Lessons on Greatness

Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? The disciples wanted to know. This wasn’t long after Jesus had told them that they had to lose their life in order to find it. This was after Jesus was transfigured on the mountain before Peter, James, and John.

Jesus meanwhile keeps talking about his upcoming death and the disciples wanted to know who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Who is the best saint? Who is the holiest? Who has special status?

Jesus here begins a long series of answers that takes us all the way through chapter 18. So to really understand this segment here, you have to look at chapter 18 as a whole, particularly Jesus’ emphasis on children or the lost and the least. Maybe the disciples were expecting an answer like Abraham or Moses, Elijah or Jeremiah. But instead Jesus tells them to become like a child. The greatest is like one of the little ones in society and that greatness is measured not by power but by humility.

Chapter 18 is where we see Jesus warn the disciples about becoming a stumbling block to the least of these, and to welcome them in his name instead. It is where we hear how the good shepherd would leave the 99 to find the one.

Then Jesus begins to talk about handling conflict. What to do when someone sins against you. What to do when you simply disagree. What to do when someone hurts you and causes fighting words.

Fighting words. It seems like it takes less and less to provoke a fight these days. Hot-button words and hot-button tones lead to keyboard strokes of indignation or harsh words of reproach. Everyone is sitting on go.

While talking to the disciples about greatness, Jesus starts to talk about fighting words, or at the very least how we handle our hurt and anger in the context of community.

Jesus says “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” I wonder how many of us have heard that verse and applied it in different settings. This particular presence of Christ is set within the scope of community life and the practice of reconciliation.

Dealing with anger and hurt and resentment in the kingdom of God is always aimed at reconciliation and forgiveness. It always seeks to preserve the relationship first.

Greatness in the kingdom of God is how we care for one another even when we hurt one another. Greatness in the kingdom of God is found in how well we love. Greatness in the kingdom of God is how we care for the vulnerable more than we care for being right.

This little section today in my Bible has a heading of “reproving another who sins.” Maybe you could think of some modern-day headings like “Calling them out” “Spilling the tea” or “Come-to-Jesus meeting.” In other words, you are about to lay it down and tell them what’s what. You are about to be right.

And oh how we love to be right? How many of you love to hear someone tell you you’re right? But if we aren’t careful, our addiction to rightness can transform us into the morality police where we focus on pointing out everyone else’s sins. And suddenly, our neighbors become little more than the issues they are for or against.

Martin Buber calls this the difference between I-It and I-Thou relationships. Buber believed “at all times, no matter what we might be doing, we are always in the world either as an I-It or I-Thou way. In other words, we are always seeing others either as objects, obstacles, vehicles, or irrelevancies- or we are seeing them as people.”

Eugene Cho in his book Thou Shalt Not Be A Jerk mentioned how Barna surveyed young non-Christians in America about the top characteristics of Christians. The top three were 1. Antigay 2. Judgmental and 3. Hypocrytical. Nowhere in the list did it mention loving or any of the spiritual fruits.

Cho said there’s nothing wrong with having convictions, but how we live out these convictions and disagreements matters. Cho says “in voicing and pursuing our convictions, we not only represent ourselves as followers of Christ; we represent Christ…there is a distinction between being passionate about our convictions and being mean spirited and jerks...Be careful not to dehumanize those you disagree with. In our self-righteousness, we can become the very things we criticize in others.”

Christ says where you are, I am among you. In your conversations. In your Facebook feeds and comments. In your text messages and group chats. In the meeting and then the meeting after the meeting. Jesus Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. And how we acknowledge God with us in our interactions with others effects our witness in and to the world.

I once knew someone who always left a seat open at every meeting as a reminder of the presence of Christ in each gathering. How do you acknowledge the presence of Christ in your interaction with others, especially those interactions in which someone has hurt you?

It isn’t just about being right. It is about relationships and our way of being with one another. In the book Anatomy of Peace, the character Yusuf says “the deepest way in which we are right or wrong is in our way of being toward others. I can be right on the surface-in my behavior or positions- while being entirely mistaken beneath, in my way of being....in your conflicts with others, even if you are convinced you are right in the positions you’ve taken, can you say with confidence that you have also been right in your way of being toward them? (57)

When are hearts are at war, it doesn’t matter how much we say something “in love,” there will always be a mismatch. I know what it is to be wounded by another. And I know how hard it is to stay high when others go low. I know how it feels to want to be right.

How do we go about changing our way of being towards one another when we have so many disagreements? Well, after the 2016 election, three marriage and family therapists decided that they needed to use their skills to help people learn to talk openly with one another. So they gathered together 10 people who voted for Trump and 10 who voted for Clinton and spent the day together. They called the group Better Angels, now known as Braver Angels, is a grassroots effort with the goal of depolarizing America. Now through the Braver Angels efforts, you can take a course, attend a workshop, schedule a speaker, ask for 1:1 conversation, and become a member or volunteer. The Braver Angels try to create brave spaces in media, music, and across college campuses. They are a group that believes “the fight to save our nation begins with a ceasefire among ourselves.”

Maybe it’s time for a ceasefire. Time for us to love our neighbor more than we do winning an arugument. Maybe it is time for the church to have something to say about unity rather than all the reasons the world gives us to divide. Maybe it is time for greatness to be displayed by humility, hospitality, and reconciliation. Where someone’s different ideas and stances don’t make them our enemies. Where we give up everything to find the one. Where the last is first and the first is last. Where people are seen and valued as people, born and bearing the image of God. Where greatness isn’t being right, but being reconciled. Maybe, just maybe, it is time.