True Greatness(Mar 29, 09)
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Mark M7: Message Notes March 29, 2009
True Greatness (final draft)
Text: Mark 10:35-45; 9:33-37
Big Idea: Greatness in God’s Kingdom is measured by servanthood.
Bernie Madoff is the man (show photo) who has been accused of perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in history by allegedly losing 50 billion dollars of investors’ money in a massive scam.
According to journalist Alan Chernoff, on the surface Madoff was polite and understated, but on the inside he was intensely ambitious. Psychologist Alden Cass said that Madoff had a need to prove to the world that he was someone powerful and intelligent. He went to a relatively unknown college on Long Island, New York, and he confessed to a friend that he regretted not having been able to go to Wharton, the prestigious business school connected to U Penn, or Stanford.
Madoff ended up becoming the chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the early 1990s, and he was earning tens of millions of dollars. So he didn’t need more money. He joined exclusive clubs like the Palm Beach Country Club and joined other elite social circles so that would create an aura of exclusivity. Everyone was in awe of him and that’s how he deceived people.
Even when the stock market began to tumble last fall, Madoff reported better than 10% returns. But under the weight of the collapsing stock market, investor requests for redemptions finally overwhelmed Madoff. He had to admit that his investment management was a fraud—“It was just one big lie, basically a giant ponzi scheme.” Madoff faces a potential penalty of 150 years in prison.
Madoff’s example may be extreme, but as a culture isn’t it true that we tend to evaluate people’s worth based on their wealth, their education, their career, their status?
Even Jesus’ students carried these assumptions. Today we’re going to see how Jesus responded.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 10:35.
The Request of James and John
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."
36 "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked.
37 They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
38 "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
39 "We can," they answered.
Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."
41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
In verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to Jesus and ask him, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus replied. They said, “Let one of us sit at your right, and the other at your left, in your glory.”
In Jewish custom the place of highest honour was at the centre of the company, followed by the right hand, then the left hand. The right hand was considered special for two reasons. First, the left hand was used for sanitation purposes, and therefore was less respected than the right hand. Second, since most people were right-handed, the right hand was considered to have innately superior strength and capacity. The Talmud (the commentary on Jewish law) says, “Of three walking along, the teacher should walk in the middle, the greater of his disciples stays on the right and the lesser one to his left.” The brothers James and John want the honour of being at Jesus’ right and his left.
As commentator William Lane suggests, part of the irony of this request is that James and John already occupy that privileged place with Jesus as two of the disciples (along with Peter) who are closest to him.
James and John believe that Jesus’ government, will be one of prestige and power, and they want the highest level cabinet positions in his new administration. Peter, James and John, are the inner core of Jesus’ disciples; perhaps they want to try to jump over Peter and gain a higher status in Jesus’ government.
Jesus responds by saying, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? (meaning, “Are you able to drink from the cup of suffering I will drink of?)” “Yes we can,” they answered. The fact is, according to Matthew’s Gospel 26:56, when Jesus was arrested, James and John, and all the disciples deserted Jesus and bailed on him.
When the ten other disciples heard about this conversation that James and John had had with Jesus, we read that they became indignant with them. Jesus called them all together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles, lord it over people, and their high officials exercise authority over them (rulers in the first century had despotic power), not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant (which means table waiter); and whoever who wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Dale Bruner paraphrases this verse by saying, “The Son of Man did not come to be waited on, but to wait on, to give his life as a ransom for all the rest.”
Jesus’ whole life was about waiting on others, and his greatest service was his giving himself over in death as the great sin offering, paying for the sin of the world with his life. Mark says he was our ransom for sin; he paid the price for sin with his life to set us free.
The world honours people who seek greatness, who ascend…who go up, up, up but Jesus is calling us to follow him in precisely the opposite direction. He calls us to go against the tide of the culture, to go down and to serve.
When we join our lives to the life of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves moved to serve our world, as well.
In Philippians 2:5-7 Paul says to people who have joined their lives to Christ and who have experienced the life of God’s Spirit.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature [a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness
As Gordon Fee has pointed out precisely because Jesus Christ was in very nature God, he didn’t consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but he poured himself out, taking on the very nature of a servant. (USE PROP OF JUG OF WATER)
New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says that the only God there is, is a servant. The gods of the ancient world were capricious, vindictive and self-serving, but the true God serves.
