01.06. Ambition
THE QUESTION OF AMBITION ’ Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?’
Mat 18:1 In substance, if not in set terms, this question was put to Jesus again and again. The disciples were firm believers in the Kingdom, and had staked everything upon its coming. If they were ever to be great, it must be then; and it was natural enough for them to think that as they had shared the fortunes of the King while He was waiting for His inheritance, they should have some signal reward when He entered upon it. Jesus Himself says as much. ’Ye are they that have continued with Me in My temptations, and I appoint unto you a Kingdom.’ But their misconceptions of the Kingdom are nowhere more plainly seen than in their ambition to fill the high places in it. The world’s idea of greatness is simply carried over from the old life to the new. It hardly needs to be explained. It is the idea that greatness consists in immunities, in exemptions, in the power of compelling others to do us service; it is as old as humanity; it is fostered in every human heart not only by native selfishness, but by plausible reasonings, innumerable examples, and habitual indulgence. The disciples hardly thought of modifying this idea: all that concerned them was, who was to be the great one. The best way to appreciate the question is to notice the various occasions on which it was put, and the increasing plainness, vehemence, and even severity of Jesus’ answer. The first occasion is that recorded in the eighteenth chapter of St Matthew. Jesus had lately shown special favour to Peter, James, and John, admitting them to see His glory on the holy mount. He had spoken to Peter of the keys of the Kingdom, and recognized in him some kind of eminence among the Twelve. Perhaps there had been some heart-burning over these or similar events when they asked Him point-blank, ’ Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? ’
Jesus did not answer directly. He never does answer questions about individuals. He would not even tell Peter what was to become of John. It is nobody’s business who is to be greatest, so far as that is a personal matter. What does concern us all is not who is to fill the highest place, but in what way eminence is to be attained. And nothing could be more beautiful than the manner in which Jesus met these jealous, ambitious, mistaken men. Nothing could illustrate more finely the terms on which He lived with them — ’familiar, condescending, patient, free.’ He called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The ’verily’ marks the answer of Jesus as one of the utmost seriousness, as well as the utmost sweetness. The gracious manner, the affectionate illustration, must not diminish the solemnity of the truth. The faces of the rival disciples are at that moment turned away from the Kingdom. Nothing less than a complete turning in the opposite direction, a complete renunciation of ambitious rivalry, can secure even admission. As for anything further, ’whosoever’ shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of God.’ The first point to notice in this answer is its generality — whosoever shall humble himself. There is no respect of persons with God. Greatness in His Kingdom is not titular or official, but spiritual. There can only be one Prime Minister in Britain, but the highest rank in the spiritual world is open to all. The second and principal point in the answer is this — the prime element of greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven is unconsciousness. The humility of the child consisted in the fact that he was not thinking of himself at all. He had no claims to make in Christ’s presence; he did not stand upon his dignity; he did not negotiate for terms, or for a reward, when Jesus held out His arms and said, ’Come.’ There is a sense in which this unconsciousness belongs to the perfection of all greatness: we admire it most when the great man is what he is, or does what he does, as unconsciously as a flower opens to the sun, or a vine bears the clustering grapes. It is a distinct abatement, for instance, even in the highest intellectual powers, when they show a face of pride and scorn to the weak. And if this is true of earthly things, how much truer is it of heavenly? The man who can stand face to face with Jesus, and all the time be thinking of himself — what he is to get, how high he is to stand, what distinction he may win, what terms he may make — has no promise of greatness in him. The whole foundation of it lies here, that when we see Him the thought of self dies. If we can be like the little child in His presence; if we allow Him to call us, lift us, bless us; if we simply trust ourselves to Him, making no claim, not having even the shadow of a claim cross our minds, but content to be with Him, and having no thought beyond that; then there is the basis in our souls on which greatness may be built. There is the promise of it at least, if it be not blighted by folly or pride. Christianity is revolutionary here, as on all fundamental questions. Jesus turns the world upside down, because it is wrong side up; He tells us that if we wish to be great, instead of setting our own image before us, magnified by ambition and fond hopes, we are to set Him before us, and in Him lose the thought of ourselves entirely. For here also the saying is true, that he who loses his life shall save it. The disciples were not without the sense that there was something unworthy in their question, something alien to the spirit of Jesus. He was not ambitious, but meek and lowly in heart; He did not seek His own; yet they were conscious of His greatness. Once when they had been discussing this persistent question by the way, he asked them what they had been talking about, and they kept silence. They were ashamed to say to Him what they had been saying, evidently with considerable animation, to each other; and it was a sign that they were learning, though slowly. But the lesson was far from perfect, for before long two of the most advanced and sympathetic of the Twelve not only raised the question again, but put in, through their mother Salome, a claim to the coveted pre-eminence: ’ Grant that these my two sons may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy left, in Thy Kingdom.’ And the other ten, on whom the sons of Zebedee had tried to steal a march, were filled with indignation; for they, too, had their ambitions, and were by no means ready to take the lowest room meekly.
