They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, Jesus began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” (Mark 9.33-35)
Seven years ago, an interesting thing happened at the Boston Marathon, just one year after the bombing that had brought so much harm and heartache to the same event. A Massachusetts man was running in the middle of the pack, much like the thousands of other runners who know they’ll never win the race, but who run for the joy of it.
About a third of a mile from the finish line–a bit past the 26-mile marker–the man started to struggle to stay on his feet. His legs began to shake uncontrollably, nearly giving out beneath him. Seeing what was happening, a runner, not far behind the man, caught up with the runner, wrapped the man’s left arm around his own shoulder, and began to carry him.
Speaking to the staggering runner, the second man said, “We’re gonna make it, we’re gonna make it, but you’re gonna have to help me get there.” But the exhausted man had nothing left, his body slowly slipping from the grasp of the second runner. Amazingly, seemingly out of nowhere, another runner came alongside the two of them and took the struggling runner’s other arm.
More came to help. A young man and a young woman ran next to the men and the four carried the exhausted man the last quarter-mile of the race. They stopped just short of the finish line, allowing the first runner to walk across on his own. When all five runners had crossed the line, they exchanged high fives. Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said.
That powerful image stands as a stark contrast to the image that we find in the gospel selection that we hear today, a scene not unlike the marathon in some ways, but the opposite in crucial other ways. The Rabbi and his cohort are on the way to Capernaum, an argument breaking out among the followers, loud enough to get the Rabbi’s attention.
After they had entered the house where they were staying in the city, Rabbi Jesus confronted his followers, wanting to know, “What were you arguing about on the way?” Sensing his disappointment with them, not one of them answered, each one hanging his head in disgrace. The reason was clear enough.
The writer of the story lays bare the reason before us in simple, stark terms, telling us, “They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.” Hearing the cause for Jesus’ dismay, we are surprised only in the sense that Jesus was surprised by the actions of his close followers. For us, the argument among them seems unsurprising, inured as we are to competition, finding it at every hour of the day.
Surrounded as we are by the competitive drive, living it ourselves for the most part, we have come to accept it as a fact of life, even embracing it, claiming it as something good, providing us with motivation to achieve. We may want to be wary of the ease with which we accept competition as a good thing, especially since Rabbi Jesus seems to come down on the other side, seeing it as something undesirable.
Again, it is one of the many instances in the scriptures when the Galilean Teacher breaks away from the ways of the world, putting before his followers an entirely different way to live in the world. “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” This is his reply to his followers after he learns that they have had a heated argument over who was the greatest among them.
Did he win over their hearts? Perhaps, after a while. Has he won over our hearts? Perhaps, at least a few. We live in a world that cultivates competition, that pays big bucks for gladiators in the arena, that rewards cut-throat practices in business. For the Rabbi to turn this world view on its head is a high bar, the very air we breathe filled with a bloodthirsty mania.
The tentacles of rivalry reach far and, once in their grip, do not allow for escape. The latest effort to appear “the greatest,” the natural offspring of our social media obsession, is the rise of businesses that rent props that people can use to stage their public persona on these platforms. So, for example, a photo studio charges $64 an hour to rent one of their spaces that is set up to look like the interior of a private jet. Still other companies sell empty boxes and shopping bags from high-end retailers like Tiffany, Dior and Gucci.
These are just a few of the examples that exist today that show the lengths people will go to come off as better than others, richer than others, superior to others, never realizing that they have ingested snake oil that will not bring them happiness, but will only bring them greater discontent. The empty boxes bearing name brands that surround them reflect the emptiness within their own lives, the purpose of which is to elevate them above others, but, in the end, turns them into caricatures and pretenders.
The truth that Rabbi Jesus wishes his followers to understand is that God made us to be together, side-by-side, not on opposite sides. The primordial utterance that echoes through the eons is the Creator’s words, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” those words forever after offering us a guide for our way in this world, prompting us to live together, not apart, to work together, not against, to prosper together, not alone.
