Service and Humility - The Flip Side to Pride and Envy

Today’s gospel has Jesus moving south to Capernaum – on the last leg of His journey toward His crucifixion. His time here on earth was nearing an end. Before he left, He needed some private time; some one-on-one time with his chosen disciples to write His message on their hearts. And just what was that message that He gave them at this most crucial time?

Christ’s message was that greatness comes from serving others. In the Kingdom of God, ordinary human values are often reversed. To be first in God’s Kingdom one must be willing to be last and to be servant of all.

Status in the kingdom of God is characterized by the twin elements of humility and service. Humility is love that seeks the good of others. It is the grateful awareness that life is a gift. Life is a gift and humility acknowledges that gift’s dependence upon God.

And complementing humility is service. Service is treating the weak and unimportant with compassion. A servant is characterized by his activity. The word deacon is an almost literal transcription of the Greek word used in this passage for servant. Here “servant” (diakonos) depicts one who attends to the needs of others freely, not under any obligation.

Being a servant combined with humility is a path to true greatness. Greatness in Christ’s kingdom is a matter of sacrifice, not superiority. Greatness in Christ’s kingdom consists not of position but of ministry. Greatness involves caring about people who can do nothing to repay you. Mother Theresa is probably our best current example of this.

At issue in this text is the disparity between a grasping behavior that seeks worldly greatness and a receiving behavior that relies on grace!

Today’s reading from the letter of James tells us that the passions within us are what cause conflict among us. We compete for power, prestige, and possessions. This is the way of the world. The ambitious say humility and service are no way to work ourselves up to the top of the heap. Formed by the wisdom of the world, they are correct!

Mark has great concern for the misuse of ambition within his faith community. How ambitious Jesus’ disciples are! They argue about who is the most important among them instead of trying to understand the meaning of their leader’s prediction of His impending crucifixion.

But, Jesus did not abolish ambition. Rather, He refocused and redirected it. He replaced the ambition to rule with the ambition to serve. For the ambition to have things done for us, he substituted the ambition to do things for others. Jesus did not condemn the disciples’ ambition; rather, He redirected it toward selfless service which, He taught, is the only way to achieve their true ambitions.

Jesus says, “If you welcome the poor, ordinary people, the people who have no influence and no wealth and no power, the people who need things done for them, you welcome me. More than that, you welcome God!”

There is a warning here. It is easy to cultivate the friendship of the person who can do things for us and whose influence can be useful to us. And it is equally easy to avoid those who inconveniently need our help. Jesus asks us to seek out not those who can do things for us, but those for whom we can do things, for in this way we are seeking Jesus himself.

Sometimes I think our fears to seek out those we can help or our fears to accept help from others are driven by a combination of pride and envy. These are the flip sides of humility and service.

Pride can cause us to turn our time and attention to the accomplishment of what we want and not what God wants. We over-estimate our own importance and the role we play in this world and under-estimate the Providence of God. Likewise, envy can turn us away from a focus on the Will of God and onto our own self interest. Both pride and envy cause us to focus too much on ourselves and not enough on God -- just like what was going on with the disciples in today’s gospel.

Envy often shares space with pride! We must combat envy through good will, humility, and abandonment to the Providence of God. By loving service to one another and by generous sharing, we move away from pride and envy and toward humility and service. We are strengthened and comforted in this process if we trust in God’s Providence. This frees us from anxiety with regard to our own future well-being.

Jesus asks us to seek out not those who can do things for us, but those for whom we can do things. This calling is to all people; those who are rich and those who are poor; those who are privileged as well as those who are oppressed. To those who have been given much, much is expected; and to those who have been given little, much is expected! The expectations are high for everyone! All are called to be builders of God’s Kingdom!

We are but instruments in the hands of the Lord. In all humility we do what we can, and in all humility we entrust the rest to the Lord. Humility keeps us in our place. It keeps us aware of the limited nature of our own human freedom and the all-embracing rights of God over all He has created. It is God who governs the world, not we. It is for His advantage that we labor, not our own. We offer him our service only to the extent we can, and only for as long as he grants us the strength to do so.

So, let us go forth from here to work toward being servants of others. Let us work to overcome envy and pride so that God’s peace can find a way in the world. Let us keep in mind that “the first shall be last and the last shall be first”. The disciples and all of us gathered around our Lord are welcomed here through the grace of God. It is pure gift! As God gifted us, we are called to gift others! And in striving to do that, the unbounded generosity of Christ should be our example and our inspiration.