Even the disciples were jealous and envious

This essay first appeared in our weekly newsletter on September 21, 2024.

For a long time I found this Sunday’s Gospel passage hard to fathom. During a journey through Galilee, Jesus tells the disciples that he will have to suffer, die and then rise. Once they reach Capernaum, however, and are “inside the house” (which may have been Jesus’s house), he asks what they had been discussing along the way. He seems to intuit the answer: they have been talking about “who was the greatest.”

That even the disciples could be discussing something so nakedly ambitious used to astonish me. Just imagine transposing that conversation into, say, an office setting, with employees sitting around a lunch table and saying, “Who is the most valuable employee?” While it’s not impossible to imagine people harboring those feelings—clearly wishing that they were the greatest – it’s nearly impossible to imagine any thoughtful person admitting them aloud.

As for the disciples, they are still doing this in the ninth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, well into Jesus’s ministry in Galilee, and, moreover, immediately after he talks about his suffering!

But it shouldn’t surprise us. Even with the benefit of having Jesus among them, the disciples were still human, and still subject to feelings of envy and jealousy. By the way, those two words are often used interchangeably but are somewhat different: Jealousy usually has to do with a third person in a relationship: “I’m jealous you’re spending so much time with her.” Envy is about desiring something that someone else has that you don’t: “I’m envious you have a beautiful new house.” Sometimes the feelings are lighthearted: “Oh, I’m so jealous you can play the piano!” But more often they are intensely negative feelings, ruining relationships, families and even religious communities, as one person seethes with jealousy or envy over another.

Even with the benefit of Jesus among them, the disciples were still human, and still subject to feelings of envy and jealousy.

To put a positive spin on it, perhaps each disciple was arguing that someone else was greater. But when taken with the story in the next chapter, where James and John ask Jesus if they could sit, one at his right hand and one at his left (an image of being seated next to the king, in 10: 36) it seems obvious that the disciples are jockeying for position, and envious or jealous of one another. Let’s face it: we’ve all felt that unpleasant emotion at one time or another. And it can be poisonous. As the First Reading says, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice.”

Jesus offers us a way out. The greatest one is the “servant to all.” And lest they miss the point, he places a child in their midst. And this is not just an image of innocence. As John R. Donahue, SJ, and Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, write in the Sacra Pagina commentary, “A child would symbolize not so much innocence or unspoiledness as a lack of social status and legal rights.” A child, they explain, was totally dependent on others and one could not expect to gain anything socially or materially from kindness to a child. So a powerful symbol of “littleness.” 

It’s hard to give up jealousy and envy. But as Jesus knew it’s ultimately freeing. So much jealousy and envy comes from comparing what we have with what we perceive others have. Best to focus on our own blessings, where God is always present.