Last of All

Jesu Juva

St. Mark 9:30-37                                            

 September 22, 2024

Proper 20B                        

 Dear Saints of Our Savior,

        The ministry of Jesus had been successful beyond belief.  His popularity and His approval numbers were off the chart.  “He has done all things well,” the crowds exclaimed with applause.  The deaf hear.  The mute speak.  The lame walk.  Lepers are cleansed.  Demons are cast out.  The dead are raised to life.  Peter, James and John had just seen Jesus transfigured on the mountain top, shining brighter than the sun.  Jesus was a winner.

        But as today’s Holy Gospel picks up, Jesus sounds a distinctly different note.  Jesus began teaching about the cross:  The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.  And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.  Jesus couldn’t have said it more clearly than that.  He spoke simply and plainly.  No mysterious metaphors.  No puzzling parables.  Jesus would be killed; and Jesus would rise.

        Despite the Savior’s simplicity of speech, the disciples didn’t understand.  What’s more, they were afraid to ask for clarification.  Who can blame them, really?  Put yourself in their sandals.  These twelve men were “all in.”  They had left everything to follow Jesus.  They had visions of victory and greatness.  All this talk about death and resurrection must have sounded like crazy talk—irrational.  Not the kind of talk one would expect from a respectable Messiah who should be assembling an army to fight a holy war in Jerusalem.  To the disciples, it seemed safer to pretend that they hadn’t heard a word of what Jesus had said.

        So the twelve quickly found something else to talk about on their walk back to Galilee.  But rather than discuss the warm weather or the Brewers clinching a playoff spot, the twelve began to argue about who was the greatest.  Who was the top dog?  If something bad did happen to Jesus, who would succeed Him as number one?  Would it be Peter?  A natural choice.  Or did those “Sons of Thunder,” James and John, team up to take down the competition?

        However it actually played out, this was not the disciples’ finest hour.  Jesus had just uncorked the greatest prophesy of His ministry.  He had just told them in simple sentences how He would save His people from their sins—that He would be killed and rise again.  And instead of pondering this or asking about it or confessing their fears, they began to argue over which one of them was the greatest.

        This is another great example of the brutal honesty and accuracy of the Scriptures.  This account hasn’t been whitewashed and edited to put a positive spin on things.  Instead, St. Mark admits that at this crucial point, all the disciples completely missed the point and were selfishly thinking of their own greatness.

        Things haven’t changed in the church that much over the years.  The same Old Adam that drove the debate among the disciples is alive and well in each of us.  That old Adam in you wants to be the winner—not the chief of sinners, but just the chief—the boss—period.  We’re all afflicted with that same drive for power—to be in control, to be the top dog, to get everyone else to follow our orders and do it our way.  And this disorder is more than just excessive ambition.  Ambition is just setting goals and striving to attain them.  Perhaps we could all use a little more ambition.  But what’s going on in today’s text is something different.  This is selfishly stepping on the backs of others to fight your way to the top of the pile.

        That’s not the way of Jesus.  St. James in today’s epistle reminds us that the proper stance before God is always one of repentant humility.  God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  The posture of faith before God should never be one of pride or boastfulness or arrogance.  Rather, the way of faith is rooted in humility, repentance, and gratitude for God’s mercy.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

        Jesus takes the twelve to task.  He turns their ideas about greatness upside down.  “Do you want to be great?” Jesus asks, “Then go to the back of the line and become the servant of all.”  That’s greatness in the way of Jesus—the first becoming last.  That’s how Jesus lived; that’s how Jesus died.  He left His privileged position at the right hand of the Father to live among us, and to make Himself a slave.  He left the boardroom of the Holy Trinity to join us in the cubicle of our humanity.  He became a king whose crown was of thorns and whose throne was a cross.

        Right about then, Jesus introduced an object lesson.  Ever the master Teacher, Jesus grabbed a living, breathing example of greatness:  a little child.  In those days little children were not the big winners they are today.  Back then they didn’t glamorize and idolize children and childhood the way we do.  In fact, children were considered little losers—nothing but a drain on the family assets.  Children were pretty worthless until they could work and start to earn their keep.

        But Jesus chose a child—a little child—a child small enough to be picked up and held in Jesus’ arms—to teach us what it means to be great.  He said: Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.  Now, I’ll be perfectly honest with you.  I don’t know precisely what it means to receive a little child in Jesus’ name.  But I think we can make some safe assumptions about this.

        To welcome a child in Jesus’ name must surely mean that we allow children to be born—that we do not abort babies—but we welcome them into the human community, and receive them as gifts from God, no matter how inconvenient it might be.  To welcome a little child in Jesus’ name must also surely mean that we bring them with haste to the waters of Holy Baptism to be born again in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  To welcome a little child in Jesus’ name must also mean that we welcome little ones here in the Divine Service.  Every parent knows that managing children in church can be a challenge.  I’m here to tell you, it’s worth the trouble.  It’s worth the hassle and inconvenience.  For here your children are welcomed and received by the Lord Jesus Christ.

        Perhaps Jesus is trying to teach us to embrace the hassle and to accept the inconvenience.  That’s always how it is when you deal with little children.  It requires you to lower yourself—to humble yourself—to bend down low to an entirely different level.  When I walk my dogs around the neighborhood it’s not too unusual to be approached by little children asking if they can pet the dogs.  This halts my progress.  It often requires me to kneel down and facilitate an interaction between the little ones and the labradoodles.  Now this is hardly a great sacrifice on my part.  But it does require that I set aside my agenda, and my idea of a successful and speedy walk, for the sake of some little children I don’t even know.

        Greatness in the kingdom of Jesus requires that we always set aside our own drive for greatness and look instead to Jesus.  Jesus is the one who came not to be the first, but to be the last of all.  Jesus is the one who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.  Jesus became the servant of all, who suffered for the salvation of all, and who rose again from the dead to open the kingdom of heaven for all believers—including you.

        The disciples had it all wrong.  Faith never asks, “Who is the greatest?”  Faith looks to Jesus on the cross, suffering as our substitute beneath the wrath of God, and says, “There.  That’s greatness.  That’s what it means to be great.”  And through that cross we view the world in a whole new way.  We understand greatness in a whole new way.  We see greatness where the world would never, ever look to find it:  in the least and the lowly, in the little ones and in the children.  And as we welcome them in Jesus’ name, we welcome Jesus Himself.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.