The Greatest
He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Mark 9:35
The Greatest
Jesus said that to be great we must be a servant of all. To treat the most vulnerable with respect is to open our arms to God’s presence in our lives. In the upper deck of Citizens Bank Park, a father watching the Phillies play baseball brought Jesus’ teaching to life.
Stephen Monforto took his three-year-old daughter Emily to the game. As is the dream of most of us who attend a major league game, he wanted to catch a foul ball. And he did. After fist bumping with his buddies and high-fiving his daughter, he proudly handed the baseball to his darling little Emily – who promptly threw the round, white treasure over the wall of the upper deck.
When the ball disappeared, his only thought was that he did not want his daughter to think that she had done anything wrong. So he gave her a big hug. He could have been hostile. He could have yelled at his little girl, scolding her in the heat of the moment. But after the catch and toss came not the cursing but the cuddle. He was the greatest!
Little did Stephen Monforto know that cameras were trained on him; I’m glad they were. With accounts of hostile, childish behavior filling the airways, YouTube and the press, it is refreshing to see someone exhibit true greatness marked by grace. From him, we have much to learn.
Bruce Yoder is Vice President for Philanthropy at the YMCA of Greater Richmond. He can be reached at yoderb@ymcarichmond.org and on his profile page here.
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