1st Reading : Acts 5.12-16 / 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 4.9-16 / Gospel : Luke 22.24-30
Today is the feast of Saint Bartholomew, a day made infamous by the massacre of thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of French Protestants in 1572. Of the saint himself we know almost nothing, beyond the fact that he was one of the twelve apostles. Yet our readings are all about greatness. Are we supposed to infer that Saint Bartholomew was a great man? What is it that marks someone out as truly great?
I came across two discussions of greatness this week, which together may throw some light on these questions. The first was at the fascinating exhibition entitled Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision, which Frances Spalding has curated at the National Portrait Gallery. Writing about her childhood, Virginia comments on the presence of great men in the background of her family life – Meredith, Henry James, Darwin, Watts, Burne-Jones and so on. She recalls how respectful of greatness her father and mother were, and how the honour and privilege of her family’s position in society was impressed upon her. Later she became much more critical of such attitudes. In her novel Night and Day, the young visitor who is being shown the memorabilia associated with the family’s famous grandfather, declares roundly: ‘I hate great men. The worship of greatness in the nineteenth century seems to me to explain the worthlessness of that generation…’ We can only guess how acerbic Virginia might have been about the cult of greatness, as measured by celebrity and fame, which so infects the media and public opinion in our own time?
The second discussion of greatness leapt out at me from one of the readings in Wednesday’s delightful literary hour presentation here on Children Green and Golden. It was an excerpt from St Matthew’s gospel. The disciples have asked Jesus who is the greatest. He places a child in their midst, and tells them that whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest.
This morning’s gospel raises the same issue. Luke sees the whole of Jesus’ ministry as the turning point in world history, ushering in the establishment of the kingdom of God. The climax is approaching, and Jesus has told the disciples, over their Passover meal, that he will not eat it again, or drink wine, until the kingdom of God comes (Luke 22.16-18). He has also spoken openly about his betrayal. Failing to grasp the implications of all this, and leaping ahead to the prospect of a dazzling future with their hands on the levers of influence and power, the disciples begin to jostle for position. Which of them is going to be the greatest in the coming kingdom?
Jesus does not give them a direct answer. Instead he invites them to consider what it means to be great. Who is the greater, he asks, the one who sits at table, or the one who serves? That’s an easy one. Even if now they are all sitting and eating together, it was they who had been sent to prepare the meal; Jesus who presides at the table. He is unquestionably the greatest among them, their leader, the one they look up to. Yet he goes on to say: But I am among you as one who serves. In John’s gospel he underlines the point by getting up from the table, taking a bowl and a towel, and washing their feet. In doing so, he is not abrogating his leadership, or requiring that we should all insist on scrubbing the floors and cleaning the toilets. Still less should the Church have used his teaching about humility and service to impose an attitude of subservience on the laity in general and women in particular.
Paul’s rhetoric is sharper, but he is in much the same place. Corinth was an important city, and the members of the Christian community there would have been accustomed to displays of greatness. They had quite a high opinion of themselves – rich, wise, strong, they were held in high regard – and they were inclined to compare Paul unfavourably with other leaders, such as Apollos and Cephas, who seem to have had more presence. Paul claims not to care about his own standing in the community, but he was proud to earn his keep as a tentmaker, and to appear weak, foolish and disreputable. Measured against Corinthian standards of greatness, he is the world’s rubbish, the dregs of all things, (v 13), but however many Christian leaders they may have, he is proud to claim a special relationship with them – as their father in the gospel – and when he comes he will see how these other leaders of theirs measure up, what substance there is to their arrogance and superiority, or whether it’s all talk and bluster. We may not care too much for Paul’s own brand of inverted boastfulness, which didn’t go down too well with the Corinthians either, but his point is at least similar to that made with greater sensitivity by Jesus. We are more likely to find true greatness in the gutter than under the trappings of celebrity and fame.
Both Paul and Jesus teach us that leadership – in the church or anywhere else, at work, at school, or within the family – is a service to be discharged, not by the exercise of arrogant authority over those we are called to lead or manage, but rather with the thoughtful concern of the good servant, and the open-hearted simplicity of a young child. That’s what makes a great leader a truly great man or woman.
One final thought. If Bartholomew, who is introduced as Philip’s friend in the first three gospels, is the same person as Philip’s friend Nathanael in John’s gospel, then Jesus welcomed him as a disciple with this commendation: Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit – no guile as the Authorized Version used to say (John 1.47). The absence of such guile, a rare gift in a grown-up, is one of the attractive features of a young child, so perhaps such limited evidence as we have does suggest that readings about the nature of true greatness are an appropriate way to remember Saint Bartholomew, and perhaps to learn from his example.