How Great Am I!




Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Have you heard of Mohammed Ali? I’m sure you have. He was as famous at boasting as he was at boxing. He used to boast he was “the greatest”, much before he actually did anything great. When he was at the start of his career, Ali was on a plane one time. He didn’t have his seat belt fastened, so the stewardess came up to him and told him to buckle up. “Superman don’t need no seat belt,” he told her. She gave him a withering look and said, “Superman don’t need no plane.”

We might laugh at this, but there is an innate desire in all of us to be great. That wouldn’t be so bad if it was becoming the best that we could be. However, we don’t want to be the best that we can be; we wanna be better than everybody else. And not just that, we want to be RECOGNIZED as being better than everybody else. Is this not true? And if we can’t become great ourselves, we will look for transmuted greatness. And this is best done through our children. If they become great, then we also become great.

So, we can hardly blame the mother of the two apostles for wanting her sons to sit beside Jesus in heaven. She would be the mother of the two guys who sat at the left and right of Jesus in the throne room of heaven. Greatness by proxy! How great is that! Anyway, the story doesn’t end here. The other ten apostles hear about all this backroom drama taking place and they get very upset. Why? Yes, they wanted those places for themselves, because they too wanted to be great! It would be funny if it didn’t reflect us so much. 

So Jesus hauls all of them in and gives them a proper dressing down. He tells them that they need to make a major paradigm shift. Paul would later call it the transformation of the mind (see Romans 12:2). Jesus says that seeking greatness is not a bad thing everybody desires it. However, we need to change the methodology, because the way we secure greatness in heaven is different from how we secure greatness in the world. Jesus explains how in today’s passage.

“Whoever wishes to be great among you,” Jesus said, “must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” But someone’s servant? So, we can run after greatness here on earth, wanting our names to go down in history books. Or we can seek greatness in heaven, where our names will be written in the books over there. The former will perish — how many kids today know who Mohammed Ali is? But the latter will last for all eternity.

So, you choose. Temporary greatness here? Or permanent greatness there?

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here: https://youtu.be/YvyUDLfCaBM



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