I was an usher at a multiplex movie theater when I was in high school and spent many days and nights there working and forming great friendships with kids my age. I often took on extra shifts and tasks, including making popcorn, and one day, the manager, a man named Fred, asked if I wanted to make some extra money cutting the lawns around the theater. I said yes.

Soon after taking this on, the old lawnmower there broke down and was in need of replacement. Fred gave me the company credit card to go to Sears and buy a new one. I remember walking around the store with swagger, holding a shiny credit card in my hand – not something I had ever done before. There were the cheaper, low end mowers… which, for the small lawns at the theater would have been more than sufficient… and also the better, more expensive ones. Without regard to common sense, I bought one of the most expensive ones they had. 

Fred was surprised by this but did not object. I immediately put it together, never once looking at the instructions… because that’s a waste of time… and then filled the tank with gas and headed out to cut my first lawn. About twenty seconds into it, the engine completely shut down. I tried to pull the starter cord but it wouldn’t budge, not even an inch. So, I went inside to tell Fred about the defective machine. Standing there in front of several of my coworkers, he then asked me a number of questions. One of them was: “What kind of oil did you put into it?”

I responded: “Oil?”

Turns out, reading the instructions was important. Fred then proceeded to tell me that it was a huge mistake giving me this task, that I bought too expensive a mower, that I probably voided the warranty – which I did – by not putting oil into it, and that the people in the home office would be very upset about this. He essentially proclaimed in front of everyone there that I was a total and complete fool. He put me in my place. Truth be told, I deserved it.

I learned a valuable lesson about humility that day.

In today’s Gospel, John and James have a similar experience. When they asked if they could take seats of honor and glory by his side, Jesus took James and John down a notch, right there in front of the other disciples. 

Perhaps they learned a valuable lesson about humility that day.

It makes you think about the things that can happen to us during our lives that can take us down a notch. It makes me wonder whether it’s possible to truly be humble without ever first having been humbled. 

In the second reading, we hear that Jesus was “similarly tested in every way.” Remember that he was born into poverty to unmarried parents, was homeless at birth, was exiled to a foreign land, lived under the rule of oppressors, and experienced great hardship. This all powerful divinity emptied himself and took on our form so that he could… struggle, sacrifice, and suffer. 

Why? Why did he come to us in this manner? What exactly was it that he needed to experience? To learn?

Remember that the Gospel tells us that on the final evening of his life, when all power in heaven and earth had been granted to him, he got down onto the floor and washed the feet of his disciples.

Would it have been possible for Jesus to truly be humble in this way without first having been humbled in life himself?

James and John had a really bad day in today’s Gospel. But they went on to serve precisely in the manner of their master. They were the only disciples present, along with Peter, at the raising of Jairus’ daughter, at the transfiguration of Christ, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. James became the first apostle to give his life for Christ and John was given the task of writing about their adventures and caring for his Blessed Mother.

They served in the manner of their master.

Being humbled… in order to actually be humble.

What does that tell us about discipleship?