I Don't Really Like Ambitious People

29th Sunday of the Year

I don’t know about you, but I do not really like ambitious people. I also tend to take my not liking people very seriously, so if I do not like a certain kind of person, I want to understand why and how I do not like them. For the next few moments, then, let me talk to you about what is wrong with the life of ambition.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines ambition as the disordered desire for honor. What the ambitious person wants is recognition, public or private, for something possessed or accomplished. You possess a skill or talent or ability, and you want other people to recognize your gift; you work at your place of employment and want a promotion or salary increase so that others recognize how good you are at what you do. Sometimes what you want the most is the public or private recognition and you do not even care about possessing or accomplishing anything: you just want attention, honor, privilege, even power over others. Ambition is a disordered desire for honor.

St. Thomas says that ambition takes root in us in 3 different ways.

First, we might desire more honor than we deserve. You are only an average athlete, but you want the world to think you are the greatest at your sport—there is ambition. You are an average employee, but you want the best promotion and a salary that is not commensurate with your skill or dedication—there is ambition. Your desire for public or private recognition is greater than whatever you have accomplished or whatever skills or talents you possess, and now you have become an ambitious person.

Second, we might forget to credit God for whatever we have accomplished or whatever talents or skills we possess. You are a world-class athlete, but you forget to tell everyone you know that God deserves more credit than you do for your skill because there is nothing you have that you did not receive. You are an excellent employee who deserves promotions and salary increases, but you forget God and convince yourself that you have earned whatever recognition you have received. Your pride and your forgetfulness work together to make you into an ambitious person.

Finally, we might keep the honor we receive to ourselves. St. Thomas talks about wanting honor that is of no profit (no benefit) to other people. Our vanity and our selfishness become amplified by skill or talent or accomplishment and our desire for public or private recognition becomes completely self-serving. We sever ourselves from the life of charity, and give ourselves over to narcissism and self-regard.

St. Thomas says that each of these 3 forms of ambition is sinful, and that the Christian is called to reject the life of ambition.

The sons of Zebedee in the Gospel today give us a good example of ambition. James and John ask for an honor they do not deserve, forget to say anything about what God wants in making their request, and desire a public form of recognition that is of no service to anyone other than themselves. Here is human ambition naked and exposed to the judgment of Christ.

The response of Christ is fascinating. He makes no immediate reprimand and offers no immediate criticism. Christ decides instead to move the conversation away from the vice of ambition and toward the virtue of magnanimity. He wants to tell James and John what to do with these desires for honor and recognition that are consuming their hearts.

Magnanimity is a virtue that St. Thomas defines as greatness of soul. The magnanimous person passionately desires what is good and true and beautiful in the world, giving themselves over completely to the pursuit of excellence. Remember that we are talking about a virtue with magnanimity: a formation of your free will that helps you want what is good and true and beautiful all the way down—your desires, your emotions, your passions, the deepest most important parts of who you are oriented toward the pursuit of excellence in life.

Both the magnanimous person and the ambitious person want what is excellent. But in the magnanimous person the desire for excellence is always tempered by humility and ordered toward charity.

Humility: the recognition that there is nothing you have that you did not receive, and so whatever you do possess needs to be given away to someone else; whatever you have, you did not really earn, so you ought to let it go and put it to good use.

Charity: a friendship with God that causes us to make our whole lives into a sacrifice, holding onto nothing for ourselves, giving everything away for the good of someone else.

Christ is the perfect model of magnanimity: the pursuit of excellence that is tempered by humility and ordered toward charity. He wants what is most good and true and beautiful, but he holds onto nothing for himself and makes his life into a sacrifice for the salvation of the world.

The teaching that Christ gives to James and John in the Gospel today is also meant for us: your desire for honor and public recognition is good because salvation means to share in the glory of God eternally; you should want salvation for yourself. But wanting salvation means making your life into a constant and perpetual sacrifice, holding onto nothing for yourself, letting everything go because you recognize there is nothing you have that you did not receive and you experience a friendship with God that causes you to give yourself away to anyone and everyone around you.

Christ says again and again in the Gospel that the person who wants to save their life must lose it. You ought to want to save your life. But your wanting to save your life looks like losing your life, because in the magnanimity of Christ we discover that self-preservation looks like self-renunciation, self-abnegation, real humility, real charity.

Or, as Christ tells us today: the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

If what you want for your life is salvation, then your life needs to become defined by service, offered each day as a ransom for many.

Homily preached on Sunday, October 20th at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary