This past week I received a phone call from my local bank office asking me to rate the service that I had received at a recent visit. They gave me a scale of 1 to 5 and asked to rate the quality of attention I had received while I was there, how satisfied I was with how I had been treated, how likely I was to return and how likely I was to recommend my bank to other potential customers. I was happy to take the survey and answer the questions, after all, they were wanting to know how they could serve me better. And who doesn't want better service?
That is the way it should be, is it not? Isn't that after all what we expect these days. We think of ourselves as paying customers and we want the most for our dollar. After all, “The customer is always right.” If they want a few minutes of my time so that they can better serve me, it is worth the investment. Wouldn't you agree?
Not so says Jesus, however. At least not in our text. Jesus turns this whole idea on its head. Jesus' way of thinking is upside down. The opposite, the reverse. The ones who want to be first are to be the servants. The ones who want to be greatest aught to be the lowest, the slaves – even the slaves of children. Not quite what we would have in mind as we are attempting to climb further up the corporate ladder. Jesus' way of thinking to us just doesn't make sense.
Our Gospel reading this morning is actually two – two separate readings that are closely tied together. Two separate events, two occurrences that are tied together by what Jesus wants us to know about being great and about being a servant. In the world's eyes “the greatest” is the one who is served the most. In the kingdom of heaven, the greatest is the one who does the most serving. Which one will you be?
Jesus teaches us what it means to be great; great, that is, in the Kingdom of Heaven. Contrary to everyones plans for greatness, contrary to everyone's plans for Jesus his pathway to greatness leads through suffering along the via do la rosa, the way of suffering. His pathway to greatness leads through the garden of Gethsemane where he will sweat drops of blood, through the praetorium and Pilate's judgment hall where he will stand trial and be condemned, through the chamber where he would be tortured by the Roman guards and then, the pathway of Jesus, his ascension to power and to greatness will lead to Golgotha - the place of the scull, to the cross and ultimately the tomb. For all his instruction to be servant Jesus shows us what he means – he puts his money where his mouth his when he ascends to greatness by first descending to his own personal hell on the cross.
Not what the disciples had in mind and not what we would have in mind either.
But this is the substance of the first reading. Jesus was going throughout the region of Galilee and he was repeating to his disciples that same theme that first came up when Peter rebuked him – “The son of man will be given over to the hands of men and they will kill him and when he is killed after three days he will rise.” The disciples didn't understand.
I am not convinced that we would understand either. After all, this is not the sort of thing that you and I would sign up for. We don't want to follow a team that is going to loose. Likewise we don't want to follow a leader who is going to fail. Why then would we want to worship a god who is going to die? A lot of good that would do. The disciples were too afraid to ask so they said nothing. But their lack of understanding came out soon enough.
And this brings us to our second reading..
As they were walking along the way the began talking among themselves, the way any of us would do. Oh, I'm sure the conversation began innocently enough – they always do. Peter, James and John were obviously the closest to Jesus. They were the ones who always got to go on those special little outings. They went up the mount of transfiguration. They were the ones who got to see him raise Jairus' daughter from the dead. They were probably in line for the top three positions. But put them in order – who was number one? Two or three? And then the real question, who got to be number 4? If there were 12 seats at the table, who got the best seat and who was left sitting at the end.
I can recall arguing with my siblings when we were children over who got to sit in the front seat. This was in the days before airbags and car seats so anyone could sit anywhere. Each of us wanted to be first. You and I might not argue over seating in the car – we might even enjoy a nice peaceful ride in the back seat. But look out when someone cuts in front of you while you are standing in line at the grocery store, at the bank teller window, at McDonalds. What makes them so special? They should have to wait like everyone else! Doesn't it just awaken some anger and resentment deep down in your core? We all want to be first. We all want to be treated with the basic respect that we feel that we deserve. We do, after all, share that same sinful human nature.
Or which of us would not feel a little resentment if we were always relegated to the lowest positions, the serving positions. I can remember when I was in college – I sang in the touring choir. My senior year the choir director approached me and told me he recognized my natural leadership qualities – a nice way of buttering me up. He asked me to be in charge of properties – doing the heavy lifting for the equipment while we were on tour. I was insulted and refused because I wanted to be choir president.
“If anyone would be first he must be last and servant of all.”
We are quite incapable of fulfilling this command. We are too enamored with ourselves and our own potential. So Jesus shames us with His willing service to all. Jesus shows us exactly what it means to be the least and to be the servant.
Paul tells us that Jesus did not consider oneness with God something to be held on to at all costs and so he set aside his divine nature.
The one who was there at the beginning calling the shots and calling out the work of creation, the one who watched as Adam began to take shape from a pile of dirt, the one who planned for the very conception of every single human person there has ever been, the one who was active in designing the process by which life would occur and how it would be sustained, the one who was the architect behind the night sky and hung each planet in place to shine out with just the right amount of light, the one who built the mountain ranges and then painted the landscape with vegetation of various sizes and colors, the one who filled the earth with the vast complexity of life. Jesus was there for all of it, participating in all of it, a key player in every step along the way. And Jesus – the Son of God, the second person of the trinity, the one in whom the Father delights, set all of this aside to become one of us, to suffer along side us, to feel the pain that we feel, to live through the suffering and the sadness and the grief that we live with, to be tested with the temptations that we face and to endure weakness that we are so susceptible to – Jesus lowered himself to be subject to all of it.
But even that was not enough – Jesus didn't come to earth to suffer just because he wanted to relate to us, just because he wanted to know what it was like. Jesus actually wanted to save us. Our sin – our pride, our inflated view of ourselves is the root of all of this suffering. We are only getting what we have deserved and even then we are only getting the very edge of what we have deserved. What our action truly have earned is an eternity spent in punishment in the depths of hell. But Jesus wanted to save us. To save us not just from this world and its suffering. Jesus wanted to save us from that eternity of suffering in hell. So he did. Jesus set aside the power and glory that was his as the Son of God and he took on our human nature so that he could suffer the shame and the ingloriousness of the cross. Jesus suffered hell and judgment on the cross in our place as our servant so that we would not have to suffer.
“I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.” Writes Isaiah. “I did not know it was against me they devised schemes saying “Let us destroy the tree and its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living that his name be remember no more.” “ The lion of Judah made himself the lamb of slaughter so that we could have the hope of a future redemption with no suffering.
You and I are so caught up in our selves that we forget that God has made us to be servants. We want the power, the honor the glory of being first. We want to head straight away to be princes and kings. Instead God has called us to be servants. To set aside our quest for glory and instead devote ourselves to serving God and serving one another. And what else could we do? After all, we are continually reminded of what our God has done for us. He did not seek for his own glory. He set his glory aside and he made himself our servant, submitting himself even to the shame of the cross.
Jesus has died for you. He has made himself your servant. He has paid for your sin. May you likewise be a servant.
Amen.
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