"Have mercy on us, O God of all, and put all the nations in fear of you. Let them acknowledge you, just as we have acknowledged that there is no God but you Lord."
Sirach
Sirach is one of the Deuterocanical books of Wisdom from the Old Testament. It was written approximately two hundred years before Christ by a man who devoted himself to a study of the Hebrew Scriptures. He decided to share the considerable knowledge that he attained from this study with the greater population. It is a book about "ethics" in public life and stresses that our true measure of character can only be found in virtue, not in money, wealth or position. The following excerpt is called "The Prayer of the People":
"Have mercy on us, O God of all, and put all the nations in fear of you. Let them acknowledge you, just as we have acknowledged that there is no God but you Lord."
In the teachings of Jesus found in the Gospels, we find much wisdom for living a live of virtue. The thing with Christ is that we experience His wisdom from two different directions; from what He said, and from how He lived. In fact, unlike us, at least some of the time, Jesus perfectly reflected in the way He lived, the wisdom that He taught. Jesus used every opportunity to convey to His disciples God's message to humanity, not only by what He said, but by how He lived. An example of this can be found in the synoptic Gospels.
We read in each of these Gospels how Jesus would draw His disciples aside and tell them of His upcoming death at the hands of the Chief Priests and Scribes. Often time, the disciples would have a somewhat dazed response to what they were told, probably not wanting to believe that such a thing could happen to their leader. In one instance, James and John came to Jesus and asked for certain favors: "Allow us to sit, one at at your right hand, and one at your left in your glory". And when the other disciples heard of this request of James and John, the felt an indignation towards them, a little put out that those two would be looking for special favors.
Jesus always uses these times as opportunities to teach the wisdom of virtues that were necessary to live the life of a disciple. Those virtues were not only taught by Jesus, but lived by Him, and He challenges His disciples to not only learn from Him but to incorporate these teachings in their lives.
Jesus's response to the Apostles: "Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must to slave to all".
Matthew
Like the wisdom found in the book of Sirach, Jesus is saying that the true measure of character can only be found in virtue, not in money, wealth, position or honor. And then He goes on to wash the feet of His disciples and die a humiliating death on the cross to set them and us free from ourselves.
Virtue for Jesus was to love, but He knew that we could not love effectively until we have been set free by the Holy Spirit, a Spirit that could only be released by His own death.
If we could only begin to understand the depth of Christ's love for us, then our lives and the lives of the world would change in a flash. God's very Kingdom is present and active among us. We see this in Christ, in His words, and in the life that He lived.
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