Mark 9 30-37 2006
Pentecost 18
Mark 9:30-37
October 8, 2006
“The Greatest”
Introduction: Lessons from the hen house. There is something I’ve learned about chickens. There is a definite "pecking order" to the flock. Within the flock of hens, one of them always becomes dominant. She will peck away at any hen that makes her angry or gets in her way. At first, the other hens that get pecked don’t like it and try to retaliate. But when they see they can’t win, they begin to turn on each other.
Each chicken that isn’t the dominant one begins to take out her frustrations on the others. And soon there becomes a pecking order. The next strongest picks on the next weakest, and so on and so on. Then one hen is left who is the lowliest and weakest in the pecking order. And she has no one to peck at, so she just runs away from all the conflict.
Well, that’s something like the situation we have here in the beginning of our passage this morning. As they are walking along the road, the disciples are trying to establish a pecking order among themselves. It is quite astounding when you think about it. Here Jesus is telling His disciples what will happen to Him when He goes to Jerusalem, that He will suffer and die, and they are wondering who will be greatest in the Kingdom of God. Maybe they remembered the glory of the mountain when Jesus was transfigured. Maybe they thought that the cross would be an insignificant step towards the resurrection. But it is obvious that they were not considering the valley of the cross through which they all would pass. Regardless of the reason, something spurred an argument about who of them was going to be the greatest in this new Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus was constantly talking about.
Mark writes, “They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
Now, the interesting thing in this opening incident is that when Jesus asked them what they were talking about, all of them clammed up; no one would say a word. They all kept quiet. They obviously were embarrassed about their conversation.
But Jesus knew exactly what they were talking about. He knew that it was inconsistent with the way His disciples should be acting. So, when they got to the house in Capernaum, Jesus decided to make this a teaching moment about what greatness and significance was all about in the context of the Kingdom of God and in the context of the cross.
“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Here’s God definition of being great… …You don’t achieve greatness by seeking to be first. You achieve it by having a willingness to be last. …You don’t achieve significance by getting people to serve you. You achieve it by becoming a servant of all.
In order to drive His lesson home, Jesus uses an object lesson-in this case, it is a human object-a little child who happened to be near them where they were having this conversation. And he uses this child to drive home His point about God’s idea of greatness and significance.
“He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."
What a beautiful scene. A child was singled out by Jesus. Jesus wraps His big carpenter arms around this little child, and says, "True greatness has a lot to do with our relationship with a child." True greatness has a lot to do with our not only showing love but the object of that love. True greatness comes from the motivation of our love.
"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." The key to understanding this verse is found in the phrase "in my name". You don’t welcome a child into your arms because of how that child can help your career advance. You don’t take a child up in your arms because that will give you status or recognition in the community. No matter how much we love children they, in effect have a lower status in society. They can’t drink, vote or drive a car, though they may want to, drive a car that is. William Barclay, in his New Testament commentary makes a great statement about this idea, “Now, a child has no influence at all. A child cannot advance a man’s career, nor enhance a man’s prestige. A child cannot give us things; it’s the other way around. A child needs things. A child must have things done for him. And so Jesus is saying, ’If a man welcomes the poor, ordinary people, the people who have no influence, and no wealth, and no power, the people who need things done for them, then he’s welcoming Him. And more than that, he’s welcoming God.’"
So, what Jesus is really saying to the disciples is that to achieve greatness or significance in the Kingdom of God, you must welcome and love people. We must love the lowest in status and position. And we must do it with no consideration of what someone can do for us. You see, the world tells us to use people for personal gain. But God says to love people because they are precious to Him. Because people-all people-matter to God. You matter to God. We matter to each other.
“If anyone one wants to be first, he must be last of all, and servant of all.” What are we to do? This goes against our very nature as sinful human beings. Even James emphasizes this problem in the Christian church of his day and James makes our weakness very clear. "Where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind." James asks, "Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?" then James says, "From your cravings, your wanting, your coveting, your wrong asking, your friendship with the world, your pride." The easy way out of this dilemma might seem to be to stop wanting to be first. But we can’t. By ourselves we can't. But what we cannot do, God can do in and through us. Now we are not puppets on a string that must wait for God to make us do this or that. But God has already changed us and our wants, even our desire to be first. That’s right! God has already changed us. To deny this is to deny the power of baptism where God recreates us anew in the image of His Son Jesus Christ. To deny this means to deny that God has given us His Holy Spirit that works in us not only a saving faith in Jesus Christ but also the will to do the works of love that God has prepared for us to do. James, in our epistle lesson, basically says, “Be who you are in Christ Jesus. Stop following your flesh, stop following the devil. By the indwelling of the Spirit of God you can make a choice. We are to welcome the child, welcome the least of the Lord's brothers and sister around us, "Come up higher, higher than you are, higher, perhaps, than you think you deserve to be, higher even that I think you should be because of my own sinful thoughts, and even higher than me." It’s not easy to do this. It's not easy being last and serving. It's even more difficult to stand aside for others to go before you, and to welcome those whose servants you are to be.
Think of a long line at the checkout counter at your grocery store. As you stand, last in line, you see a frail grandmother type carrying a basket with only two items, ready to take her place in line behind you, your cart filled with a dozen or more packages. No problem. "Do go ahead. You will be checked through before I'm unpacked." But then along comes another, this time a pushy type briskly saying, "Mind if I go ahead? I'm in sort of a hurry." Then we think -- don't we all? – Then we want nothing better than to let that shopper earn the title of "greatest" by being stuck at the back of the line. Examples
Of course we have to remember, at times all of us are pushy types. We want our own way – Church Examples ... Some of us put on meek masks of grand-motherliness ... All of us wearing out our welcome day after day ... And yet, we are always being welcomed again by God. Only the mind and the mercy of God can compute how it works, even though He has told us. We have the example of Jesus Christ - the Son of Man is betrayed into human hands -- inhuman hands, we would like to say. He is killed on a cross. Three days after he is killed, he rises again; he is alive. The result of his passionate service is that every one of us is welcomed home again, is met by God the Father, a God and Father who calls us daughter and son and urges all the heavenly host to rejoice with him "for these my sons and daughters were lost but now they are found, they were dead in trespasses and sins, but now they are alive in Christ Jesus and by the Holy Spirit."
It is fitting that Jesus gives his second summary of his sacrifice just before pointing up this sin of wanting to be the greatest. He came to change us, to alter our constant craving for greatness. And his method was to welcome us, no matter what we were like, to make himself the servant of all, to be last and least, so that we could be forgiven and made first.
And this Jesus has made each one of us great. This Jesus has welcomed us. The Father who sent him has welcomed us. And each one of us can become greater than we are, than we have been. All that God has done in Christ Jesus' agony and resurrection has worked together for good for us. For we love God. We are called according to his purpose. Day by day we are being the more conformed to the image of Christ's greatness. We know more and more that we are within a large family of the welcomed. The Holy Trinity has taken us up in the arms of Holy Baptism and has placed us among the family of the Church. WE know who the greatest was and is – Jesus Christ our Savior. He is the greatest because He became the least of all, the servant of all, that died for all. He is our example and He leads us to the cross of service. Amen!