I’VE BEEN preaching about Jesus’ popularity lately. The Gospel of Mark relates how people sought him anywhere he went to listen to his preaching, to witness and to experience his healing power and his ability to cast out demons. Even the notorious Herod manifested strong curiosity and admiration at Jesus’ power and popularity and at the same time jealousy and insecurity.
In the Gospel of Mark this Sunday we find Jesus healing a man with leprosy. When the man replied to Jesus, “If you wish you can make me clean”, without hesitation Jesus healed him of his dreadful disease. Jesus then summoned him to see the priest at the temple to report about the cure, not to publicize Jesus’ healing power but to request the priest to allow the man to be accepted back to the worshipping community and to his family. Nonetheless, as the Gospel relates, his fame spread throughout the land. Jesus had become a celebrity!
There is nothing wrong with being popular as long as it is for the greater glory of God. As a matter of fact, this was Jesus’ overall motive. His works were not about self-glory but about glorifying his Father; his whole purpose was to fulfill his Father’s will. He was a person driven to realize his Father’s vision: to ignite the world with love, peace, and justice to everyone and to redeem the whole humanity from sin.
Jesus knew the cost of popularity: he would lose his privacy (that’s why he took advantage of any opportunity to be alone to pray to his Father); he would be subject to further interrogation and close examination, to criticism, and in his case, to mockery and death on the cross. Nonetheless, he would succumb to anything for the sake of his Father and his love for the world and humanity.
We’ve got to keep this attitude of Jesus as we go about fulfilling our personal role and purpose in life. Our works and projects should not be about self-glory but about bringing hope, faith, love, and justice to people and about revealing the presence and power of God in this world. Indeed, it’s easy to consumed by prestige and popularity and lose focus on our true purpose and mission as followers of Christ. Everything that we do should be for the greater glory of God, ad maiorem Dei gloriam! Amen.
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Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas attended St. John Seminary in Camarillo, California and earned his Doctor of Ministry in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. For twenty years, he has been in the parish ministry of large multi-cultural communities. Since 2002, he has been the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Angeles. Please email Fr. Rodel at [email protected].