“But they didn’t say anything; because, on the way, they’d been discussing who was the greatest” (Mark 9.34).
One of my co-workers had this discussion, he didn’t say how it got started, with his wife and brought it into our group chat the other day. Who, he asked, was the bigger artist in the eighties: Michael Bolton or Phil Collins?
The answer was as unanimous as it is obvious, but I’ll come to that in a bit. The question is what’s interesting. Who, and here you can name about any trade or medium or genre, is the greatest?
Early in our relationship (and by early, I mean first weeks of dating), Leanne was a bit mystified—frustrated—by my answer when she’d ask my top five albums or movies. I’d um and er for a bit and start telling her ones I like a lot. To her credit, she managed not to throw her egg roll at me when I never seemed to put any of these things into some sort of order; though, it took a bit before she realized that my mind didn’t seem to work that way.
I have gotten better at answering that question over the years. Although, it takes me a long time to come up with even a top five list unless the pool of choices is very, very limited. And my beloved still asks and waits with the patience of a saint for me to come up with something.
Now the disciples took ranking and lists to a whole new level, talking amongst themselves who was the number one. And I’ll bet they didn’t say anything when Jesus said, “Hey by the way, what was it y’all were talking about the whole way here? I only caught parts of it. I thought I heard something about a top ten.”
To his credit, Jesus doesn’t get upset by this. Instead, he sits down and unveils this idea that anyone who wants to be top of the pops has to live as though they’re at the bottom of the charts. At least, that’s how we take it. Or, at least, how I have.
Following on a discussion about who’s the best, it sounds like what Jesus is saying is that the way to being first is to act as though you don’t think of yourself that way at all. It’s almost as though he’s unveiling a trick to crack the top ten: the person not trying to be the greatest who actually is the greatest.
But there’s something more here. It gets to the other part of me that can shy away from lists and best-to-least numbering. It’s that all of that is arbitrary. Greatness, like an annual best-of or YouTube video countdown, is never permanent or universal. The number one song here in the States may not be top forty in Canada or Australia. One critic’s best film ever is nowhere to be found in another’s article. It’s fleeting, changeable, and it misses what’s really important.
People, like music, books, and film, have an effect on us because of who they are and how they make us feel. You can probably name off the top of your head someone in your life that, by their presence, makes you feel loved and valuable. And you can probably name one person you’ve known that seems more concerned with how awesome they are.
Which is what Jesus, I think, wants to get across: not some formula for being greater or greatest in the arbitrary lists we make, but the pathway to remembering that what matters is the mark you left on those around you. In a sense, he’s telling them—as I seem to hear often in Jesus’ words—that it’s not about you.
And when it stops being about me, who’s number one doesn’t matter so much anymore.
Oh, and to answer the question at the outset: it’s Phil Collins, of course. He had a hit out of a nonsense word after all. Michael Bolton never did that.
Help me, this week, worry just a little less about where I rank.
Postscript: For those still sticking around reading as the postings here have been fewer and farther between. It may be intermittent for a little while.