The Greatest is the Servant of All

Sermon, Mark 9.30—37 Fr. Scott T Homer
In the name of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sometimes, I think that we read the Bible as if it is somehow isolated from our daily lives, as if Matthew and Mark and Peter and Paul are living in some sort of time capsule and that their words are some sort of historical oddities. We look at them as curiosities. We don’t seem to see how they are relevant to our modern lives. And that is too bad because the Bible writers demonstrate an uncanny wisdom about human nature. Their observations are often precisely accurate. And why shouldn’t they be? People today are really no different than they were then. We suffer from the same spiritual diseases now as people did then.
St. James tells us that, “where envy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.” And I think it is fair and in fact helpful to invert the saying and to conclude that where we find disorder and every vile practice we will find that jealousy and selfish ambition are at its root. Where you’ve got one, you’ve sure to have the other. And in our day and age we have an abundance of both disorder and vile practices.
By disorder, St James means conflict. We know about conflict. We live with it all the time. Forget about the minor bickering and separations that plague our days. Let’s just look at conflict at the extremes. America has become a very dangerous place to live. A couple of years ago I looked up the number of military fatalities suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan and compared it to the number of murders in America. I wanted to see how the numbers compared. What would you guess was the bigger number? If you guessed murders in America you are right. In fact, the statistics are not even close. There were three or four times as many murders in America as combat fatalities. We are killing each other by the droves. And violence is not restricted to our streets. You don’t have to leave home to get hurt. One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. And this year alone, 1.3 million women will be physically assaulted—not by a stranger, not because she wandered down the wrong alley somewhere but by someone she knows and in her own home. We know about disorder. We know about conflict. And we know about vile behavior as well. Drug and alcohol addictions, pornography, child molestation, abortion, suicide, our children are cutting themselves, we see demonism and Satan worship at disturbing levels. And these are just the extreme things. In fact, America has developed a rather prodigious list of social ills. In terms of “every vile practice” we have really distinguished ourselves.
But speaking about “America” is just a way of holding the problem out at arms length where we aren’t implicated. We personally aren’t involved. It is simply too antiseptic. The fact is that we are involved. All of us are affected. The problem isn’t “theirs out there.” It is ours right here. The question for most all of our families today is not, ‘is there vile behavior in our midst but rather which ones.’ If you aren’t an addict you don’t have to look very far to find one in your family tree. If you aren’t being abused you know someone pretty close to home who is. Chances are way above 50% that one of your computers contains downloads of sexually explicit materials. Each of us can, if we have a heart for honesty and the courage to examine our lives, catalog our own personal list of things we would rather nobody knows about us. We don’t talk about the messes. We don’t admit our faults to one another. In fact we have an unspoken agreement with one another that we will pretend that our lives are happy, healthy and whole. If you don’t expose me…I won’t expose you. And so, disorder and vile behavior abound in our lives even as we agree to pretend that they do not.
So, we know what St James is talking about when he talks about disorder and vile behavior. And if our hypothesis is true, then we ought to see envy and selfish ambition at the root of it all.
If we are ever going to know freedom from the tyranny of sin, and if we are ever going to know peace with our neighbors we are going to have to understand what the Bible is telling us about the relationship between the mess we find ourselves in and our own self-centeredness. And I think we need to look particularly at the self-centeredness issue because even envy is only a manifestation of it.
What is self-centeredness? What does it look like? Bette Middler was on a talk show years ago, and she had been going on and on about how wonderful her life was and finally she looked at the talk show host and said, “But I have done nothing but talk about myself…what do you think of me?” Self-centeredness, there just is not room for anyone else. Like small children, adults in our society act as if all of their passions must be satisfied, right now. We step over people to get what we want. We have become unable to have a reasoned conversation with someone who disagrees with our position. Our lives are lived isolated from everyone else. We see other people as a means to our end. We become greedy. We find we are increasingly angry because, after all, the world does not seem to be as devoted to me as I am devoted to me. Our relationships suffer.
Our society has decided to glory in self-centeredness. It is sold to us as a virtue. We see books telling us how to go about getting the things we want from life. (They are always about how we can successfully manipulate others) We see television commercials telling us that we deserve to be treated lavishly. We are told that you can’t love anyone else unless you first love yourself. Even our means of communicating with one another have grown incredibly isolated and self-focused. How many of you are on facebook? Facebook is all about me, talking about me, so that the world might see me in the way that I want them to see me. Our obsession with our own lives really is a mess and it really does go a long way in explaining why we are suffering the social problems we are suffering. After all:
If how I feel is the most important thing then why wouldn’t I abuse prescription drugs? If me getting what I want is the most important thing then why wouldn’t I beat up my spouse when she wants something different? If my gratification is the most important thing why wouldn’t I be willing to degrade and humiliate another human being in order to get my perceived needs met? If my self-centered interest is the only thing that matters then the world becomes nothing more than a tool that I manipulate as best as I can to get what I think I must have. And when all of us are trying to do the same thing then we end up in constant conflict with one another. Every time your interests conflict with mine I must find a way to defeat your purpose in order to accomplish mine. Disorder and vile behavior are the inevitable fruit of a hedonistic society. And by the way, every culture that has gone down this path has failed. History books are full of stories about hedonistic societies that used to exist.
