Who is Our Master?

Gospel: John 13: 16-20

No one can be greater than their master, a truth known in martial arts and in chess.  It is one taught in religion, as Jesus does here, but so often it is dismissed and forgotten.  How often do we know better than Jesus!  How often do we equate our enterprises with those of the kingdom!  It is so very easy in the age of media empires and egos to see pastors and prelates and those who follow them rush headlong into their own cult of personality, forgetting who the Master is.  

How often do we seek to mold Jesus into a self portrait rather than see him as he is.  It is a much easier Christianity to shape an image of Jesus that allows me to do and say whatever I want rather than actually conform to the image of the Master himself.  How often do we prefer the placard to a towel and basin? How often do we carry the gun rather than the cross? Recall these words of Jesus in today's Gospel were uttered just after Jesus washed feet.  

We long to hear our voice in the public square.  We speak out.  We demonstrate.  One day we shout "Hosannah to the Son of David!", but if we are not careful we may find ourselves shouting, "Give us Barabbas!" instead.  Today is a day for us to reflect on who our Master is and on whose life we seek to conform and shape our own.  Today is a day for us to take up the towel and basin, to take up the cross and follow the One who called us to follow him.