On Friday morning, parents were invited to Ascension primary school for their children’s honor roll award ceremony. As the students were receiving their awards, applause began and you could see how the students were so proud as they basked in the glow. As I was sitting in the bleachers, I noticed one of the students sitting on the floor ‘light up’ and get extremely excited as she saw her daddy coming in the gym. He took the morning off from work to see her daughter get her honor roll certificate. I could see her telling her friends, “My daddy is here!” It seemed as though she was more excited about her dad being there than the recognition from receiving the award. Perhaps she understood that her dad considered her more important than his work; he cared about her enough that he sacrificed his work time to be there.
All of us have a desire to be recognized. When we have an excessive desire for recognition and honor, we call it ambition. In a positive sense, ambition is the desire to do great things for others and not for our glory. In a negative sense, it is the desire to do things to bring attention or glory solely to self. Whenever the desire to seek glory separates itself from seeking the good of the others or the community, it ends up losing magnanimity--the generosity of the spirit and heart. It’s not that ambition or the desire itself is bad; what it aims to attain determines whether it brings joy or sadness into our lives.
Take for example what John and his brother James asked Jesus in the gospel today. They asked, “Teacher, grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left." To understand the significance of their question, we must recall earlier scriptures to get a little background. Previously, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain and there before them Jesus was transfigured in magnificent beauty. There they saw Moses and Elijah standing to the right and left of Jesus. It was such an amazing experience that Peter even said, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” No doubt they were moved and awed by this great revelation.
Most of us cannot fathom what this memorable experience was like for John and James; we get a sense that they want Jesus to share this glory with them by putting them at the prominent place--to be at his right and left. Jesus, however, instructs them that this kind of glory is not attainable through earthly ambition--seeking rank, fame, and power. Jesus assures John and James that they will attain this glory, but in a totally unexpected way--by being willing to share Jesus’ redemptive suffering. The divine glory--the brilliance and mesmerizing light--that John and James saw at the mount of Transfiguration was the radiance of self-sacrificing, self-emptying love.
I shared with you before what one elderly lady told me about her near-death experience. When she was in heaven, all she saw was the brilliance of the light coming from Jesus. She felt immense joy and peace, but most of all she felt tremendous love. Then Jesus told her to go back to earth. She pleaded with him for her to stay because she felt so good that she didn’t want to go back. She asked Jesus why he wanted her to go back, and Jesus said, “Your 13-year old granddaughter needs you.” You can imagine a 13-year old girl, much like that girl I saw at the honor roll award ceremony who was so excited about her daddy being there; that 13 year old girl was praying up a storm, pleading with God that she needed her grandmother. However, there was a price to pay. That grandmother had to make the choice to give up being in Heaven, the very place she wanted to be her entire life, so that she could be with her granddaughter back on earth. Similarly, on Friday that dad had to sacrifice his vacation time to take off work, in order to witness his daughter receive the award. To us adults, the paper award may not seem so important, but that child will remember for the rest of her life, that her daddy made a great sacrifice of love, because she was so important to him.
Jesus reminds us today, that he made that great sacrifice for us, to leave His Father in Heaven, to be with us. If we are to have any ambition, we are to desire not the earthly glory but the great desire to make the sacrifice of love.