It’s God’s nature as God to serve.
We are most like God when we empty ourselves in loving service for others.
When we embrace the one who served us in the ultimate way by laying down his life for us, we too will be more likely to serve others. When Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana in 2006, during spring break The United Way and MTV recruited 100 volunteer students to go and help. The number of college students sent by a single Christian organization mobilized 7000 students to go. The well known journalist and politician, Roy Hattersley was covering the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina for the UK Guardian. Hattersley is an atheist, and said, “Notable by their absence were teams from rationalist societies and atheist associations.” After watching the Salvation Army lead several other faith-based organizations in their relief effort after Hurricane Katrina, Hattersley said, “It is an unavoidable conclusion that Christians are the most likely to make sacrifices involved in helping others.”
When hear the term “sacrifice” we may tend to think that means we will miss out.
As CS Lewis says, we can view God as a kind of taxman who takes what he requires and we hope lets us enjoy what we have left over with our life.
Jesus said we find our lives by losing them for God and others.
In serving others we will find that we are most ourselves and most fulfilled.
Not that we serve for this reason, but it’s interesting that there is yet again a scientific correlation to what Jesus taught here.
Stephen G. Post, professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, points out when people serve others the areas of the brain which are activated (and which you can see if you do a brain scan) are those that show profound state of joy and delight.
The University of Chicago did a study on vocational satisfaction. They found that pastors were the most vocationally-fulfilled of the all the professions. Part of the reason pastors came out on top (at least in this University of Chicago study) is because pastors are oriented to think of and serve others—they is real joy and fulfillment in that.
The world defines greatness as money, power, influence; Bernie Madoff embraced these values to an extreme; but Jesus defines greatness as service. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, “Greatness with God and greatness on Earth are two very different things.”
Our culture relentlessly pushes us in the direction of up…up…up. As Dale Bruner points out, “Believers must pray almost daily for the wisdom and courage to counter-culturally go down.” It takes a great deal of wisdom and courage to resist.
What might this look like in our everyday lives?
First, we invite Jesus to shape our attitude toward school and work:
My parents were born and raised in Japan, a country that values education very highly. It is a country where what school you go to determines the kind of company you will work for; and the kind of company you work for will determine the kind of life you have. That is why parents in Japan can become very anxious about whether their children will make it into the right kindergarten or not, the right kindergarten will position them to pass the exam for the right elementary school, and the right elementary school will position them to get into the right junior high, and so forth.
My parents came from families that highly valued education. They went to the top tier schools in Japan and were educated at an Ivy League school here in North America. Before my mom really committed her life to Christ, I remember that it was very important to her that I did well in school. I was a very irresponsible student in elementary school and she bribed me by saying, if and I got straight A’s--and only if I got straight A’s, I could play ice hockey (my ice hockey career was very short).
After committing her life to Christ, there was a significant change in her value system. As I was applying to undergraduate schools, and then later graduate schools, she kept emphasizing that the brand or the fame of the school doesn’t matter; what matters is that you study at a place that will help you best fulfill God’s purpose for your life. This is a countercultural way of thinking for an Asian woman of my mom’s generation. That’s what Christ does for us—he turns our value system upside down.
In my own life, I pray for the wisdom and the courage to go down. As a child, as a teenager, two of the things that were most important to me were being part of the “cool and in” crowd and excelling in sports. I love sports, but especially as I became a teenager, sports was also a bridge to acceptance and becoming more popular than I would have otherwise been.
I’ve also learned it is possible, even for ministers, to be caught up in trying to go up…up…up.
I was with someone who was telling me how they had spent time with a pastor who is considered a kind of “rock star” pastor. He is famous and influential. He said, “The whole time I was with him I got the sense he was looking over my shoulder for someone more important in the party to talk to.” He said, “This person was spending a lot of time hobnobbing with the rich and the famous.” This person said, “You know, I was a little disappointed.”
