Luke chapter 22 describes the Last Supper and the subsequent arrest and first phase of the trial of Jesus. Amidst the poignancy of Jesus’s last meal, Jesus tells his disciples that he will not drink the fruit of the vine again until the Kingdom of God comes, and he tells them that one of them will betray him. Instead of responding in a positive way, the disciples start arguing, first about who will betray Jesus, and then about who amongst them was the greatest.
It is hard to think of a more inappropriate moment for the disciples to have been seeking personal aggrandisement. They had just spent three years walking round with the Son of God; surely by now they would have learnt the simple lesson: It’s not about you! Jesus has to explain to them again that the hierarchy of the Kingdom of God is an inverted one; whoever wants to be great must be the servant of all.
This was a message which the disciples would have heard many times before, but one of the problems with following Jesus is that sin does not just vanish into the past. If we do not constantly maintain our guard, selfishness and other forms of sinfulness come creeping to our door. The problem is often exacerbated in the presence of others: they start talking about who is greatest, and rather than correcting them, we just join right in.