Sometimes Bible readings can seem alien, showing us a different world, one that is hard to imagine. Other times the stories are all too human, and despite the gap of 2000 years we can smile at what happens in the Gospel, and learn from it.

In the readings at church last Sunday, we had the story of the apostles James and John asking Jesus if they could have special high-ranking places in Heaven: ‘Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.’ (Mark Ch 10) They get extremely short shrift from Jesus (‘You do not know what you are asking’) and then their fellow apostles get antsy: ‘they began to feel indignant with James and John’, and Jesus has to take a stern line with all of them.

He says this: ‘Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all. For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve’.

I love this story, first of all because it’s so recognizable. Haven’t we all known that situation among a group of people working together? We have a tendency to admire our own contribution, and hope everyone else has noticed too. We want to be best friends with the important people, and it can be embarrassing to be knocked back.

But the deeper message is valuable too, as it shows an important difference in viewpoints. In the secular world, there’s a clear progression – the more successful and important you are, the more other people will kowtow to you, will do your bidding and try to make you comfortable. You can demand service, you can pay for everything, you can buy yourself out of trouble. Looked at glancingly, that’s an attractive idea. But it can get uncomfortable – and it doesn’t match up with that very basic belief that we are all created equal. So it is actually a relief to retreat into Christianity, and find that the more you have, the more you should be giving away. The more you succeed, the more you should be looking after other people. The more power you get, the more you should look to serve others.

Pope Francis has nominated a theme for next year: “Pilgrims of Hope”. He wants 2025 (a jubilee year, as are all years ending in 25) to be a year of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, and a climate crisis. It’s a lot to deal with, and sometimes hope is hard to find, but Christianity can give us the tools to look for it. And serving others is an important factor in that. We know this: anyone who does help others always reports back that they gained far more than they gave, that they learned from the people they helped, they felt more at peace within themselves. Sometimes it’s just a question of getting started, of putting aside the temptations of the world and thinking about what is important, and what we have to offer other people. We have so much to gain as pilgrims of hope

Moira Redmond