Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” That was the
disciples’ question. The text doesn’t say if the disciples were referring to themselves –
who among us is the greatest – or if it were a more general question –
who among all of Your followers, Jesus, is the greatest – but inquiring minds
wanted to know. I think I understand that question. It’s a natural inclination,
wondering who the best is. Speaking for myself, every time I go into a pastor’s
conference, I look around and I’m critiquing myself over and against the other
pastors in the room. You know what I’m talking about – you do it, too. That’s
why we have competitions, from elementary school jump rope contests to company
employee of the month. Speed, skill, talent, knowledge, ability – all of these
come together to that pinnacle moment when a person is declared the best with
the honor and glory, recognized with a laurel and a hearty handshake or something
more tangible. Everyone, it seems, wants to be the best. But, are you
willing to do what it takes to get there, to do anything to become the
greatest?
“Who is the greatest in the kingdom?” Once upon a time, Dr.
Benjamin Franklin Pierce was working emergency triage – where medical staff
determine who needs help first and fastest – when someone grabbed his arm.
“I’ve been waiting here for hours! You keep taking people who came in after me!
Don’t you recognize me – I’m a Very Important Person! When is it my turn!” Dr.
Pierce looked at him and said, “This is the only place in the world where the
most important person is the one who is hurt the most, who is losing blood
faster than the other, whose body is more broken than the next.” He was
speaking of a hospital ER, remember, but without knowing it, Hawkeye’s description
of the MASH 4077 perfectly fits the church as well.
Too often we act as if we are that Very Important Person. We
come to the Lord’s house all dressed up in our finest. I don’t mean our
clothes; I mean our finest façades, our best masks, our best disguises that
cover up all of our shame and all of our guilt so we can present ourselves in
the best possible light. After all, we want to be the best. We’re just fine, we
say; everything is just peachy keen. But, inside, our conscience is weeping, as
we remember what was said to our spouse the other night, how we reacted to our
kids when they didn’t complete their homework, what happened after work that
night, those lust-filled thoughts that continue to race in the mind. Truth be
told, we know how far we are from being the best, but we want others to see us whole,
healthy and strong. Even as satan holds these into the light of our memories,
we try all the harder to present ourselves as being a good Christian.
“Good Christian:” there’s an oxymoron if there ever was one.
The common perception is that a “good Christian” has his or her stuff together.
They have no doubts or fears. Their family life is as perfect. They know every
answer to every question in Sunday school. They even have a monogrammed Bible
cover.
This is backwards thinking; in fact, it’s wrong, plain
wrong. A “good Christian” has nothing in and of himself or herself to boast
about. If you are looking for a definition of “good” Christian, it’s nothing
more than this: a sinner who realizes just how weak he is and just how
desperately she needs Jesus for rescue, and turns to Him, in faith, trusting
that He will hear the cry, “Lord, have mercy.” That’s the point Jesus is making
when He refers to a child.
Our North American culture still holds onto the Romantic idea
that children are innocent, priceless, angelic treasures. Put that away for a
moment. In Bible times, children were tolerated as adults waited for them to
grow up to become a productive part of the culture and society. Boys were to be
put to work in the family business, be it a rudimentary industry or
agriculture; girls would help their mothers cook, clean, and help tend some
animals until they were old enough to marry and become another man’s problem. So,
when Jesus brings out a child and uses a child as a model of what it is to be
great, it would have seemed totally backwards to those gathered.
Jesus says, “Unless you turn and become like children you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the kingdom.” The child is the greatest among them because
the child has the greatest need. The child is completely dependent upon the
parents for food, shelter, care – all of the first article gifts included in
“daily bread.” It is this very dependence that makes the child the greatest.
But Jesus is using the child to illustrate that the greatest
in the Kingdom isn’t a “good Christian,” the strongest, the most powerful, the
richest, or those who are closest to Him. Rather, the greatest – the most
important person in the kingdom – is the one who, like a child, is totally
dependent on someone else, someone whom the world sees as the weakest. In other
words, to borrow from Dr. Pierce, in the church the most important person is
the one whose soul is hurt the most, who is in danger of losing their faith,
whose conscience has become so twisted that they are trapped in their sins and
can’t find their own way out.
