Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson.
Who
is the greatest? I guess it depends on who you ask, and what you’re debating.
NCAA football? Sorry, Aggies, but ‘Bama is the top of the heap right now. What
about the best basketball player? Some say Michael, others say LeBron. Greatest
president? Depends on your party. Greatest preacher? Most would probably say
Billy Graham. Greatest NASCAR driver? Depends on before or after restrictor
plates. We have livestock shows to find the best future farmer and rancher,
spelling bees to determine the best speller, MVP awards for the best player,
and Oscars for best actors. I bet many of you have a T-shirt, or a necktie, or
a card somewhere that declares you to be the best mom or dad ever.
The
disciples are having a similar argument: who’s the best disciple? I can imagine
how the conversation went. Andrew argues he’s best because he was the first of
the disciples called – first in Jesus program, first in His heart, so to speak.
Peter argues his confession, which Jesus declared to be the foundation of the
church, makes him the best, but Nathaniel counters that he confessed Jesus to
be the Son of God and King of Israel before Peter ever did. Matthew, a tax
collector, says he sacrificed the most financially to become a disciple, but
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, think they gave up more when they left
their family fishing enterprise and their older father. Philip figures he has a
good case, as he became the first evangelist when he tracked down his brother.
The other disciples all had their reasons, too, I’m sure. Why, even Judas gets
into it, his greatness as being trusted with the money.
We
do it, too. Who’s the greatest member of Zion? Perhaps it’s the one who has
been a member the longest. Maybe it’s the one with the largest family tree, or
the deepest roots in Mission Valley. Maybe the one who has God-given talent to
spare, or who seems to be involved in everything, or who has taught Sunday
school for years or the one whom we think gives the most money – they are the
most more important. Some would say the pastor (I disagree completely with that
notion, by the way, whether it’s me or another man), or the church secretary or
the person who knows how to make good coffee.
The
danger of considering someone to be the best is that it devalues everyone else.
A few years ago, when Tiger Woods was at the height of his professional career,
commentators noted how his entry into any tournament changed the aspect of that
event. He was so good, so unstoppable that players assumed he would win, so
instead of vying for first, every other competitor was trying to come in
second. Push this attitude far enough,
and you wind up with the philosophy of Ricky Bobby: If you’re not first, you’re
last.
Jesus
takes this argument of greatness and tips it over 180 degrees. “If anyone would
be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And He uses a child to
illustrate this point. Now, I need you to set aside our 21st century
attitude of children for a second, that they’re beautiful little angels who
need to be protected and sheltered and modeled for their innocence and purity.
In Jesus’ day, nothing was further from the truth. In the social structure,
children were above dogs and below servants. Children couldn’t do anything:
they couldn’t own, they couldn’t participate in society, they couldn’t produce
a product or a child of their own, they couldn’t fend for themselves. They were
completely dependent on their parents, they took a mother’s attention, took up
resources, and took up space. Children were things to be tolerated while they
were eating you out of house and home and while you waited for your sons to
work for you in the fields or in the business, or for your daughters marry off
so you could gain the wedding price.
Jesus
sits down next to this seemingly useless person, front and center. It’s as if
Jesus says, “Here is the one who is the most important. This one who is so
small that he is overlooked. This one who cannot care for herself. This one who
is completely dependent on others. The one who needs the most but has nothing
to exchange. The one who is so weak, he can barely stand. The one who is so
overwhelmed she is about ready to fall. This one is the most important.”
That
changes things, doesn’t it, to see greatness as the one who is the most
needful? Instead of seeing greatness as the one who is the best and the most, instead
see greatness as the one who seems to be the least. The greatest, Jesus says,
is the one who is weakest, who is about to be overwhelmed, who is completely dependent;
the one who has lost or who is losing everything dear, the one in the most
danger of being overlooked or bypassed; the one written off by society as
irrelevant, the one no one sees as if they aren’t even there; the one thrown
aside like detritus, the unwanted and the unloved.