Jesus, as Bengel says, was then dwelling in His passion: He was to have others on His right hand and His left before He entered into His Kingdom. The Cross was now full in view; it awaited Him at the end of a few days, perhaps not more than ten; and the passion of it throbs in His answer. It is as though He said to them, ’You wish for places beside the throne? They are to be gained as the throne itself is gained. They are open to you as they are open to all; they can be won by all who tread the appointed path. The greatness of the King — the Son of Man in whom humanity comes to sovereignty over the brute forces of the world — is the greatness of consecration, of suffering, of service, of death. That is how I win My throne. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I drink, and to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? ’ And then He turned from the two to the whole company, and with an urgency all the greater that this was among the last lessons He could hope to give to the men on whom the future of His work depended, explained once more the nature of His Kingdom and of greatness in it. ’What you have in your minds’ He says in effect, ’is a kingdom of this world, in which the great people lord it over the lowly and the strong exact service from the weak; but My Kingdom is the very reverse of that. " Whosoever would become great among you, let him be your servant ; and whosoever would be first among you, let him be your slave; even as the Son of Man came, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."’ The greatness, then, which begins in unconsciousness — in the absence of any thought of self, or of what self may claim — is perfected in service; that is, in the thought of others, and of the needs of others to which we can minister. High in the Kingdom of Heaven is he who has learned from Jesus to put himself out of his thoughts, and to spend and be spent, to the utmost limit of means and life, in lowly loving service of others. The further we travel along this road, the nearer we come to the King in His glory. Ambition makes us look at men in other lights — as rivals we have to overcome; possible claimants on our help, of whom we have to steer clear; as tools to be used, and then thrown away; as insignificant counters — but ambition is not love, and only love can exalt in Christ’s Kingdom. If we keep in His company, we shall attain that heavenly greatness, in some degree, which is fatal to selfishness and pride, and to which pride and selfishness are fatal.
Even the passionate lesson evoked by the ambition of James and John was not enough to cure the Twelve of their deep-seated fault. It broke out once more at the Last Supper, possibly over some small dispute as to places at the table, for the paltriest spark can kindle this kind of fire. Whatever it was, it had the usual effect; in thinking of themselves they forgot to think of each other. The odiousness of ambition is that it expels love, and when love is cast out men are blind to duty. There was no one to wash the disciples’ feet, as decency and comfort required, and no one would confess inferiority by moving hand or foot to supply the deficiency. Then it was that Jesus gave a last lesson on greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the full consciousness of His divine nature and dignity — knowing, as the evangelist says, that the Father had given all things into His hand, and that He came forth from God and was going to God — He rose from supper, laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. Then He poured water into the bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded. We are not, I should think, to suppose that this was a gratuitous service, a mere ostentation of humility, a parable in action for which there was no natural motive; the disciples’ feet needed to be washed, and ought to be washed; and when they were too proud to serve each other, Christ made Himself the servant of all. To all His other teachings, to the constant example of His whole life, He added this special instance of service, which must have cut them to the heart. How their cursed pride had humbled them again, and how, once more, had the lowly ministering love of Jesus exhibited His divine ’greatness! And He did not leave the act to teach its own lesson; He explained it with unmistakable clearness and emphasis. ’Ye call me Master and Lord : and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you.’ And then with redoubled assurance, as if of a lesson which, in spite of its apparent simplicity, it seemed all but impossible for the disciples to learn: ’ Verily, verily, I say unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord.’
It is as though He implored them to consider that there is only one kind of greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven, that kind which He possessed, and which others could only learn of Him. Love, unconscious of self but always mindful of others, ever awake to their needs, ever ready to serve them in the lowliest modes of service, incapable of pretensions, of claims, of self-assertion: this is the one and only greatness which God can recognize. It is not akin to what the world calls greatness; it is the exact opposite of it, and that is why it is so hard to understand. Not he who has most servants is great, but he who does most service. To teach the world this lesson has been hard, yet we dare not say it has not been learned at all. When Jesus lived, the most ignominious object on earth was the cross; now the cross is the loftiest and most honored of all symbols, and this change in outward appreciation marks to some extent a corresponding change, wrought by Jesus, in the common idea of greatness. We build our churches cruciform; we make jewels of gold and silver on the same pattern; princes give the Victoria Cross, or the Iron Cross, to their soldiers, in honour of self-sacrificing courage; the word that once spoke of nothing but infamy is now the most sacred and glorious in human Speech, because Christ has identified it with the greatness of love. He is great, who, as an early Christian glossed one of the royal psalms, reigns from the tree. And all true greatness is measured by nearness to Him. The common work of our life, the work by which we make our living, is exalted, and we ourselves rise in the Kingdom while we work at it, when we regard it, not as the instrument of our own fortunes, but as the divinely allotted calling in which we are to serve our brethren. It becomes great, and makes us great, in proportion as we can treat it as a partnership with Christ in His ministry to man. And few who have had even a remote contact with Christian ideas would deny that the truly great figures in humanity are those in which the spirit of the Cross has been supreme. Where do we find anything so great as that utterance of Moses: ’Oh, this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written’? Where do we find anything so great as this, unless it be in the similar yet more passionate and profound exclamation of St. Paul: ’I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren.’ These, as a great theologian has finely said, are ’sparks from the fire of Christ’s substitutionary love.’ And it is men like these whom that fellowship in the Lord’s passion raises to His right hand and His left in His Kingdom.