jesus’s message as a decolonial one? Could we consider that Jesus may be asking us how to withdraw our complicity within violent settler-colonial states? 

If so, we must begin by letting go of what we know to be ‘true’ about our country’s origins, just as the disciples had to let go of the vision of the Messiah they thought would come, the strong political leader. Only when we let go of our ties to the empire can we embrace the beauty that comes through liberation. 

In our context, truth was shattered at the foundation of this country when it proclaimed “liberty and justice for all.” As we know, the sin of slavery has continued to permeate our country through Jim Crow laws, and now mass incarceration. This country, which has been built upon the backs of BIPOC communities, continues to favor those with class, race, and gender privileges. 

As someone who was born with race and class privilege I often ponder what it means to decrease, in order for others to increase. I wonder what it means for me to be the last, and to be at the service of all. 

While the empire entices us to argue about which of us is the greatest, we must instead empty ourselves to be at the service of all. We must die for a new life to come. We must live our witness to Jesus’s teaching for those who are dying daily.

In our Gospel, Jesus’s teaching culminates in his bringing a child to the center of the story as an embodiment of the message: you must be the last one of all and be at the service of all. He tells the disciples to welcome the children, as doing so will welcome Jesus Himself, and God who sent Him. Today we must plead with one another to not only welcome children into our midst, but to love and to serve them as if they are Jesus incarnate, because they are. 

Here are some poems written by Palestinian Children curated together in the book A Million Kites.

My name is Jihad from Gaza

We came to the camps in Rafah

As you know, 

it’s very cold today and we don’t know where to stay.

As you know,

we live in tents that leak when it rains.

And as you know,

we have nothing warm to wear, and nothing to eat,

and nothing to drink.

All we have is rain. That’s all.

We sleep on the ground.

We can’t find mattresses or anything to sleep on.

When we need wood to stay warm,

we have to go to the end of the world to find it.

Jihad, around 10 years old,

Gaza, December 2023.

_________________________

Do you remember the first time you tried to fly a kite? You probably gazed up at all those kites dotting the blue sky above you and wondered what you were doing wrong, why yours refused to go up. You probably watched the other kids, who made it look easy, like they weren’t even trying.

But rather than resent them for it, you did something about it.

You picked yourself up, kite string in hand, and ran like you were chasing the wind, looking back at your kite and pleading with it to keep up. The kite may have dipped, and your heart with it, so you ran faster. And then, the wind whistled past your ears, through your hair, and into your kite, carrying it up, up, up, and you felt like it might lift you up with it.

Do you remember that feeling in your chest when you could finally slow down because you knew everything would be okay? You had given it your all, and now your kite was up there, flying high with all the others.

Sometimes, even after all that, your kite still went crashing to the ground. Perhaps someone noticed your despair and offered to help, because at times, one person is just not enough when you’re trying to make big things happen.

And there is nothing more comforting than knowing you’re not alone. That there will always be someone, somewhere, who will be ready to run with you, faster and faster, until your kite is finally free.

leila & asat

_________________________

I’m planting.

So my home will be beautiful.

A child around 7 years old,

planting a seedling in front of their tent and watering it.

Gaza, March 2024.

_________________________

My wish

is to travel.

To get to a hospital

and get prosthetic arms.

So I can hold a ball with my hands.

So I can play.

So I can write.

So I can eat.

Mahmoud, around 11 years old,

Gaza, February 2024