I don’t want to presume any judgment on this person, but it made me think I don’t want to be the kind of person who in my work is always trying to go up…up…up…in a worldly sense. Once in a while, someone from this church will come up to me and say to me, “I hope you are not thinking about moving to a bigger venue, a bigger city.” And I respond that I don’t see my work as a kind of career ladder. I don’t want to be like some players in professional sports who seem to be always looking for a bigger venue, a bigger market.
I am not called to be a star. I am called to be a servant. I hope that I will have that desire in all that I do and in all the decisions I make. It is not my natural way, but it is the way of Jesus. In any career, whatever it is, you probably have desire to get ahead, and that is not necessarily wrong, by any means, but wanting to get ahead just for the sake of getting ahead, wanting to be better for the sake of being better than a particular person is not Jesus’ way.
(I remember being in Queens, New York, a few years ago with my friend, Pete Scazzero, who is Italian, and he was introducing me to some of his uncle’s bakery. It seemed like they were right off the set of some godfather movie. Later Pete said “My uncle is always saying, ‘This year, this year I am going to bake a better cannoli than the guy in St. Louis at the bakers’ convention this year.’ His life seems to be defined by making a better canoli…making a better pastry than someone else.” Pete said, “I know that this sounds really pathetic, but when we think of ourselves and our station in life, whether we are bakers, or accountants, teachers, or construction workers, a lot of our self-identity is tied up in doing better than the other person in our peer group.”)
Jesus says that is not the way to true greatness. The way to true greatness is in serving. “If you want to be truly great,” Jesus says, “don’t try to go up, but go down and serve.”
Which way are you going?
2nd We also learn the greatness of servanthood by serving in humble ways.
Richard Foster writes, “More than any other single way, the grace of humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of service….nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service, but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition.”
Servanthood may begin with serving your roommate in a humble way. I had a roommate in grad school who loved to begin writing his papers at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. He served me by typing them out in another room.
Servanthood will involve serving your spouse humbly. When my friend Craig married Debbie, he surprised by pulling out a guitar singing her this folk song:
Sister, let me be your servant
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant, too
When Debbie got breast cancer and lost her hair and (in her view) her beauty, she was afraid that he would leave her, but he served more tangibly and loved her more deeply than ever before.
Serving may mean we serve a child or a younger friend.
In Mark 9 Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but the one who sent me.”
The last nine months have been different for me. In August when Joe was just six weeks old, I travelled to Mexico City to mentor with some young emerging leaders that were gathering there. It ended up feeling like a very long and hard week for Sakiko, as Joe didn’t sleep well and he cried a lot through the night. When I came back, I cancelled my traveling and speaking schedule for the year. Many weeks I still work too much, and Sakiko bears more than her share of the responsibility of raising Joe. But, being home more this year has meant that I have been able to change more diapers and occasionally get up in the middle of the night to soothe Joe (but if I am fast asleep, it is Sakiko that gets up and nurses him and soothe him). I have been able to help bathe Joe on most nights. It is a very different kind of service. (BTW, According to Dr. John Gottman 70% of couples experience their marriage tanking because of the addition of a baby, but Sakiko says that our having had Joe has brought us closer together. We are more interdependent. It is possible.)
Serving others means that we are willing to choose the non-glamorous over the glamorous.
Wayne Muller was a student of Henri Nouwen’s, and Wayne Muller describes in his book Sabbath how one evening when he was reading a political story in the magazine, The New Yorker, he came across Henri’s name. Apparently, Hillary Clinton had been reading Henri Nouwen’s writings on gratefulness and forgiveness. Wayne Muller said, “So I called Henri and asked him about it.” Henri told him that he had been invited to go to the White House to provide counsel during some difficult times. While he sympathized with the Clintons’ sorrow and while a White House invitation seemed to be recognition of the importance of spiritual matters, he nevertheless sent his apologies and did not go. “I don’t want to be the court chaplain,” he told Muller. “I am here with Adam, my disabled friend (in Toronto). There are others who can go to the White House. Adam needs me.”
Henri Nouwen said, “Be faithful in small things” and he was faithful in small things—small things which are great things in the view of Jesus because greatness with God and greatness on Earth are two very different things.
Being a servant means that we are willing to be interrupted (that doesn’t mean all the time, but it means we are open to adjusting our schedules to serve others).
