It seems like American bread and butter. Businesses compete for market share. Students compete for grades and for entrance into the best colleges. Shoppers compete to snare bargains. Much of our entertainment is watching competitions of various sorts, whether it’s sports events, American Idol, or an absurd “reality” show.
But it’s not just American. It seems like human nature to compete. Arguably males are the more competitive gender, although I get the impression from things my wife says that women compete with each other in ways that are beyond my perception and comprehension. In any case, it’s not actually all that surprising to read our text for this Sunday, Mark 9:30-37 and find Jesus’ disciples in a conversational competition to determine who among them the greatest.
Our text nicely captures Mark’s juxtaposition of Jesus talking again about His coming passion (suffering and death, not the modern meaning of the word) as the disciples fail to comprehend with a practical demonstration of their lack of understanding in a typically male argument about who’s the greatest.
Jesus’ answer to this competitive spirit in His disciples is to set a child in their midst and encourage them to become like children. Does that mean that mean competiveness and self-assertion isn’t an innate part of our nature? Do children start out more humble and only by inculturation become thoroughly competitive? What does it mean to be like a child in relation to God and to each other?