Sunday's Gospel Reading reminds me of Muhammad Ali. Today, people will not hesitate to describe him as "The Greatest"--with the same energy he called himself "The Greatest," to boot!
But those same peoole who praise Ali now often forget--deliberately, even--the times in Ali's life when many treated him with hostility, disdain, and called him a "loud-mouthed nobody". Especially in the 1960s.
His close friendship with Malcolm X, his decision to become a Moslem, and his being a conscientious objector against the Vietnam War made him one of the most hated men in America. Like John the Baptist, he was one voice crying in the wilderness.
Sunday's reading also reminds me of young Emmet Till. His abduction, torture, and lynching at age 14 in 1955 for allegedly offending Carolyn Bryant and the acquittal of his murderers illustrate the depth and breadth of racism, injustice, and evil that victimize the most vulnerable in society: children.
Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the world continues to treat prophets and children as dispensable and replaceable nobodies. Prophets are silenced while children are traded. Prophets are vilified while children are comodified. The criminalization of anti-genocide protests worldwide and the murder of thousands of children in Gaza illustrate this tragic reality.
Sunday's reading reminds us how Jesus feels about prophets and children. For him, they are the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. But that's for Jesus. He always took the side of those in the margins.
How about us who take pride in calling ourselves followers of Jesus? Where do we stand?
*images of Emmet Till (from the Emmet Till Research Collection, Florida State University Library) and Muhammad Ali (shadow boxing underwater, 1961).
**The song "Greatest Love of All" was composed for the Muhammad Ali biopic in 1977. George Benson did the original recording. Whitney Houston's 1985 version made it a worldwide hit.
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