The irony is that the week I was preparing this sermon I was “interrupted” a number of times. Someone came to my office unexpectedly who was experiencing what he said was a family crisis. Afterwards, it seemed like what he felt like he needed was some money. Someone in our neighbourhood had an emergency come up and asked us if we would take care of their dog, just as I was getting ready to leave for our elders’ retreat on the weekend. Part of being a servant’s heart means willingness to be interrupted.
Richard Foster tells of being in graduate school, desperate to work on his doctoral dissertation, a friend from church called him. The man had no car that day and needed to do some errands. Could Foster take him where he needed to go? With unspoken resentment Foster agreed to help the person. Just before climbing into his car, he picked up a copy of Life Together, a book written about Christian community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, just to have something to read. With each succeeding errand he did with his friend, Foster’s resentment at being forced to do these little tasks grew. When they came to a grocery store, Foster told the man he would wait for him in the car. He pulled out Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together and read: “Active helpfulness means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the humblest service…”
Do we serve in humble ways? School, home, work, church, in community?
Speaking of Life Together, we learn to serve by serving in community.
Being a servant means we serve in community and invite the people in community to influence us.
When I was an undergraduate student, I heard Helen Roseveare, an Irish medical missionary to Zaire, talk about how she learned this. She was the only doctor in charge of a large hospital where there were constant interruptions, shortages and red tape, and interference by the government. There was a time when she had been working so hard and so impatiently that her irritation was apparent to everyone around her. One Friday afternoon the African pastor of her church went to the hospital and gently, but firmly, insisted that Helen come with him. In his humble car he drove her to his small house and ushered her into a little room. He told her that she was to take a weekend retreat. She was to pray until her spirit was restored for the work ahead. She prayed but didn’t feel like she was making any progress in her prayer. Late on Sunday Helen humbly and desperately told the pastor that she was getting nowhere, and asked him to help her. “Helen, may I tell you what is the matter?” he asked. She nodded. The pastor stood up, and with his bare toe drew a long straight line in the dust. “That’s the problem. There is too much ‘I’. Too much Helen in what you are doing.” Then he went on. “I have noticed you in the hospital. A number of times during the day you take a brief break and ask for a cup of hot coffee. You hold that coffee in both of your hands while it cools off, and then you drink it.” Again, he took his big toe and this time he drew another line across the first one. “I want to ask you this,” he said kindly. “Every time you stand cooling that cup of coffee, why don’t you say in your heart, ‘Lord, cross out the ‘I’.” In the dust of that African village, Helen learned that her service had become more important than those she was serving, and even God himself.
Bernie Maddoff’s story shows us one kind of definition of power—money, prestige, power. He went up…up…up, but then he came crashing down.
Jesus shows us a different way to greatness—the greatness that comes when we serve the purposes of God, and the good of other people--the greatness that comes when we find our life by pouring others.
Mark M7: Message Notes March 29, 2009
True Greatness (final draft)
Text: Mark 10:35-45; 9:33-37
Big Idea: Greatness in God’s Kingdom is measured by servanthood.
Bernie Madoff is the man (show photo) who has been accused of perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in history by allegedly losing 50 billion dollars of investors’ money in a massive scam.
According to journalist Alan Chernoff, on the surface Madoff was polite and understated, but on the inside he was intensely ambitious. Psychologist Alden Cass said that Madoff had a need to prove to the world that he was someone powerful and intelligent. He went to a relatively unknown college on Long Island, New York, and he confessed to a friend that he regretted not having been able to go to Wharton, the prestigious business school connected to U Penn, or Stanford.
Madoff ended up becoming the chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the early 1990s, and he was earning tens of millions of dollars. So he didn’t need more money. He joined exclusive clubs like the Palm Beach Country Club and joined other elite social circles so that would create an aura of exclusivity. Everyone was in awe of him and that’s how he deceived people.
Even when the stock market began to tumble last fall, Madoff reported better than 10% returns. But under the weight of the collapsing stock market, investor requests for redemptions finally overwhelmed Madoff. He had to admit that his investment management was a fraud—“It was just one big lie, basically a giant ponzi scheme.” Madoff faces a potential penalty of 150 years in prison.
Madoff’s example may be extreme, but as a culture isn’t it true that we tend to evaluate people’s worth based on their wealth, their education, their career, their status?