Some years ago, a missionary was explaining to a woman in a village in Nigeria that women in North America had water piped into their homes. Hearing this news, the Nigerian woman immediately became somber, a sadness covering her face. Looking at the missionary, she asked, “How do the women speak to one another? If I didn’t talk with the women at the village well,” she said, “I wouldn’t know about their lives.”
Her response, ridiculous to people living in grander, greater, and more glorious locales, is closer to the concerns of the Creator when he put us upon this earth, providing us, first of all, with a community in which we can live, love, and link ourselves, his plan from the start that we embrace one another, not fight against one another.
Not surprisingly, modern psychology has found the same to be true, evolutionary psychologists pointing out that compassion or care for others was a life-saver when our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ survival depended on working together, not against one another, bringing about the formation of communities and then cities, might found in numbers, not in solitary digits.
Similarly, educational psychologists have shown that children learn best in an environment where they work together towards a goal, not work against each other for a prize. Putting our heads together benefits us far more than butting our heads against one another. Competition, it seems, works best when we compete against ourselves, not others, pushing against our limits, expanding our efforts. Mini-wars in the classroom end where most wars end–nobody wins.
When we, as followers of Rabbi Jesus, learn the same truth and implement a way of life that welcomes all others into our world as brothers and sisters, not as competitors or enemies, we will build a world where harmony can be the lay of the land, not disharmony, where closeness to others is preferred, not distance, and where unity is valued, not disunity.
Another story from Africa can help open our eyes, this one about a remote village called Shango Oba, whose people had a long tradition of communal celebrations. Always, when there was an occasion for a feast, everyone would gather in one place, sitting cross-legged on the ground, while the elders would apportion the food, everybody receiving enough.
A young man from the village called Jacob received a rare invitation to study abroad at a university. He was away from his village for a number of years, becoming educated in the ways of Western culture. When he returned to Shango Oba, the people welcomed him back as they did all great events, with a feast.
However, as Jacob watched the villagers gather together, he felt obliged to offer his opinion on what he saw. “I mean no disrespect,” he said to the villagers, but why are you eating your food on the ground?” Confused, one of the elders answered, “How would you expect us to eat, standing up or sitting in a tree? This is how we always eat.”
Answering the elder, Jacob said, “Civilized people sit at a table.” Pondering his words, the villagers paused their eating, slowly proffering the proposal that if this is the way it was done with the wise people in the civilized world, then they also should have a table on which to eat. So, the elders brought a table into the village.
Unfortunately, the table was only big enough to seat eight people, resulting in the villagers’ quarreling each time they had a feast, vying with each other to have a place at the table. Some said it should be the young men, since they had to carry the table into the village. The women said it should be them since they had prepared the food. The elders said it should be them, since primacy of place was owed to their years.
As a result, something happened at Shago Oba’s feasts that had never happened before–peace had departed from the village. After a while, Jacob’s father, calling him aside, said to him, “My son, look what you’ve done. In the name of civilization, there is now no shared purpose, no unity, no community.” Jacob, taking in his father’s words, was disheartened because he knew it was true.
Later that night, he took an ax and chopped the table into many pieces. He picked up the pieces and laid one at the door of every hut in the village. In the morning, he called the village elders together and told them what he had done. He said, “I want to see unity and harmony return to Shango Oba.” That same day the elders decreed it was time for another feast, this time to celebrate the end of the table.
As we have seen, when the disciples started to ask who was the greatest among them, they soon found themselves in a heated argument, discussion turning into dissent, debate turning into disagreement, and difference of opinion turning into defensiveness, all of which saddened Rabbi Jesus, who knew the heart of his Father, seeing play out in front of him the opposite of what his Father had envisioned for the world.
Speaking to them, he offered them a new way of interacting in the world, suggesting to them that “if anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” We are left to wonder what the world would look like were we to actually live out his words.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 