Now St. James contrasts this dysfunctional way of living with a functional way. He says that, “the wisdom from above (that is the wisdom from God that will give life) is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.” And that is all very good stuff BUT to get to the real solution we will do far better by looking to Jesus and listening to what Jesus has to say about it. In Mark chapter 9 we see self-centeredness rearing its ugly head amongst the disciples. Jesus asks his disciples what they were talking about while they were walking along and sheepishly they admit that they had been arguing (there is that disorder and conflict theme again) and it had been over the issue of who was the greatest. (there is that self-centeredness theme again) Isn’t that amazing? Right under Jesus’ nose. Apparently nobody is exempt—not even the chosen twelve.
Jesus hears what happened and he immediately understand that this is a serious problem. And he addresses it without delay. This is the correct way of dealing with our sin—quickly and without compromise. It never gets easier by waiting. Confess it now. Get help now. (and one of the things I admire about the apostles is that they always remain teachable. They never refuse Jesus’ correction. They don’t try to defend their actions or rationalize their faults. They submit to Jesus’ teaching time after time after time. It would be better for us if we were more teachable.)
We have all heard, a thousand times, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first and if you wish to lead you must be the servant of all.” And we treat it as a hard teaching but in fact it is not that hard at all. Do you want to have a successful job interview? Pay a lot of attention to the interviewer. Honor what they are saying to you. Be helpful to them. Listen carefully and respond compassionately to what they are saying. More often than not, if you can make the interview about the interviewer’s self-interests you will have won the job. Who do you like to talk to? People like Bette Middler who only talk about themselves? Or somebody who takes a genuine interest in you and asks questions about you and listens to your concerns? Who are you most likely to allow to lead you? Isn’t it the one you know has your best interest at heart? We are most likely to trust, to obey and to follow the one who loves us, cares for us and is kind and generous to us. And so the person who puts themselves last, who thinks of others first, who acts out of love, is the one who exhibits the best leadership gifts.
You see, when Jesus puts that child in the middle of the circle, that kid doesn’t mean anything to any of them. He can’t give them anything. He is just a burden. And yet, Jesus says, when you help this helpless one, you are being the most godlike. When you care for the least, the last and the lost; when you sacrifice your life to save the life one someone who can never hope to repay you; when you give generously knowing full well that you will never get it back; when you suffer pain in order that someone who does not care about you will not have to suffer, then you are truly living like God lives and doing what God does. This is the highest ideal. This is a purpose worth working to achieve. It is the impossible dream and the great experiment. And if we were able to attain it our society would be transformed. We would see freedom from addiction. Our lives would be characterized by strong, caring relationships. We would know peace with one another and our lives would be blessed by God’s powerful presence in our midst. Love, which is what we have been talking about, conquers all, heals all, restores all…and it is a quite distant possibility. We get glimpses of it but we are not there yet. We need help. We need a savior who can do what we can not do for ourselves.
Now I believe that this saying from Jesus is more than just a moral teaching on the advantages of loving one another. As Jesus talks about the last being first and the first last, as he talks about the greatest being the servant of all, Jesus points to himself. Jesus is the Anointed One. Jesus is the Holy One of God and yet, even as he is speaking to his disciples he is on his way to Jerusalem. He is going to Jerusalem to complete a mission. He is fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 53. He is to become a ransom for many. He is to become sin in order that sinners can be set free. The Greatest is about to become the least, the last and the lost. He does this voluntarily. He does this for people who don’t care about him, people who can never repay him, even people who despise him. The first becomes the last in order that the last might become the first.
And when Jesus sacrifices himself for your sake, his sacrifice is completely sufficient. When Jesus dies on the cross for your sins you are truly set free. You need do nothing in order to be saved, other than to believe in your savior. It is no longer about you being good enough. I heard a wonderful illustration last week. A woman got on a bus carrying a suitcase. And as the bus lurched along she hung on to that bag with all her might…but after awhile she grew weary of the weight of that bag but still she hung on to it. Finally, the bus driver turned around to her and he said, “Lady, you can put that bag down. This bus is powerful enough to carry you and that bag to our destination.” Friends, Jesus is powerful enough to carry you and your sins. He will see you safely home.
And something happens when we put that bag down and we trust in Jesus. We find that we have been set free to act unselfishly. You see, as long as our future depends on us and our efforts, we will find that we are acting selfishly. We have to. If we don’t get what we need nobody else will get it for us. (and that is where most of us live most of the time. But it doesn’t have to be that way.) We can accept the truth—that the Son of God has died in order that we might live. We can entrust our lives to Jesus, and when we accept the fact that he has all power is completely capable of carrying us to our destination, us and our sins, then our days can be devoted to more important things—like the service of others—like becoming more Christ-like—like celebrating this tremendous gift of life that we have been given—like worshipping this awesome God who has given everything in order that we might spend eternity with him.