Who is the greatest?

This Sunday, our Lord teaches us about a virtue that can be the antidote to an inflated sense of self-importance and ambition.

WORD OF FAITH: A breakdown of each week's upcoming Sunday readings to better understand the Word of God at Mass.

Many observers of nature and indeed of human nature note how there is an order and a hierarchy in things, whether this is something like the food chain or how any organization works. People often speak about the “natural order” of things. People also like to be recognized and acknowledged, and concerns about one’s status or standing in a community can be very important indeed. A loss of status, or the experience of being ignored or snubbed, can be very difficult to bear.

In the Gospel for this weekend, Jesus speaks about such matters. One has to admire our Lord’s patience, too. He is busy speaking about the very heart of his mission: to suffer, to die and to rise. And what are the disciples doing? They are arguing, or perhaps even squabbling, about who is the greatest in the Kingdom! In response, Jesus patiently teaches the disciples (and us) about what it is to be “great” in the Kingdom.

Being overly focused (or obsessed) about being the greatest or about status can so easily lead to an inflated sense of self-importance and ambition that tramples down others to feed that ambition. This is why Jesus mentions “being the last of all and the servant of all.” Worse still, all this focus on status and importance can lead to a superego and a lack of awareness or sensitivity to others. The ego has landed! In extreme cases, people can see themselves as exceptions to every social convention, or even as above the law. This has certainly happened in the Church and in politics. 

Instead, our Lord teaches us about a virtue that can be the antidote to this. It is not perhaps a very popular virtue in our present culture and yet it is essential for human and spiritual growth. It is, of course, the virtue of humility. However, we need to be clear about what this means. It is not a sort of weak or simpering attitude, or of having a very low self-esteem. Nor is it going around saying how terrible we are. Ironically, this can be a sort of pride. When we pull ourselves down, then we can really be waiting for others to say how great we are!

So, what is this virtue of humility? Our English word “humility” comes from the Latin word humus, which means “of the earth” or “earthed.” Humility, then, means being earthed: that is, being grounded or realistic and honest about who we are. It means having a deep knowledge and understanding of both our gifts and our strengths, but also of our faults and failings. Humility also helps us to recognize that we are not self-made: we rely on others and, above all, on God! Once we are grounded like this, two great things can take place. 

First, we can use our gifts and talents happily and in service of others; that is to be the servant of all. We are no longer looking over our shoulder to see who might be competing with us, or whether doing something will gain us more points and increase our status. Instead, it helps us to be generous to others and also thoughtful of others. We are still ambitious in a way, but this ambition is for using the gifts that God has given to us. We understand that they are not our gifts in service of our ego but rather that God has given us these gifts to be used in his service. This is how we “receive” others, and so actually receive Jesus, as the Gospel tells us.

Secondly, it also means that we can make spiritual progress. With God’s help, we can build up our strengths but also work on our weaknesses. Humility teaches us that we are not perfect and that we need to develop ways to overcome them and that we rely totally on God’s help to do all this. Sometimes too, we may feel that we have so many faults and failings. A great way to grow in humility is to take a minute or two at the end of each day and to make an examination of conscience. We can simply review the day and look at how we have used our gifts well and where we have fallen down (and then resolve to do better the next day). The examination always includes asking for God’s help in this project.

Furthermore, we have what we might call the sacrament of humility: reconciliation or confession. It is a wonderful way to heal our faults and failings that, in all humility, we can see and then be filled with God’s love and strength to try again to grow in goodness and in love.