Our Greatest Ambition
Let us pray: Holy God – Open our eyes to your presence. Open our ears to your call. Open our hearts to your love. Amen.
Ambition fuels much of human behavior. In our world, “climbing the ladder” is a way of life. We see this in business, in academe, in politics, and yes in the Church. Now, some kinds of ambition are good and beneficial. But when our ambitions are essentially selfish, we can adopt an “any means to an end” philosophy. When selfish interest dominates our ambitions, we run the risk that our principles will be compromised. We find in our second reading from the letter of James, that he was very concerned about this tendency. That’s why he wrote to warn First-Century Christians about the effects of what he called “selfish ambition” on people and on the communities they belonged to. He says, “Whenever people are jealous or selfish, they cause trouble and do all sorts of cruel things” (James 3:16, CEV).1 The alternative, from James’ perspective, is “the wisdom that comes from above.” He says that this wisdom leads us to be “pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:17). For James, “wisdom” is about taking our religious faith and making it real in daily life.
But that’s not really what we see in our world in terms of the meaning of life. As a society, we view the meaning of life in terms of ambition – what we can achieve, who knows our name, and what we have acquired. And we frame the meaning of life in terms of what it takes to get there.
Our gospel reading today speaks to this subject of ambition in a powerful way. We are told that Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee, but he did not want anyone to know it. Jesus is now teaching and sharing with his disciples what is to come. Jesus explains — for the second time — that he will suffer, die, and rise again after three days. The disciples don’t seem to understand a word Jesus says, but they’re too afraid to ask questions. The disciples can’t make the faithful leap with Jesus. They’re bound by preconceived notions of who and what the Messiah must be, and they lack the imagination to envision a world as revolutionary as the one Jesus holds out to them.
If you remember, the first time that Jesus speaks about his coming suffering and death, he scolds Peter harshly when Peter rebukes such unpleasant talk, while the disciples continue to be absorbed in measuring their own ambition for greatness, especially in relation to one another. Peter, James, and John must be wondering, for example, whether they’re somehow more important because they were up on that mountaintop with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Who could blame them for feeling just a little bit special?
Now, away from the crowds in the privacy of a house, Jesus turns and asks them what they’re talking about. I imagine a very long awkward silence. As paraphrased in The Message, “the silence was deafening”.2 The disciples must be embarrassed as we learn from the text that “on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest” (Mark 9:34).
Jesus sat down and called the twelve to him. We know something important is coming when Jesus sits down, the traditional posture of a teacher. This isn’t just a casual conversation but a critical teaching for the disciples. Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). In these fourteen short words, Jesus challenges the disciples and us to think in a counter cultural way about greatness – and being first in God’s kingdom. This is just one more radical up-ending of the way the disciples imagine how things ought to be, –and hoped they will be, when Jesus comes into their idea of HIS glory. Jesus had already told them in the gospel from last week, that if they wanted to gain their life, they should lose it (Mark 8:35). Now, when they want to find their way to the top, to claim greatness, Jesus is telling them to lay claim instead to the last and lowest place.
To illustrate his point, Jesus taking a child in his arms, says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (Mark 9:35). We must resist the temptation to become overly sentimental about this scene for we will miss what is happening here. In the ancient world, children weren’t just vulnerable because they depended on adults for survival. Children had no legal protection, no status, no rights. They were, physically and culturally, the lowest of all people, with nothing to offer anyone in terms of honor and status. So for Jesus to tell his disciples – who had just been arguing among themselves about which one of them was the greatest – that to welcome him, they must welcome a lowly child – this turns all their ideas about greatness upside-down.
Jesus is not saying that we should not or cannot be great. Rather, Jesus is asking us to reframe our understanding of greatness. In our world, most people associate greatness with the achievement of wealth, political power, authority, status, fame, or recognition, but in God’s kingdom, greatness involves humility, divine grace and love of others.
I have to wonder if the disciples had been so engrossed in their argument, that they hadn’t even noticed the child’s presence, which makes the point that much more profound. They were all caught up in deciding who was going to the corner office in the heavenly court, –who was going to be seated in the place of highest honor, and whose title was going to reflect how highly respected they were by God and the community. I wonder if are we also so concerned with status, personal advancement, and public opinion that we forget to serve one another and those with less power?
Jesus wants us to understand that this child represents those of any age who are not valued, who are least valued by the world and by society. And this is important. Because when a society views any of God’s children as contributing nothing, as being weak, when there is the misconception that being different means deficient, it becomes easier to withhold respect, easier to affix labels and stereotypes, and there is the danger that some our sisters and brothers will be seen as expendable. And we know from history that this does not end well.
My dear siblings in Christ, Jesus challenges us, not to look for the presence of God, only in church but in the world around us. Jesus challenges us to look for the face of God in the faces of the excluded, the marginalized, the homeless, the ones left out. The face of God is there to be found. The living God is found in the faces of the different, the stranger, the poor, and the helpless. And it is in recognizing the holiness in these faces that we will be able to remake our hearts to welcome the living God into our lives. And we will find greatness in God’s kingdom; when we share with others who have nothing to share with us, when we overcome fear, tear down walls, and make room for those who are different from ourselves, vulnerable, and in need. May our greatest ambition be to follow Christ and build God’s kingdom as servants of all. Amen.
1 Contemporary English Version® – Copyright © 1995 American Bible Society.
2 Peterson, Eugene H. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002. Print.
All other scripture references from: New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA.