How is success defined? It seems as though we have ceased to offer any definitions of success, but instead we let other people or things define us as successful (with little or no meaning attached to it). And so we seek to acquire bigger and smarter cars, we climb the relentless ladder of corporate America, we desire phones that organize and entertain every facet of our lives, we live in houses that we can’t afford and we create a false self that supposedly has no faults or failures. This is not to say that iPhones and promotions at work are bad. It is that we think we are making something of ourselves by acquiring these things and more; all with the hope that someone will declare us as successful.

Here is what we learn from Jesus: success has absolutely nothing to do with what others say about you or expect from you. In fact it may even require doing the exact opposite. This has been described as downward mobility. Jesus, the traveling Rabbi, chose not to take on the trappings of celebrities. He did not choose the way of advancement through the rabbinical system. No matter how many people pushed him, he chose not the way of politics. He did not choose the way of stability and safety. He did not chose to surround himself with the powerful, or to take under his wing the brightest of disciples. He in fact chose the way of the servant in washing his disciples’ feet.

Let us practice this downward mobility, seeking ways in which we can serve. Ways in which we can reject the trappings of the approval of others and to grow in the acceptance of Christ.