Ecclesaisticus 2:1-11 / Mark 9:30-37
For every question that is asked, there is an answer to it. Even for rhetoric questions, we already know what the answer is.
Yet if a question is asked, and no answer is given, then there could be a couple of possible reasons for it.
It is either that no one really knows the answer but they will have to say so, or that the answer is so stark that it is too embarrassing to say it.
In the gospel, when Jesus asked His disciples what were they arguing about on the road, they said nothing.
They surely knew what they were arguing about - which of them is the greatest. But now they are like small boys hanging down their heads and not wanting to say anything.
Certainly when grown men argue like small boys, it is really embarrassing, and more so when they were the disciples of Jesus, and even more so when just before that, Jesus was telling them about the suffering and death He had to go through.
And it was here that Jesus showed those big "small boys" what greatness really is. He set a little boy before them and gave them this profound teaching: If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.
The 1st reading gave us such a startling teaching that we would rather not hear about it. It says: My son, if you aspire to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for an ordeal.
It continues with this: Whatever happens to you, accept it, and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient, since gold is tested in the fire, and chosen men in the furnace of humiliation.
So if we were to ask what greatness is, we also know what the answer is. May we be willing and humble enough to accept that answer.