Even Jesus’ students carried these assumptions. Today we’re going to see how Jesus responded.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 10:35.
The Request of James and John
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."
36 "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked.
37 They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
38 "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
39 "We can," they answered.
Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."
41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
In verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to Jesus and ask him, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus replied. They said, “Let one of us sit at your right, and the other at your left, in your glory.”
In Jewish custom the place of highest honour was at the centre of the company, followed by the right hand, then the left hand. The right hand was considered special for two reasons. First, the left hand was used for sanitation purposes, and therefore was less respected than the right hand. Second, since most people were right-handed, the right hand was considered to have innately superior strength and capacity. The Talmud (the commentary on Jewish law) says, “Of three walking along, the teacher should walk in the middle, the greater of his disciples stays on the right and the lesser one to his left.” The brothers James and John want the honour of being at Jesus’ right and his left.
As commentator William Lane suggests, part of the irony of this request is that James and John already occupy that privileged place with Jesus as two of the disciples (along with Peter) who are closest to him.
James and John believe that Jesus’ government, will be one of prestige and power, and they want the highest level cabinet positions in his new administration. Peter, James and John, are the inner core of Jesus’ disciples; perhaps they want to try to jump over Peter and gain a higher status in Jesus’ government.
Jesus responds by saying, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? (meaning, “Are you able to drink from the cup of suffering I will drink of?)” “Yes we can,” they answered. The fact is, according to Matthew’s Gospel 26:56, when Jesus was arrested, James and John, and all the disciples deserted Jesus and bailed on him.
When the ten other disciples heard about this conversation that James and John had had with Jesus, we read that they became indignant with them. Jesus called them all together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles, lord it over people, and their high officials exercise authority over them (rulers in the first century had despotic power), not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant (which means table waiter); and whoever who wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Dale Bruner paraphrases this verse by saying, “The Son of Man did not come to be waited on, but to wait on, to give his life as a ransom for all the rest.”
Jesus’ whole life was about waiting on others, and his greatest service was his giving himself over in death as the great sin offering, paying for the sin of the world with his life. Mark says he was our ransom for sin; he paid the price for sin with his life to set us free.
The world honours people who seek greatness, who ascend…who go up, up, up but Jesus is calling us to follow him in precisely the opposite direction. He calls us to go against the tide of the culture, to go down and to serve.
When we join our lives to the life of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves moved to serve our world, as well.
In Philippians 2:5-7 Paul says to people who have joined their lives to Christ and who have experienced the life of God’s Spirit.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature [a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness
As Gordon Fee has pointed out precisely because Jesus Christ was in very nature God, he didn’t consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but he poured himself out, taking on the very nature of a servant. (USE PROP OF JUG OF WATER)
New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says that the only God there is, is a servant. The gods of the ancient world were capricious, vindictive and self-serving, but the true God serves.
It’s God’s nature as God to serve.
We are most like God when we empty ourselves in loving service for others.
When we embrace the one who served us in the ultimate way by laying down his life for us, we too will be more likely to serve others. When Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana in 2006, during spring break The United Way and MTV recruited 100 volunteer students to go and help. The number of college students sent by a single Christian organization mobilized 7000 students to go. The well known journalist and politician, Roy Hattersley was covering the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina for the UK Guardian. Hattersley is an atheist, and said, “Notable by their absence were teams from rationalist societies and atheist associations.” After watching the Salvation Army lead several other faith-based organizations in their relief effort after Hurricane Katrina, Hattersley said, “It is an unavoidable conclusion that Christians are the most likely to make sacrifices involved in helping others.”
When hear the term “sacrifice” we may tend to think that means we will miss out.
As CS Lewis says, we can view God as a kind of taxman who takes what he requires and we hope lets us enjoy what we have left over with our life.
Jesus said we find our lives by losing them for God and others.
In serving others we will find that we are most ourselves and most fulfilled.
Not that we serve for this reason, but it’s interesting that there is yet again a scientific correlation to what Jesus taught here.
Stephen G. Post, professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, points out when people serve others the areas of the brain which are activated (and which you can see if you do a brain scan) are those that show profound state of joy and delight.
