Servant of all

Introduction/Kid’s talk

In the reading we just heard, Jesus responds to the disciples’ argument over who is the greatest by taking a child and demanding that his disciples should welcome such a child. If the disciples did not receive such a child, then they would have nothing to do with Jesus. If they did welcome a child, then they would receive both Jesus and the Father.

What does welcoming a child have to do with anything, though? To understand that, we have to understand how ancient Jews saw children. While children were seen as a blessing from God, they were absolutely subject to their parents. The fifth commandment, the first that turns to our relationships with other people, tells us to “honour our father and our mother.”

Exodus 20:12 ESV

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

The word honour here means to give weight to our parents, it is translated as “glorify” when it’s talking about God. But it wasn’t just the parental relationship that demanded respect, but also age. Elders were the natural leaders—their extra age was taken to indicate extra wisdom. Because of all this, children were at the bottom of society. Welcoming a child, as if they actually mattered, as if they were as important as anyone else, was therefore a really weird idea.

What might an be equivalent today? In our culture, which idolizes tolerance and minorities, it’s hard to find a group that is considered low status. But let me tell you a story. This is a rather ugly story, and not a terribly happy one. But bear with me.

Early this year my brother, Perry, had to hold a funeral for a father who had killed himself on Christmas day. It was a tough funeral because the guy’s family were a tough bunch. The Christmas before, this guy and his brother had got into an argument and beaten each other up so badly that they had ended up in hospital. This guy’s life was such a mess that people were relieved that he had only killed himself and not killed his family first. In the funeral, his family had to be placed on one side of the church so they wouldn’t beat up the wife’s family on the other side of the church. And they sent the hearse off with the clashing of beer bottles and shouts of strange encouragement.

These people are what we would call complete rednecks. These are the sort of people that I grew up with, at school, in town. These are the sort of people that the TV and newspapers and radio love to hate, and they tell us that they’re stupid, they’re ignorant, they’re rough, they’re violent, they swear every second word, and they are insufferably proud in the midst of the wreckage of their lives.

And these are the people that Jesus came to serve and to save. These people are on the bottom rung of society. These people are the children we are supposed to welcome!

Now, how about you? Who do you know who is like that? Who is the most unpopular kid in class? Can you think of anyone? What can you do to welcome them in Jesus’s name?

Think about that as you go to Kid’s Church with Nicole & Wendy.

The World’s Way

A bit over a week ago a young man reacted to his concerns that his culture was being destroyed by foreign invaders. Over the preceding years he had traveled in Europe and been repulsed by the way that immigration, especially Islamic immigration, was changing European society. Boiling over, he decided that it was up to him to do something about it. So he chose two mosques, in a quiet, backwater city, and he embarked on a massacre of the innocent men, women, and children attending Friday prayers. His frenzy was cowardly, purposeless, and evil, guaranteed to fail in achieving his declared goals and to cause great suffering.

The world’s reaction was unsurprising. The terrorist was condemned by those he claimed to be representing, namely, Western societies, which call endlessly, and hopelessly for a mystical union of all peoples. And he sparked dire warnings of violent reactions from many, including a president of one Islamic nation. Should any of this surprise us? Should any of this shock us? Unfortunately, no. The human condition is one of strife, hatred, envy, fear, and bitterness. Genesis 6:5 reveals the untamed heart of humanity:

Genesis 6:5 ESV

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

But we do live in an era when the atoning sacrifice of Christ--the act of the son of God to take away the sin of the world—echoes through the nations. Even so, those hearts who have not been dedicated to Christ are still held in thrall to sin. Death is ultimately all they know. Equally, the hope for some mystical union between people who disagree on the very fundamentals of reality is only an empty promise. Where then, is humanity’s hope? Is there a third way that actually works?

The way of Christ

The ninth chapter of Mark marks (pun intended) a turning point in the gospel. Having extracted a confession of his true nature (the Messiah) from the disciples, Jesus now resolutely turns his face towards Jerusalem and the cross. Much to the confusion of his followers. This chapter begins Jesus’s extended explanation of how God’s kingdom really works for his followers. It starts with glory, but it ends in humility.

