One hot summer day two men were working in a rail yard, driving spikes with eight-pound sledgehammers. As they worked in the heat, a private railcar came upon them. A man stuck his head out of the window and yelled, “Willie, is that you, my friend?”
One of the men replied, “Joe, I haven’t see you in years.” The man asked Willie to come aboard. A little later Willie and Joe shook hands and Willie left the railcar.
His co-worker said, “Willie, do you know who that is? That’s the president of the railroad. How do you know him?” Willie explained that the two of them began working for the railroad together twenty-five years earlier.
The man then asked Willie, “If you and the president both started out swinging sledgehammers together, then how is it that he’s the president of the railroad and you’re still here?”
Willie replied, “Twenty-five years ago I came to work for $15 an hour. He came to work for the railroad and to see how he could improve it.”
In today’s Gospel (Mark 10:35-45) we learn that James and John came to Jesus to work for their own self-interest, which meant sitting on his left or right when Jesus became a political power and drove out the Romans.
Jesus wanted them to work for the Kingdom of Heaven. That makes all the difference in this world and especially in the world to come. Jesus says there is a higher goal to life outside of myself and beyond myself. There is a goal – called HEAVEN!
Whoever wishes to be in charge must be the servant. It’s like Joe, the president of the railroad. He saw beyond his own paycheck to the greater good of the railroad and how he could change the railroad for the better as president.
What is the higher goal to YOUR life, outside and beyond yourself? How is getting to heaven a practical and a real goal in YOUR life?
THE WORLD WAS MADE FOR THE BODY. THE BODY WAS MADE FOR THE SOUL. AND THE SOUL WAS MADE FOR GOD!
