Whoever Serves

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This is pastor Lewis and I am just testing the capabilities of forwarding my sermon slides on to proclaim. If you are reading this please simply ignore!

Intro

John 12:26 NRSV

26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

Story of the call to service

Getting to go on the mission trip to Sioux Falls

15 youth

4 days

2-3 service sites per day

Many standard “soup kitchens”

One of the ministries that we went to was a bit different than that

“We are a feeding Ministry and we ask 2 things of you, that you help prepare a meal, and that you help to share in a meal”

What is it that the Christian Witness has to say about service that other civic organizations don’t?

Many great organization’s in our community that are doing awesome work and you should get involved in

They are doing things that bring meaning and purpose into the world

We - we must die to ourselves....AGAIN?!?!

John 12:25 NRSV

25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

This passage might have felt oddly familiar to you because in worship just a couple of weeks ago we read a very similar passage just from the Gospel of Mark

That passage also told us that if we want to gain our lives we had to loose them and if we loose our lives we will gain them

there are some difference in the loose your life gain your life things and John doesn’t say take up your cross

In this account of the gospel the writer John point out a much more interesting point about service

God section

John 12:26 (NRSV)

26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

The condition on the statement here is to love as Jesus loves and to serve as Jesus serves

We cannot serve Jesus without serving our neighbors

We have a need to serve

We really do we are hardwired for helping others

This idea appears throughout the gospels probably most in Matthew 25 where Jesus says whatever you do for the least of these you do to me

Then Jesus launches into this passage about his coming death saying that much like a seed he must die so that something beautiful can be born in his midst.

Which brings us to a question that we are often faced with the closer and closer that we get to Holy Week...How do we make sense of the cross?

for John “glorification” is a part of the cross

Through death, ressurection, and assention God’s relationship with the world is irrevocably changed

Jesus’ death was not a sacrifice to balance out the scales on human sin, Jesus’ death was about revealing the power and promise of God’s love for the world.

The cross is all about relationship

That relationship began initially “in the begining” but was made very real by God’s love for the world becoming skin and bone in Jesus

These two passages are immediately tied together

meaning that the reason that dieing to ourselves matters is that our whole lives are about bringing Glory to God

That we as people are meant to bring Glory to God in all that we do

It is through Service that we glorify God

Surrendering to God and asking what God might have us individually and collectively DO in the world

Whoever serves me God will honor -

that is an interesting directional line there.

It is not if you love God you will do these things. It is also not that you must serve in order to follow God. It is that through serving we see the glory of God

On Sunday’s like this where we have the privilege of welcoming new members into the life of the church I am often thinking to myself about how I have made those very same vows through baptism and membership in the United Methodist Church

Those vows are not out of obligation I don’t do them because I stood up on an alter and said I would

I live into our United Methodist Vows because I have come to believe that they are what is best for me, for my relationship with God, and for my relationships with my neighbors

Glorify is to make something honorable to treat it as such

Jesus' death is often spoken of as glorifying God and in the same way when we surrender our lives we are in a small or large way glorifying God

Whoever serves me the father will honor - that is an interesting directional line there. It is not if you love God you will do these things. It is also not that you must serve in order to follow God. It is that through serving we see the glory of God

The others beyond this place have a need to be of service to God and the larger community.

The gift that the church is able to offer the larger community is not that they would be served by us but that we might be able to partner with what God is already doing in their midst.

Through service we die to ourselves to resurrect what only God can do in our midst

the “dying to yourself” part of this passage is specifically that We are cold to die to ourselves in service to others. - to get out of our own way

Losing our lives does not mean burning out, and it does not mean to be a doormat either

Even more curious is that these words serve as an answer, of sorts, to the news Jesus receives that two Greeks want to see him. Suddenly, the teaching about surrendering our lives to God in Mark gains an even greater outward focus in John

We die to ourselves because there is someone somewhere in Ames that deserves to know that God loves them

The surrender that is being talked about here is quite a bit

Keep in mind that Jews and Greeks didn’t always get along, and yet it is in this moment that Jesus teaches about servant leadership

In fact in the New Testament the mention of Greeks was more often to imply Gentiles as in non-jews. As in basically anyone that is not a part of the in-group

The parable that Jesus gives us about the grain of wheat is helpful here

In it Jesus is obviously talking of himself that he was the grain that had to die

If the seed is alive it remains "alone" as it not connected as in there is no root system that connects it to the larger world and ecosystem.

One of the other components of this seed analogy is that it is cyclical

The primary purpose of sharing this passage is in forecasting Jesus’ death but once the seed dies it give life to others and then those seeds will at one point or another also have to die to pass the life onto their next generation.

In giving of ourselves we don’t loose ourselves we gain a deeper and more profound inward self

Prayer

Lord, we know Easter is coming soon and while we anxiously wait to celebrate your victory over sin and death, there are still difficult days between now and then. And try as we might, we cannot comprehend love and mercy so great as this. There is nothing perfect about us, yet you beckon us with hands that soon will be scarred by betrayal, greed, selfishness, pettiness, pride, and apathy. You see us and our imperfections with compassionate and patient eyes as we struggle to rid our lives of all the worldly things that distort, distract, and entangle us. As the cross looms ahead, our eyes and our focus are on you and you alone for our redemption and salvation. Amen.

Benediction

Beloved, go from this place to seek and find the glory of Christ wherever you go. And may you be blessed to recognize Christ as you notice, meet, and serve your neighbors today and every day. Amen.