The transfiguration

A week after telling his confused disciples that he “must suffer many things and be rejected … and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Mark 8:31 ESV

31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Jesus takes the inner circle of three, Peter, James and John, and climbs up the slopes of Mt Hermon, rising far above Caesarea Philippi. Here they see Jesus’s true nature, his divinity, shining through his flesh. And they see his importance, as the foundational representatives of Israel, Moses and Elijah, confide with him. Surely this glory is what they can look forward to! This is more like it!

But after the moment has faded away, and they are making their way back down the mountain, Jesus tells them to keep this momentous experience a secret, until after he has risen from the dead. Reminded of Jesus’s dire predictions, and puzzled by the the experience, including the appearance of Elijah, they ask him,

Mark 9:11 ESV

11 And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?”

You see, the Scribes took Malachi 4:5-6

Malachi 4:5–6 ESV

5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

And had built an eschatology, a theology of the end times, in which this was a central element. They expected Elijah to come just before the day of the Lord to declare God’s intentions, and to call people to God. Then, on the day of the Lord, God would restore Israel to its glory and remove all the foreign and sinful influence. But where then, did Jesus’s ideas of suffering and death fit? If Jesus was the messiah pointed to by Elijah, why would he die?

Jesus’s answer fits theme of this chapter. After reiterating his claim that the prophets had predicted his suffering, he points out that Elijah has come, and he, too, has been treated with contempt.

Mark 9:13 ESV

13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”

He is speaking, of course, of John the Baptist, who has been executed by Herod. Jesus’s point is simple: the scribes’ idea of the end times is all about the triumphant conquest of God, ushered in by Elijah and performed by the Messiah. But if Elijah has been rejected and executed by the political system, what does that say about the accuracy of the scribes’ expectations?

As that sunk in, the three disciples must have been feeling that everything was going downhill, not just their bodies. And when they reached the foot of the mountain, it was to yet more sad news.

Exercising power

While Jesus and the three have been up the mountain, a man has come to the remaining disciples with his demon-possessed son. The disciples, in their swagger, have tried to cast out the demon, but it has shocked them by resisting, and everyone is in a tizz over this. Jesus is frustrated, unsurprisingly, but he wastes no time dismissing the demon with a single sentence. Afterwards the disciples come and ask him “Why could we not cast it out?” (Mk 9:28). The response Jesus gives has puzzled many down through the ages,

Mark 9:29 ESV

29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

It is worth noting that this verse is found in most manuscripts (our ancient copies of the Scriptures) as “anything but prayer and fasting,” but textual critics have become so used to removing “and fasting” from similar verses in the NT that they do so here. This is despite the fact that the “fasting” in this verse is found in reliable, rather than unreliable manuscripts. In any case, Jesus’s point is simple: you can never cast demons out—it is only my spirit in you (the Holy Spirit) that has authority. So without prayer (seeking God and aligning ourselves with him) and perhaps fasting (placing God above everything else, even our physical needs), we have no power.

Just because we are Jesus’s disciples, that doesn’t give us some magical power to go and do what we want. Jesus’s power doesn’t “rub off on us,” so to speak. No, Jesus’s power dwells in us, it lives in us, because it is alive. It is a person—the Holy Spirit. And because the Spirit is a person, he gets to decide how his power is used, so we need to listen and align ourselves with him, thus prayer and fasting. The same is true today, of course. The same Spirit lives in us. The same power resides in us. But we, too must pray and fast if we are to see it at work through us. If we have faith, then “all things are possible for one who believes,” as Jesus tells the doubting father. All things, but not anything.

We are not Captain Marvel, imbued with mystical power that can destroy as easily as save, and thank God for that. Rather we are stewards of God’s healing power—a power that always and only does good.

The greatest

After a salty reminder of his coming death and resurrection, the gang headed back to home base in Capernaum. On the way, the disciples held a furious debate that they tried to keep from Jesus. But, of course, that failed, and when he confronted them, they stood about, silent and abashed, because they had been debating who was greatest.

Mark 9:34 ESV

34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.

Perhaps the nine were jealous of the three, and perhaps Jesus’s constant talk of death had started them worrying about succession plans. Whatever the cause, here was a teachable moment, and Jesus didn’t waste it. He sat down.

Now remember that in ancient times the one sitting down was the wise one, the teacher. If Jesus were to do this today, he might have said, “Right, listen up,” and turned around and pulled down a projector screen and powered up his, umm, Powerpoint. So what does he teach? He teaches his disciples the core of discipleship, the key to his own ministry.

