If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all. Mark 9:35

In 2005, nearly 20 years before my current work as the Director of Catholic School Leadership at Creighton, I completed a Masters of Education degree in educational administration at a small Catholic college in New Hampshire.  With my newly-minted diploma and principal certificate in hand, I began the process of applying for jobs.  Competition for school administrator positions in New Hampshire was fierce, and spray and pray was my strategy of choice.  I applied for many school administrator jobs, interviewed for some, and ultimately ended up serving as an assistant principal at a local Catholic high school, a position that I held for nearly a decade.

A school is one of the most relationally complex human systems that one could imagine, and the Catholic school where I worked was no exception.  It was within the context of those intersecting relationships that my real education began.  I learned essential concepts such as the difference between management and leadership, the difference between asserting authority and serving others, and the importance of empathy - understanding someone’s story through their eyes - to know and serve them better.  I know now that my time in that school was an education in servant leadership.  Now, the scholar in me will admit that the concept of servant leadership first emerged in a secular context, but in a Catholic school, I found it to be relevant nonetheless.  After all, Jesus epitomizes servant leadership - it is what he discusses in today’s Gospel, and what he demonstrated in his sacrifice on the Cross.

One passage from today’s Gospel resonated with me.  It is where Jesus’s disciples were walking to Capernaum and arguing about which of them was greatest (Mark 9:34).  I suppose it was interesting because at Creighton, many students and professors complete the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment - a measure of 34 different themes that provide some structure for when we reflect on our own leadership qualities.  Most of us have our top five “strengths” posted outside of our offices or enumerated in our email signatures.  It is a joke among my colleagues that my top Gallup “strength” is competition.  People who know me know that I am wired to process things in terms of wins and losses, or put another way, in terms of who is greatest, and who is least.  Today’s Gospel reading challenges us to reject that way of thinking.  We are reminded that our greatness is not a quantitative achievement that can be tracked on a spreadsheet or posted on a scoreboard, but rather is reflected in how we elevate others in society, especially those who are most in need, to build up the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Being a servant leader who cultivates peace (James 3:18) in a societal context is rarely easy, especially for people like me who are predisposed to measure success in wins and losses.  Indeed, we read in Wisdom 2:17 that the wicked say, let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him.  Encountering others with a servant’s heart requires grace and courage, because the world around us so often puts us to the test - wanting desperately to see the trials in store for us when we speak the truth.  It is all too easy to deny the truth of what Jesus teaches about greatness in favor of a more misguided approach that prioritizes self over others.  So, my prayer is that we can be inspired by Jesus’s selfless service, and that we can grow closer to Him in how we elevate those around us who need it most.  For it is our response to those in need that shapes our character and prepares us for life with Christ.