Image: an illustration of the Tower of Babel on the left and the city of Jerusalem on the right. Courtesy of the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
"Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
—Mark 10:43–45
I was struggling a bit with the Gospel this week because it sits in an odd place. It seems like I always get the Gospel where Jesus is scolding. Here James and John, after hearing what Jesus will face, almost immediately ask for the seats at His right and His left when He comes into His glory, failing to even acknowledge what they just heard about the Passion. Jesus answers them gently but directly: "You do not know what you are asking."
Funnily enough, a co-worker linked the recent encyclical on artificial intelligence, Magnifica Humanitas, and that is when I made the connection with the text. The encyclical contrasts two images. One is the Tower of Babel, a project conceived in pride, built without God, where people sought to make a name for themselves and reach heaven on their own terms. The other is Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, stone by stone, with each family given their section, listening to one another, working together with God at the center. The Pope writes that the choice in front of us today is essentially the same. We can build Babel, or we can rebuild Jerusalem.
Reading that, I started to think about James and John in a new way. They were not bad men. They wanted to be great and to matter, neither of which are bad pursuits. What they didn't understand, and what Jesus is patiently trying to teach them, is that greatness in God's eyes is not about how much we do, but where we choose to direct our talents and works. "Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant. Whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve." Each of us is called to serve God and each other, and we should use our skills not in pursuit of glory but in pursuit of love.
Working in the AI space in the Bay Area, there is a lot of talk right now about building great things, becoming great companies, and making a lot of money. Some of that talk is genuinely about service; most isn't. A lot of it is about the seats at the right and the left, just dressed up in better language. We want the rewards of the technology without the harder work of asking who it serves and who it leaves behind. We want to be first without doing the work of being last. So the encyclical's warning against building "another Tower of Babel," and this week's Gospel, were timely. We cannot sacrifice human dignity for efficiency, nor kindness for glory; not at home and not in our workplaces. We should all be asking ourselves each day, "Am I helping build the city, or am I helping build the tower?"
Even if we have not chosen a career based in the Church, we are all still called to serve God as best we can in all that we do. A lawyer, a doctor, a barista, all of us. Did the people around me have a better day because I was in it? How can I use my gifts to serve the least among us and make this world a better place? Jesus drank the cup so that we could be free. He did not negotiate the terms. He did not ask what was in it for Him. He served, and in serving, He became great in a way no throne could have made Him. The more we choose to follow that example, the better world we create. Because even when Jesus seems to be scolding, He is teaching us to be our best selves in His image.
Travis Mitchell is a member of the C21 Center's Pray It Forward community. He wrote the above reflection for Wednesday, May 27, 2026. It is shared with his permission.
Read Pope Leo XIV's encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas here.
Learn more about Pray It Forward here.