Who is the greatest?
Sermon for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, year B
Bible reading: Mark 9:35b-37
This is the big time of year around Australia. The festive fever of footy finals burns hot. Fans are on the edge of their seats. Even if your team has been knocked out, you can’t turn away from the action. You have to know how it all turns out. You have to see who will be the best of the best of the best.
Human beings are competitive by nature. And I thank God for sports and other civilised competitions. There’d be a lot less crime on our streets if kids would channel their energy into sports. I think the Olympic Games is a great invention. The Olympics and other competitions allow human beings to compete fiercely but safely according to rules, and in all that competing, to strive for greatness. And the closing ceremony draws nations together for a change.
Competing is fun and healthy. The image of the athlete was not strange to the first Christians. St Paul would urge us all to take our bodily training seriously, but work even harder on Godliness. He used analogies from the sports world to encourage believers to persevere in their faith. He even encouraged his congregation by urging them to out do one another in acts of love.
Yes, competing in one form or another is definitely part of our makeup. But unfortunately we are also by nature selfish and proud. So we don’t know when to stop. We constantly want to be better than others, and too often we take our rivalry outside the arena of the sports field or the chessboard.
The disciples in today’s reading were bickering amongst themselves. They’re like a bunch of siblings, squabbling in the back seat of the family car. We laugh at that because we can relate to it. But it’s serious stuff. Such squabbling, when it is full-grown, ends in murder and war and destruction of the human race.
Selfish ambition and jealous rivalry ruins unity and peace. While the secular world may think these are wise and laudable traits, St James says they are not from God, but earthly, unspiritual and devilish.
You don’t have to read too far into the bible to see why. Jealous rivalry brought grief to the first family when Cain killed Abel because the latter stood in the way of Cain’s desire to be number 1.
If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all
Who is the greatest? Wouldn’t we all like to know? Wouldn’t we all like to think of ourselves as the greatest? I’m reminded of those words from the Counting Crows song back in the 90s: We all want to be big, big stars… When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me.
Well today Jesus redefines greatness in terms that go against all our hopes and dreams of outranking those around us.
Our Lord had only just told the disciples yet again that he would be handed over to suffer and die. But they were still driven by this primordial desire to rise above the next person and be the greatest.
When Jesus asked them what they were discussing, they were silent. Rightfully so. Due shame. And he knew perfectly well what they had been discussing. But instead of simply giving them a slap on the wrist, he took the subject and ran with it. He redefined greatness that day in a most unexpected way when he said, If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.
Of all? Not servant of all, surely. That doesn’t sit too well with us. We’d rather choose whom we would serve. The best of both worlds – looking like servants of Christ while still aspiring to be King Pin. We befriend the influential, those who make us look generous and kind. If we serve at all, we choose to serve the significant, those hand picked by us.
What did our Lord himself do? Was he selective? He came to seek out and save the lost – the insignificant ones. Better still, the offensive ones, those whom the Pharisees and religious rulers had kicked out, people from the highways and byways.
We are quick to criticise ‘those people’ who are sinners. But see how easily we stand in the safety of our own self-righteousness and look down on them from an imaginary pedestal? Every time we judge others, no matter how just our criticism, we need to hear the words of Nathan the Prophet addressing us: ‘You are that man … you are that woman.’
Because the good news of Christ will mean nothing to us until we see ourselves numbered with sinners and outcasts, until we admit our own unworthiness, until we side with insignificance.
For that is the way of Christ. He came for all. Its not God’s will that even one should perish or be left out of his kingdom. For God so loved the whole world... That’s why our Lord was so often in the company of the insignificant: to round them up, to bring them back, seeking out and saving the lost.
To make his point on this particular day, Jesus takes one of societies most insignificant members. He takes a child: often ignored, excluded, completely insignificant, until our Lord takes this child in his arms and shows how God regards the least. And says, ‘That’s the way its also gotta be with you lot’
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Is that difficult for us? Yes, true greatness has never been so difficult. Our proud hearts baulk at the thought of it. But I have seen amazing examples of this among you: quiet unassuming helpers, City Care volunteers.
I was inspired when one of our members, who is well up the corporate ladder in the workplace, spent time to help and comfort one of societies insignificant ones recently just over at Hungry Jacks, a person I – a pastor of the church – would have ignored. And I begin to see a wisdom at work here, one I hope and pray will grow after we pastors move on; a wisdom from above which is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.
[James 3:17]
There is great encouragement here for all who devote themselves to the charitable work of doing good to neglected souls. There is encouragement for everyone who labours to restore the outcast to a place in society, to raise the fallen, to gather together the ragged children, whom no-one cares for, to pluck the worst of characters from a life of sin (and) to bring the wanderers home.
Let all such take comfort when they read these words (of our Lord). Their work may often be hard and discouraging. They may be mocked, ridiculed and held up to scorn by the world. But let them know that the Son of God marks all they do and is well pleased. Whatever the world may think, these are they whom Jesus will delight to honour at the last day.
— JC Ryle
Meanwhile, God gives us all that we need for such a life of service. The Greatest of all comes to dwell in us, albeit in seemingly insignificant form. He comforts his people with his promises. He strengthens his servants with himself as he feeds them with his own body and blood.
As the Holy Spirit works in us through these meagre means, we eventually come to see the lengths our Lord went to for us. We see ourselves in that child, who would otherwise have been completely ignored. How fitting is the term ‘child of God’. Whether you are 9 or 99, God calls you his child. He has taken what is insignificant and embraced it in his loving arms.
All human achievement, be it the most riveting sports final, the greatest work of music or art, the most impressive and powerful inventions and technological advances, will always be limited. None of these can save humanity in the ultimate sense. True greatness must surpass even the most impressive and significant human feat.
So if we would appease our curiosity, if we simply must know, we can safely conclude that Jesus is the greatest. For he stooped down to our level, he became the least, taking on the role of the servant, even unto death on the cross for us so that we might be finally free from self destruction born from pride.
Therefore, when his repeated prediction was in due course finally fulfilled, God the Father restored him to his rightful place – high above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and has given him the name that is above all names, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen! [Philippians 2 & Ephesians 1]