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“Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
So writes Shakespeare in his play ‘Twelfth Night’
One such who had greatness thrust upon him was St. Ambrose. He lived in the 4th century and was born into the Roman Governing class and following in his father’s footsteps he was destined to rise through the ranks of the Roman Administration until, at the age of 30, The Emperor Valentinian made him governor of Milan. Perhaps he should have been forewarned about the future direction of his life when his boss, Probus the prefect of Italy, in what was to be a prophetic utterance, said: “Go and govern more like a bishop than a judge.”
He had been governor of Milan for just two years when the Bishop of Milan died. It was a time of great ferment in the Church when internal disputes about doctrine threatened to destroy Christianity. The bishop himself had been something of a tyrant and there was much relief at his death. It fell to Ambrose, as the responsible civic official, to preside over the election of a new Bishop. Things were done very differently in those days than today. The cosy chats between the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Appointment Secretary, which culminates in two names being sent discreetly to the Queen was not the way in Milan. Bishops were chosen by popular acclaim and by public vote.
This can be a dangerous way of appointing a Prelate and it fell to Ambrose to keep order. As feelings were running high between opposing factions, he knew that this would be no easy task. Had he known what would transpire, he might have had even more foreboding! In front of the assembly he begged the people to make their choice like good Christians and without fighting or disorder. It must have come as some surprise when a voice was heard – it is said that it was the voice of a child – “Ambrose, bishop!” Immediately the cry was taken up by everyone – Ambrose is bishop! Ambrose is bishop! That wasn’t quite what Ambrose expected. He enjoyed being a diplomat. He had no wish for senior office in the Church. Though he was a professing Christian he had not yet even been baptized. When the other bishops present agreed with the popular choice, Ambrose is reported as saying: Emotion has now overruled canon law.” With that he fled and went into hiding from where he appealed to the Emperor to overturn the decision. The Emperor refused and confirmed the people’s choice. Ambrose was dragged from hiding, baptized, ordained deacon, then priest, and finally bishop, all within the space of one week.
Once the act had been done, Ambrose renounced his former life of privilege, sold all his goods and embraced a life of simplicity. He turned out to be a rather good choice and he became one of the Church’s most loved and learned bishops, a champion of the oppressed and a pastor of the poor.
Greatness was thrust upon an unwilling recipient. This is in contrast to the disciples who, as we learn in today’s Gospel argued with each other as to which of them would be great. Mark’s Gospel tells us that our Lord’s response was to take a child, set him in their midst and pronounce that real greatness is to be found in the innocence and purity which childhood represents. Luke was to take this further. His account of the same incident ends with our Lord saying: The least among all of you is the greatest. Jesus links Greatness with humility and in that respect, Ambrose is nearer the mark than the disciples seem to be.
Oddly, the Church has not always taken this to heart. There is a career structure in the ranks of the clergy which is based on ‘preferment’ implying not only choosing one person over another but also promotion. We compound that by calling those who exercise offices in the Church such as Bishop, Dean, Archdeacon, Canon as the dignitaries of the Church. We have been known to call bishops Prelates and we address them as My Lord.
Strangely this places on a pedestal those who should be amongst the humblest servants of Christ. And many indeed are. Not all are like Archbishop Lang who ruled the Church of England like a Prince and who was once heard to object that a painting of him by Sir William Orpen made him look proud, pompous and prelatical, whereupon Bishop Hensley Henson, known for his dislike of ostentation was heard to remark, “And to which of these epithets does your Grace take exception?”
One of the humblest of bishops I have ever met is one who can teach us all something of what Jesus meant when he took the child and presented him to the disciples. Michael Ramsey, though Archbishop of Canterbury, never saw himself as a dignitary, even less a Prelate. His ‘official’ car was a Morris Minor (albeit chauffeur driven because he couldn’t drive).
His leadership of the Church was often flawed. He made mistakes and he sometimes got into hot water. He will never be remembered for keeping the bishops in order in a cabinet-style of leadership and he will never be remembered for keeping the lid on theological enquiry because he was himself a theologian who believed that the exploration of the things of God demanded an openness of spirit. Inevitably this led to disputes about what the Church believed about a variety of issues, some moral, some doctrinal, some practical. He presided over the shambles that became of the Anglican-Methodist Unity Scheme and yet he met with Pope Paul the 6th and furthered the cause of Unity in a way that was unprecedented. His management style was chaotic and he probably wouldn’t have recognised a strategy for mission or ministry if it hit him in the face. But he knew people and he could see into hearts. He had a tremendous capacity to remember names, faces and details of people’s lives. He cared about them.
And he cared about God. He held everything and everyone to God in prayer.
He was a great man because he was a humble man whose only concern was to show people the way to God and to open up the love of God into their lives. He combined this humility with service. He sought not great things for himself, he sought only to reveal the greatness of God. He was a walking example of something the poet T S Eliot said – that the only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless.
Humility is when we admit that we don’t know everything; that sometimes we are wrong; and that we depend a great deal on God. It is the recognition of our littleness in the face of God’s greatness. This was personified in Michael Ramsey as he sought to show that greatness of God in the midst of ordinary lives. In many ways he had the innocence of a child for he had a childlike wonder of God. And he was truly great because he was rooted in God. And that is what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel.
In a different way, it is what James is talking about in the Epistle we heard today. James contrasts the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God. The wisdom of the world is a cut-throat wisdom rooted in envy and ambition. It is a false wisdom because it sets people against each other. It leads to suspicion of motives, distrust, greed, avarice and conflict as people ride roughshod over each other for selfish gain. This is what happens when people seek greatness for themselves. The wisdom that comes from God, on the other hand, leads to peace, gentleness, mercy, goodness and a willingness to put others first and to put God above all others.
These are the ‘fruits’ of righteousness and the building blocks of true greatness. These are the building blocks, of course, on which Christ’s own life was built, who humbly submitted himself to his Father’s will – seeking only to do that will (even when it led to death on the Cross). And that is what he asks of us – to walk humbly before our God..
It is through such humility that, as the Epistle of James reminds us, we draw near to God and he will draw near to you. The purpose of this is that we cease to live for ourselves and live for God, seeking only God’s will for our lives and not our own. Living close to God we make God known to others which is witness, evangelism and mission.
Why need we learn that true greatness lies in humility? Because that is the way we make God real for others because He is real for us.
Michael Ramsey once wrote:
There is only one kind of person who makes God known and realized by other people, and that is the person who is humble because he/she knows God and knows God because he/she is humble. There is no substitute for this.
There are people in life who are so competitive that they must always be first. In sport this is perhaps important for it is what gives people the drive to achieve things but in the Christian life we would be better if we settled for Third. That would be an exercise in true humility.
There was a boy who was very popular in his school. He was an excellent leader of his school groups. One of his friends visited him and he saw a homemade plaque in his room with the words, “I am Third”. His friend was intrigued and asked what it meant. “It’s a motto I try to always remember – God is first, others are Second and I am third.”
Trying to please God and live our lives as Christ teaches us; being concerned that others may know Christ by our example, and putting both before oneself. That is the way to be truly humble servants of God. That is the way of true greatness.