ambition: 8th week wednesday 2012

James and John with their mother have been called ambitious, with the negative connotation we mean when we call people ambisyoso.  But are they really?  Is it wrong to aspire for greatness?  Is it wrong to become ambitious?

There are two things which Jesus did correct in James and John with their mother.  The first is the method of attaining greatness, the method we take in wanting to fulfill ambition.

 To call ambition sin or to call ambition wrong is a mistake.  I think it is more wrong to have no ambition at all.  What Jesus pointed out to James and John and their mother is the fact that in their ambition they committed a serious oversight.  And what is this oversight –that they can attain their ambition by doing a short-cut.  That is why Jesus posed the question, can you drink of the cup?  Are you willing to sacrifice, to suffer in order to attain that ambition?  

There is nothing wrong with dreaming big and wanting money, but there is something wrong when in our wanting it we do injustice, in our wanting it we bribe people, we steal, we step on people’s rights; and in our wanting it we neglect our duties to God, we neglect our needed presence in our families, in our children. 

There is nothing wrong with wanting to become the best orator, the best student, the best of anything, but there is something wrong when in wanting them we result to cheating and lying.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to become whatever we want to become but there is something wrong when in wanting it we use strong arm tactics and misuse and even abuse power.

Jesus has never taught us to become wimps, like Juan Tamad waiting for the guava to fall.  Christians should be people who are strongly motivated, highly driven people who always aspire for the ideals because they are a people who know that their actions now will determine and have repercussions and outcomes on their eternal future.  James and John made a mistake not in the fact that they were ambitious but in the fact that they forgot to consider the sacrifices they have to make to attain these ambitions.

The second concept Jesus did correct in the request of James and John and their mother was their concept of greatness.  What is your dream?  What is your ambition in life?  What is your concept of greatness?

For Jesus it is not about me, it is not about you.  It’s always about the other.  Greatness lies in our service for others.  You can be the riches, you can be the most intelligent, you can be the most of everything, but if it is just about you, what is that?  People who left a name and a memory in this world are people who went beyond themselves, people who went beyond their own good and their own benefit.  Self-serving interests cannot be the way.  Dying to self, dying to our ego for others is the way to greatness.