But, there is a way out. Jesus says one must turn and become
like children. “Turn” is a Hebraism for repent. Repentance is turning away from
ones sins and, in sorrow for what was done and in faith in Christ alone, to the
cross of Jesus. The family fight, the lustful thoughts, the foul language, the
words used as weapons, repent of them: confess them to Christ and receive His
forgiveness. And, then, stop trying to carry them, stop trying to hide them
behind a façade, stop pretending to be “good Christians.” For that matter,
repent of being a good Christian. Instead, be as dependent as a child, repenting
of all of the foolish thinking that you have something to offer, that you are great
in and of yourself, and instead turn only to Jesus.
Martin Luther once said that the church is a hospital for
sinners. It’s where the child of God receives grace, mercy and forgiveness for wounding
other Christians. It’s where the soul finds healing, restoration, and strength
from being wounded during the week. The term “safe place,” has become popular
in today’s culture. It usually has something to do with not having your
feelings hurt. The church isn’t a safe place – in fact, part of the church’s responsibility
is to proclaim the Law that cuts to the heart of the sinner. It’s going to
hurt. The church isn’t a safe place; it’s a sanctuary. You hear the word
“sanctus” hiding there; it means holy, a place that’s set apart. What sets it
apart is it is God’s house, where He promises to abide. But, He never lives alone
and by Himself. He dwells among sinners. He dwells among the weakest, the most
broken, the ones who need Him most.
I think we forget that sometimes, the truth that God dwells
with sinners. That was the very reason Jesus became enfleshed in the womb of
Virgin Mary: so that He, filled with grace and truth, could become Immanuel, God
With Us. Jesus dwells among the sinners, lives with tax collectors, eats with prostitutes,
and associates with those whom society cast out. Your Lord comes to spouses,
and children, and students, and employees and employers and retirees and, yes,
even pastors who are so caught up in being the greatest and the best, and He
calls out and says, “turn…become like a child. Stop trying to be the best and the
greatest and instead, repent.” Jesus,
the Great Physician of Body and Soul, said “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor
but the sick.” He wasn’t just referring to palseyed limbs and blind eyes and
deaf ears – He was speaking of sin’s illness that cannot be cured by human
medicine. Only Christ’s healing is into eternity. He
brings us to His house, this sinner’s hospital, and here He cleanses us with
Baptismal water, He wraps us in the balm of the Good News of sins forgiven, He
feeds us with His Body and His Blood. The bill, paid in full, signed with
simply a cross.
If you want to see the greatest in the Kingdom, He was
there, on the cross for you. Stripped of His clothes, and wrapped in the sins of
the world, Christ’s weakness was on full display. When His dry, raspy throat
cried out “It is finished,” Satan and his minions thought they had won the
victory. But, remember, Jesus said, “My power is made perfect in weakness.”
From the weakness of His death on the cross to the greatness of Easter
resurrection comes the full gift of forgiveness.
In my office is a wooden crucifix – a cross with the body of
Jesus on it. It was given to me by Godfrey. Godfrey was an old man. He was
nearly blind by the time I met him, only able to read the largest of large
print on good days. He would come to the Lord’s Table to receive the Lord’s
Supper, and tears would be streaming down his cheeks. They would stop as He
received Christ’s gifts for Him hidden beneath in bread and wine. As the
blessing was said, he would raise his face toward my voice and he would smile,
a big, goofy grin and tears would again form in his eyes. One day, visiting with him in his living room,
I asked why he cries every Sunday when receiving the Sacrament. “Pastor,” he
said, “you know how St. Paul called himself ‘chief among sinners’? He was an
amateur! He had nothing on me. Yet, Jesus invites me to eat with Him at His
table? I’m so unworthy. Some Sundays, I’m afraid there will be a voice that
says, ‘Take and eat…but not you, Godfrey…not you.’ But, every Sunday, I come to
the Table and I kneel and every Sunday Jesus says, “This is my body and my
blood for you. Take and eat.” And I do. And in that moment, Christ is for me –
who else can stand against me? And my tears become tears of joy because I am
forgiven. Me…Christ forgives me.”
That’s what it looks like when the greatest becomes the
least, and when the weakest becomes the greatest in the kingdom of God. Amen.
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