The Maestro Who Stood in the Back

When Yo-Yo Ma — arguably the greatest cellist alive — performs with young students, something remarkable happens. He doesn't sit in the featured chair. He pulls his cello to the back row.

In masterclasses captured on video, Ma has been known to stop mid-phrase, look at a trembling teenager, and say, "No, you play it for me. I want to learn how you hear this piece." And he means it. He leans forward. He listens. He nods. He takes notes.

Here is a man who has won nineteen Grammy Awards, performed for presidents and queens, and filled Carnegie Hall more times than most musicians dare to dream. Yet he consistently positions himself as the student rather than the star. When asked about this habit, Ma once explained that every person hears music through the filter of their own life, and that filter is something he can never replicate on his own.

Paul wrote to the Philippians, "In humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others" (Philippians 2:3-4). Humility is not pretending you have no gifts. Yo-Yo Ma knows exactly how well he plays. Humility is recognizing that your gifts were never meant to elevate you — they were meant to serve the person sitting next to you.

The Most High does not call us to shrink. He calls us to kneel — and from that posture, to lift others up.