Text: Mark 9:30-37 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Jesus Again Foretells His Death and Resurrection
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him.
Who Is the Greatest?
33 And they came to Caper′na-um; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another who was the greatest. 35 And he sat down and called the twelve; and he said to them, “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
Jesus knows exactly the life we know. That is the point of the Incarnation – God took human form to bridge the gap between us and him.
I take great comfort in knowing that Jesus knows fully and completely what it’s like to be a human being. He knows my quirks, but forgives them. He knows my strengths, and he blesses them. And if that is true for me, it is equally true for all of you, and for all people who place their faith and trust in him.
This morning’s lesson really underlines this for me. The disciples were busted and they knew it. I can just imagine them, sitting red-faced in that house, waiting for Jesus to lower the boom on them, waiting for Jesus to maybe even say, “You guys just don’t seem to get it. You can all go home now. We’re done. I will find some others who will get it to take your places.”
But he doesn’t. Instead, he has them sit down with him and he teaches them a great and abiding truth about what it means to follow him: “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And as a living illustration, he takes a child into his arms – what an image that is! – and tells his brothers that whoever receives a child in his name receives not only him, but the one who sent him.
We should note here the importance of the phrase in verse 35: “And he sat down and called the twelve.” Barclay tells us: “When a Rabbi was teaching as a Rabbi, as a master teaches his scholars and disciples, when he was really making a pronouncement, he sat to teach.”[1] And I have no doubt but that the disciples fully understood the importance of this teaching moment; I also believe that this moment was not lost on them.
When Jesus called those simple, rough fishermen to be his disciples, or the tax collector Matthew, he knew exactly who they were. He knew that they were far from perfect. He knew that they were not the kind of men future generations would otherwise remember; he knew that they we not among the “movers and shakers” of their day. Jesus could have called anyone else to follow him – any of the high and mighty, any of the great leaders, even of Rome. But he didn’t. He called them. He saw something in these men that they perhaps didn’t even see in themselves – and we are here today because Jesus was absolutely, totally correct in his choice, Peter’s momentary weakness and Judas’ betrayal notwithstanding.
“If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
The world we live in just doesn’t work that way. That’s why it’s so difficult for us even today to understand these simple words of Jesus; that’s why the world doesn’t get it, and never will. That’s why it’s our job as Jesus’ eyes, ears, voice, hands and feet to, as St. Francis of Assisi said, “preach constantly. If necessary, use words.”
Christian faith is not about mere words, even profound words. It’s about living out in our lives that gift of love that God gave us in the form of his Son. It’s about living out that generosity of spirit that he exemplified.
When I was in Sunday School at the good old First Congregational Church of Oshkosh, WI, we spent a lot of time talking about Dr. Albert Schweitzer. He has always been for me one of those influences that are so pervasive that they become part of the woodwork of our lives, influences that are so deep that we don’t even think of them until something jogs our memory.
There are all kinds of true stories people tell about Albert Schweitzer – he was one of those rare “larger-than-life” personalities. Once he met a visitor at the boat landing of his hospital in Africa, and without a word, he reached down and picked up his visitor’s luggage. “Oh, no, Dr. Schweitzer!” his visitor protested, “Let me carry the luggage.” Schweitzer looked the man coolly and said something to the effect of “young man, this is my hospital, and if I choose to carry your luggage, I shall do so.” Albert Schweitzer, gifted concert pianist and organist, great theologian, respected historian, and outstanding missionary doctor, was nonetheless – and despite all that – a humble man, a servant of Christ in his generation. Here’s an illustration of that humbleness: On a train journey in the American Midwest, Schweitzer was approached by two ladies. “Have we the honor of speaking to Professor Einstein?” they asked. “No, unfortunately not,” replied Schweitzer, “though I can quite understand your mistake, for he has the same kind of hair as I have.” He paused to rumple his hair. “But inside, my head is altogether different. However, he is a very old friend of mine — would you like me to give you his autograph?” Taking a slip of paper from his pocket he wrote: “Albert Einstein, by way of his friend, Albert Schweitzer.”[2]
Schweitzer also said that “[you] must do something … for those who have need of help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you do not live in a world all your own.”[3]
“You do not live in a world all your own.” The writer Elbert Hubbard puts it this way: “[On Judgment Day,] God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.”[4]
So what is the difference between an Albert Schweitzer and people like us? Actually, very little. I don’t just believe, I know, that every one of you has done things in your lives worthy of a Schweitzer, and worthy of Jesus. But I think the major difference is one of perspective, what Barclay calls setting things in the sight of Jesus: “If we took everything and set it in the sight of Jesus, it would make all the difference in the world. If of everything we did, we asked, ‘Could I go on doing this if Jesus was watching me?’; if of everything we said, we asked, ‘Could I go on talking like this if Jesus was listening to me?’, there would be a great many things which we would be saved from doing and saying.”[5] Those people who wear the wristbands with “WWJD” – “What Would Jesus Do?” – are simply giving expression to what Barclay wrote back in the 1950s, and of course to what Jesus taught his disciples on that fateful day so long ago.
“If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” How do we put this into practice in this world which demands and rewards the exact opposite behavior, a world which rewards ambition, which celebrates those who are first and immediately forgets who’s in second place, much less those who come in last (except maybe as the butt of jokes)?
Well, let’s bear in mind that Jesus did not abolish ambition. Instead, Jesus changed the focus of ambition from, say, the ambition to rule, to be the top dog, to the ambition to serve: “For the ambition to have things done for us, he substituted the ambition to do things for others.”[6]
When you think about it, the really great people, the ones whose names and deeds we remember and revere, the ones who make a lasting and real contribution to the world, are not those who use their talents and skills to further their own ambitions, but those who use those talents and skills for the betterment of those around them.
Back in 1955, William Barclay wrote these words: “Every economic problem would be solved if people lived for what they could do for others and not for what they could get for themselves…When Jesus spoke of the supreme greatness and value of the one whose ambition was to be a servant, he laid down one of the greatest practical truths in the world.”[7]
Maybe one thing that will really help us to understand the concept of being last and not first is to keep in mind that beautiful image of Jesus embracing that little child. When Jesus did that, he was saying, “Whoever 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 – whoever welcomes such people into their hearts, their homes, and their lives, welcomes me. And much more than that: That person welcomes God.”
Let’s all continue to try to think in terms of God’s perspective, and not our own!
Let us pray: “O God, help us to be masters of ourselves that we may be servants of others. Amen.”[8]
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Mark: The New Daily Study Bible, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 258
[2] http://pawprints.kashalinka.com/anecdotes/albert-schweitzer
[3] Schweitzer, Albert, quoted in Link, Mark, S.J., Jesus: A Contemporary Walk with Jesus, Allen, TX, Resources for Christian Living, 1997, p. 285
[4] Hubbard, Elbert, quoted in Link, Mark, S.J., Jesus: A Contemporary Walk with Jesus, Allen, TX, Resources for Christian Living, 1997, p. 285
[5] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Mark: The New Daily Study Bible, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 258
[6] Ibid.
[7] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Mark: The New Daily Study Bible, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 260
[8] Sir Alec Paterson