Readings
Jeremiah 11:18-20
Psalm 54
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
You know they say that confession is good for the soul. So let me confess to you that when I was younger, I was quite ambitious. No mountain was too high and no task too difficult. I had visions of making it to the top, whatever it took.
But you know what, it turns out that the top of the mountain was a moving target. And there seemed to be no shortage of tasks that were too difficult for me. And to my great disappointment, in the end I wasn’t the best, and there was always someone greater than me.
Over the years, however, what I came to realize is that life isn’t about winning or being the best. Life is so much more. By paying attention to the people around me I came to recognize that I was more than enough and that I didn’t need to be the best in order to be good.
In today’s Gospel Jesus caught the disciples arguing about who was greatest among them. And when he confronted them we can imagine that they were embarrassed, much like children in a playground fighting over a petty disagreement.
Jesus’ response however wasn’t to yell at them. Instead, he tells them that “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” He takes a little child in his arms and says, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Now it would be easy for us to read this passage as yet another one where Jesus is chiding and commanding his disciples (and by extension us). But I would invite you to think about it in a different way.
The issue at hand is the ambition of the disciples and the assumptions that must have been going on in them. To be arguing about who is the greatest would have involved questions of religious purity, religious practice, what we might today call spirituality, and the level of their devotion to Jesus. In other words, the most ambitious disciple would be the greatest because they would be at the top of all of those categories.
Jesus responds by inviting them to be at the bottom of the totem pole instead of the top. He says that this is what greatness looks like. That a willingness to serve the least is the pathway to what they seek.
He then goes on to use a child as an example. In our culture children are adored and placed on a pedestal. But in Jesus’ time, children weren’t even considered human. They were throwaway beings until they reached the age of puberty. You’ve heard the phrase “children should be seen and not heard.” Well in Jesus’ time it was children should neither be seen nor heard. All of this is to say that Jesus is picking someone as an example that would have been understood to be at the very very bottom of society.
Now, it would be easy for us to see this as a challenge we are to embrace. That we are to work hard to not be arrogant and to be willing to challenge our pride and seek humility. Our assumption might be that this will be difficult, but we can rise to the challenge and be less than others. We can put someone who is beneath us above us.
But if this is how we read the passage then it is just another invitation to be ambitious. It’s the ambition to be least and to serve the least.
I don’t think Jesus was challenging us to be ambitious in a downward direction. I think he was challenging us to actually be the least in the room. To serve the least as someone above us. But how do we get there?
You may be surprised at the answer. Implicit in Jesus teaching today is an assumption about us and about God’s relationship to us. That assumption is that we are both loved and lovable. It is the assumption that we need do nothing to be sufficient as human beings.
Imagine that. Imagine that you are sufficient just as you are right now. Imagine that you need do nothing more to be good and a gift to the world. That was the epiphany I had a few years ago and why I am no longer filled with unbridled ambition.
But you know what also happened because of that. I found it far easier to see the good, or even the great, in another person. I found it easy to recognize just how many people were above me in one way or another.
Now I don’t mean that my self-esteem tanked. To the contrary, my self-esteem is better than it’s ever been. But by no longer needing to prove my own goodness and sufficiency, I’m free to see the goodness in others in ways that aren’t threatening to my own identity.
The famed psychotherapist, Carl Rogers, called this state of mind “unconditional positive regard.” It is the basic acceptance and support of a person, regardless of what the person says or does. In this way of thinking we do not need to have people below us in order to feel worthy. This is one way of understanding what Jesus is saying about being least of all and servant of all.
But the central point of the matter implicit in today’s Gospel is that you are loved and you are lovable. You need do nothing to be sufficient as a person. There is no need for you to work for it or to prove it. You are the beloved of God.
May we have the willingness to trust that we are God’s beloved. May we have the courage to set aside our ambitions in order to see our real worth and acknowledge that we are lovable. May the path to being the least of all and servant of all be paved with the love of God.