Often our desire for first place is too worldly; we fear desiring to be first spiritually

“If anyone wants to be first, he will be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)

A literal translation of Sunday’s Gospel offers a new perspective. Our lectionary gives “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all”, which implies two different decisions: the decision to be first and then the decision to be last – as an obligatory means to being first.

Sometimes our spiritual life can seem like that: we do acts of service as a means to an end, not for their intrinsic value. We do not really want to serve, but we do it despite ourselves.

But the literal translation removes any suggestion of inner conflict about service: “If anyone wants to be first, he will be last of all and servant of all.”

In other words, there are not two separate decisions, one for spiritual excellence and another for service (as a kind of “necessary evil”). Service is simply an automatic consequence of an authentic desire to be first: if we really want to have first place spiritually, we will serve without even having to think about it.

Service is the natural result of a genuine desire for holiness, not simply an inconvenient means to an attractive end. The question to ask is not primarily “Am I prepared to serve?” but “Do I really want to be first spiritually?”

Often our desire for first place is too worldly, and so it does not flow into service instinctively. As St James says in the second reading: “when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.” (4:3)

Perhaps we are afraid of really desiring to be first spiritually, because of the self-sacrifice it involves. Jesus could speak in the same breath of his death and of his glorious resurrection – he knew both were expressions of divine love, not just the glory.

The service of humiliating self-sacrifice on the cross flowed from Jesus’s holy desire to do his Father’s will – it was very painful, but he chose it because it he knew it was the way to express his love.

Jesus gives us the example of true service: welcoming a child as he did. We are called to serve those weaker than ourselves, as Jesus serves us, his inferiors.

But our inferiority matters not to Jesus: he sees the peerless dignity of each person and calls us to do the same –  since “anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (9:37)

We not only imitate Jesus in serving the weakest, such as children, but we can also imitate children: they do not go silent when they don’t understand or when they are asked what they have been talking about –as the disciples do in this Gospel.

When we have a question for Jesus, do we really ask it? When he asks us something, do we fall silent?

RELATED: Additional Sunday reflections from Fr David Howell

Pope John Paul II with two little girls during an open-air mass for Madagascar youths, 29 April 1989. The pontiff visited Madagascar, La Réunion, Zambia and Malawi from 28 April to 06 May 1989. It was his 41st International Pastoral visit. (Photo credit should read DERRICK CEYRAC/AFP via Getty Images.)

Fr David Howell is an assistant priest at St Bede’s in Clapham Park. His previous studies include canon law in Rome, Classics at Oxford and a licence in Patristics at the Augustinianum Institute in Rome.

The Catholic Herald is launching the New Lectionary texts for Magnificat from December 2024. Pricing details can be found at catholicherald.co.uk/magnificat.

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