“Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.”

(From Matthew 20:17-28)

(In this reflection, I’d like to also offer a preview to Sunday’s Gospel.) What’s greatness?  Seriously.  How would you define it—at his point in your life?  Is it money? Is it popularity?  Where you live or what you drive?  Is it good looks?  Today’s Gospel passage takes us directly to the heart of the matter when Jesus says to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant.”  And there you have it.  Greatness is rooted in humility, genuine humility.  It’s the kind of humility that says, “I’m not that concerned about what other people think about me…say about me…how they look at me…” and so on.  No, the greatness of which Jesus speaks often manifests itself, not in the things we say “yes” to but those things of the world to which we say “no.”  While the mother of James and John makes her request of Jesus genuinely, look at what it led to.  The next think you know, there is division among the twelve.  “They became indignant,” Matthew writes.  An innocent request, perhaps made by a worried mother, risked moving the disciples further away from their mission and further away from an understanding of Jesus’ promise.  Jesus then takes the opportunity to sit them all down, challenge them, and then make the statement quoted at the top of this page.  Greatness is to be found in acts of genuine, from-the-heart service.  Not in things.  Not in notoriety.  Not in a family name or any award we could ever receive.  Not in our number of followers, views, or likes on any social media platform. But, hey, here’s the thing.  We all know this—already.  Yet, at times, we fall into the trap of “trying to keep up with the others.”  I could cite numerous examples, and so could you.  Just look at the things to which our children are drawn.  There’s a lot of pressure felt by many parents to make such wishes come true.  Cars. Clothes.  The next phone upgrade.  The same goes for us as adults too.  As we will be reminded in this coming Sunday’s Gospel, we’re all tempted to drink from the wrong well, and often we do.  If we want to achieve the kind of greatness of which Christ speaks, we must first allow He who is the greatest of all to give us what we need.  We have to drink from the well that is Jesus Christ, not all the other stuff that the world offers. I think of that line from the movie, “The American President,” staring Michael Douglas.  It’s the oval office scene in which they’re arguing about whether or not the president should respond to statements made by his opponent, played by Richard Dreyfus. The president’s aid, played by Michael J. Fox, tells him people are so thirsty for leadership that they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage—and when they discover it’s not water, they’ll drink the sand. Douglas responds, “People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty.  They drink the sand, because they don’t know the difference.”

For today—and also with Sunday in mind: what well are you and I drinking from? Greatness is born when we allow Christ to quench our thirsts and we, in turn, quench the thirst, ease the sufferings of others.