He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”(The Matthew phrasing is more well known: "So the last shall be first, and the first last.")
Jesus' advice to humble ourselves seems more out of place than ever in the modern world, where success is measured by clicks, likes, and retweets.
C.S. Lewis in the Great Divorce describes how those individuals who are celebrated in heaven are ignored and likely unknown on earth:
Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” “She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?” “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.” “And who are these gigantic people...look! They're like emeralds...who are dancing and throwing flowers before here?” “Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.” “And who are all these young men and women on each side?” “They are her sons and daughters.” “She must have had a very large family, Sir.” “Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.” “Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?” “No. There are those that steal other people's children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives.”An honest self-assessment says that I am neither first or last, so I'll continue to live with uncertainty about where I'll end up.
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