You know a person like this. For just a
second, close your eyes and imagine that person – perhaps it’s a man, a woman,
or a child. The rest of the world sees them, but I want you to look at them
closely. Close your eyes. Look…See the pain in the face, the sadness? See the
loss and hurt? Look more closely: Do you see the griefs and sorrows? Do you see
how this soul is almost overwhelmed to the point of death? Do you see how this
soul is as nothing? Keep your eyes closed…now look at the brow…and as you do,
you notice something strange – the scars at the hair-line. They’re not big,
just a fraction of an inch long, some jagged and some neat small marks. You
realize the face in front of you is changing. As you see him, He is also seeing
you, his expression filled with compassion and mercy. Now, look down…the hands of
this weak soul are held out towards you in a welcome. Notice the hands…gentle,
strong…and with a mark in each hand. Now, quickly, look down at the feet and
you see a similar mark in the feet. Slowly, he turns his back towards you and
you see the lines trace across His back, once angry red, now healed. And, as He
turns back toward you, you realize that this one who is before you, the weakest
of all, is none other than Jesus Himself. Do you see Him? As your eyes are
opened, He speaks.
He
says, “I know what it is to be weak and humbled; I know what it is to surrender
fully and completely for the eternal wellbeing of those whom I love. I know
what it is to have nothing. I know what it is to be hated and despised, a man
of sorrows, whom no one loves. I know what it is to be so weak, I cannot carry
my own cross. I know what it is to be overlooked until perceived as a threat,
and then something to be destroyed. I know what it is to be overwhelmed at the
point of death, abandoned by my closest friends, and I know what it is to be
rejected even by My own Father. I know what it is to die for people who spat on
me, whipped me, and nailed me to the cross.”
His
greatness is backwards of what the world sees. The world sees dying as weakness;
Jesus shows strength in his innocent suffering and death. The world counts as
least one who refuses to fight; Jesus demonstrates greatness in forgiving those
whose sins nail Him to the cross. The world sees crucifixion as the most
humiliating and excruciating way of death; Jesus makes the cross into a throne
of glory. The world looks at a grave as the period at the end of life’s
sentence; Jesus’ resurrection makes the grave to be nothing more than a resting
place as we wait for our own day of resurrection.
And,
when we see Jesus as the least of all, you see the least of all as the
greatest. At the beginning of the sermon, I asked you who was the greatest
member of Zion. Does this change your perspective of the greatest?
Why
is this so important? Kyle and Kari were new members of the church. Wanting to
get involved, they volunteered to be money counters. For about five months,
they never missed a Sunday service or their turn to count. Then suddenly, they
stopped coming to church. When I called on them to see what was going on, Kari said,
“Pastor, when we count the offerings, we see what people give. You have so many
people who give so much. My husband and I can only give a few dollars a month.
Obviously, you don’t need us.” They knew they weren’t first; they considered
themselves last.
I,
their pastor, had missed it. We, the strong members of the church, had missed their
greatness because we were looking at the wrong thing. We lost sight of their
importance until it was too late.
The
greatest member of Zion is the one whose heart is broken, the one whose body
hurts all the time, the one who is afraid, the one who is drowning in debt, the
one who is to embarrassed to come out of the shadows, the one who is scared,
the one who is flirting with grave temptation, the one who is grieved by what
they have done and left undone. This is the most important member of this body
of Christ.
If
you think I am trying to shame you – I am not. You are the most important child
of God in this holy House today. Please – don’t hide. Let your brothers and
sisters in Christ who are strong walk with you and help you with our prayers,
our words of encouragement, our care and our support. And for those of you who
are strong, don’t worry – I’m not forgetting you. It’s not that I don’t think
you are important. Because the day will come when you will be the least and
then, you too, shall be the greatest.
And
when you start to change how you see greatness, your whole world view changes. A
family had stopped at a fast-food burger joint for a fast to-go meal. Somehow
they wound up with an extra burger in the sack. The teenage boy was excited –
he thought he was going to get a two-fer that night. While they munched on the
fries in the bag, the light in front of them turned red. As the mom looked
around, she saw a man at the intersection. He was a mess – shaggy beard, ragged
face, dirty. She could practically smell him through the rolled-up windows.
And, then, she knew why they had gotten the extra burger. As she rolled down
the passenger window, she waved the man over and told her son to give the man
the extra burger. The man nodded his thanks, and the family drove away. The son
was irritated at first – why did you give away my burger, he demanded. “I didn’t
give him yours,” Mom said. She smiled. “I gave him his.”
In
the Name of Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment