What are our ambitions?

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Today's gospel asks to examine our ambitions. What is it that we desire or strive for in life? To be top of the class at school, to get a better job, to own our own house? They are good desires and in Matthew's gospel 20:17-28, we see how the mother of James and John came to Jesus to ask him to fulfil the ambitions that she had for her sons. As any mother wants her children to do good, she asked Jesus to promise that her boys would have the top jobs in the his kingdom. In Mark's gospel, it is the two sons who ask Jesus. He had just told the disciples that he was on his way to Jerusalem where he would be conemned to death but they did not get the message and were sure that Jesus would form a powerful kingdom on earth. The most remarkable thing about this story is that Jesus was not angry with them for their complete misunderstanding of his mission. Rather he asked them if they were prepared to give their lives even to death for him. When they answered yes, he gently led them away from their ambitions for material power to a life of dedicated service to a different type of kingdom which would bring true happiness despite the opposition that they would face. This Lenten gospel challenges us to ask if our ambitions are solely limited to earthly advancement or if we have discovered that Jesus' message of loving and serving God and our brothers and sisters is the only model for human relationship that will lead us to a deep and lasting happiness.