Mark 9:35 ESV

35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

This is completely upside down! The first must be last! Of course, this is familiar to us, because we’ve been hearing about it our whole lives. Even our culture, as much as it has forgotten about Christ, still remembers this idea of servant leadership. But this was most definitely not any part of conventional or even Jewish thinking in Jesus’s time.

In the introduction and kid’s talk I tried to get a feel for how radical this upside down attitude is by getting us to think about welcoming people of the lowest status in our culture. In Jesus’s case, he used a child as an illustration, but for us, it’s more likely to be bogans or rednecks, or some other undervalued member of society.

Jesus’s whole view of the world is completely the opposite of the disciples. And they are mightily confused.

For us or against us

This confusion comes out in John’s question to Jesus:

Mark 9:38 ESV

38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

You can sense John’s outrage. How dare they--someone who had not put in the hard yards of following Jesus, of being his faithful disciple—how dare they go around taking advantage of Jesus’s power! (And, John might have wondered, “how come he could do stuff when we were struggling with that stupid demon!”)

Jesus doesn’t soften the blow: your sacrifice doesn’t earn you anything, Johnny boy! Even someone who does something as pathetic as to give you a cup of water is going to get a reward!

Mark 9:39–41 ESV

39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.

Can you imagine the frustration boiling up by now? Not only are the disciples not allowed to use Jesus’s power as they see fit, they have to share it with people they don’t even know! And they have to share their rewards with anyone who does the least little thing for them. What is going on!?

You can see this frustration in many churches, even today. We don’t want to share our rewards. We don’t want to share our holiness. We look askance at others who are supposedly serving Christ but aren’t putting in the really hard yards like we do. We, too, are challenged by Jesus words, “the one who is not against us is for us.” We want commitment to us, to our mission, to our church, to our group, our facility, our programme. But Jesus says, “Sorry, but I want commitment to me, and that’s all I want.” Let’s make sure that that’s all we want, too!

Temptation

And finally, as if to completely gut any self-esteem the disciples have left, Jesus gives them a lecture on the dangers of temptation. The vivid language Jesus uses here makes it very, very clear that he sees our own beings as one of the things we will have to struggle with. Jesus isn’t saying, “If you have a book that tempts you, burn it,” or “If there’s a place you go to that tempts you, flee from it.” No, he’s saying “If your hand, or your foot, or your eye causes you to sin, then cut it off, pluck it out!”

Mark 9:43–47 ESV

43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell,

The reality is that there are things inside each of us which are prone to evil. Perhaps it is a fondness for luxury, perhaps a fondness for argument, perhaps a soft spot for sexy women or men, perhaps an uncontrollable desire to read or watch TV. Perhaps it is a fear of confrontation, perhaps a fear of taking responsibility, perhaps a reluctance to share. Whatever it is, there are parts of us that can, and do, lead us into sin. What are we to do with these parts of ourselves? Do we insist that they make us who we are? That our identities would be corrupted without such characteristics? No! No, says Jesus. No, we are to destroy such parts of ourselves. Show no mercy! Cut them off, pluck them out, get rid of them, stat.

Mark 9:49–50 ESV

49 For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Why? Because the reality is that such weaknesses will destroy us, they will drag us down into the mud, into the pit. On the other hand, if we burn them out, we will be salty, our presence will preserve others, our commitment will encourage those around us, our community and even our society, to be better.

Conclusion

And so, what can we learn with the disciples? Jesus’s glory belongs to him, and it is beautiful and real—overwhelmingly so. But we don’t get that glory just by hanging around Jesus. Rather, like him, we need to be humble. We need to welcome the weakest, we need to accept those who love Christ whether they are part of our gang or not, and we need to look carefully at ourselves, putting to death the ugliness of sin in us. We need to be the servant of all. As Paul reminds the Romans, (Rom 12:10b):

Romans 12:10 ESV

10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Only then can we truly live as Christ.

Remember what Jesus said (MK 9:50b),

Mark 9:50 ESV

50 Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

So, let us have that preserving, humbling power of Christ in us. Let us have no room for boasting or excluding or lording it over others. Let us remember that Jesus is Lord, not us. And so, let us be at peace with one another.