The University of Chicago did a study on vocational satisfaction. They found that pastors were the most vocationally-fulfilled of the all the professions. Part of the reason pastors came out on top (at least in this University of Chicago study) is because pastors are oriented to think of and serve others—they is real joy and fulfillment in that.
The world defines greatness as money, power, influence; Bernie Madoff embraced these values to an extreme; but Jesus defines greatness as service. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, “Greatness with God and greatness on Earth are two very different things.”
Our culture relentlessly pushes us in the direction of up…up…up. As Dale Bruner points out, “Believers must pray almost daily for the wisdom and courage to counter-culturally go down.” It takes a great deal of wisdom and courage to resist.
What might this look like in our everyday lives?
First, we invite Jesus to shape our attitude toward school and work:
My parents were born and raised in Japan, a country that values education very highly. It is a country where what school you go to determines the kind of company you will work for; and the kind of company you work for will determine the kind of life you have. That is why parents in Japan can become very anxious about whether their children will make it into the right kindergarten or not, the right kindergarten will position them to pass the exam for the right elementary school, and the right elementary school will position them to get into the right junior high, and so forth.
My parents came from families that highly valued education. They went to the top tier schools in Japan and were educated at an Ivy League school here in North America. Before my mom really committed her life to Christ, I remember that it was very important to her that I did well in school. I was a very irresponsible student in elementary school and she bribed me by saying, if and I got straight A’s--and only if I got straight A’s, I could play ice hockey (my ice hockey career was very short).
After committing her life to Christ, there was a significant change in her value system. As I was applying to undergraduate schools, and then later graduate schools, she kept emphasizing that the brand or the fame of the school doesn’t matter; what matters is that you study at a place that will help you best fulfill God’s purpose for your life. This is a countercultural way of thinking for an Asian woman of my mom’s generation. That’s what Christ does for us—he turns our value system upside down.
In my own life, I pray for the wisdom and the courage to go down. As a child, as a teenager, two of the things that were most important to me were being part of the “cool and in” crowd and excelling in sports. I love sports, but especially as I became a teenager, sports was also a bridge to acceptance and becoming more popular than I would have otherwise been.
I’ve also learned it is possible, even for ministers, to be caught up in trying to go up…up…up.
I was with someone who was telling me how they had spent time with a pastor who is considered a kind of “rock star” pastor. He is famous and influential. He said, “The whole time I was with him I got the sense he was looking over my shoulder for someone more important in the party to talk to.” He said, “This person was spending a lot of time hobnobbing with the rich and the famous.” This person said, “You know, I was a little disappointed.”
I don’t want to presume any judgment on this person, but it made me think I don’t want to be the kind of person who in my work is always trying to go up…up…up…in a worldly sense. Once in a while, someone from this church will come up to me and say to me, “I hope you are not thinking about moving to a bigger venue, a bigger city.” And I respond that I don’t see my work as a kind of career ladder. I don’t want to be like some players in professional sports who seem to be always looking for a bigger venue, a bigger market.
I am not called to be a star. I am called to be a servant. I hope that I will have that desire in all that I do and in all the decisions I make. It is not my natural way, but it is the way of Jesus. In any career, whatever it is, you probably have desire to get ahead, and that is not necessarily wrong, by any means, but wanting to get ahead just for the sake of getting ahead, wanting to be better for the sake of being better than a particular person is not Jesus’ way.
(I remember being in Queens, New York, a few years ago with my friend, Pete Scazzero, who is Italian, and he was introducing me to some of his uncle’s bakery. It seemed like they were right off the set of some godfather movie. Later Pete said “My uncle is always saying, ‘This year, this year I am going to bake a better cannoli than the guy in St. Louis at the bakers’ convention this year.’ His life seems to be defined by making a better canoli…making a better pastry than someone else.” Pete said, “I know that this sounds really pathetic, but when we think of ourselves and our station in life, whether we are bakers, or accountants, teachers, or construction workers, a lot of our self-identity is tied up in doing better than the other person in our peer group.”)
Jesus says that is not the way to true greatness. The way to true greatness is in serving. “If you want to be truly great,” Jesus says, “don’t try to go up, but go down and serve.”
Which way are you going?
2nd We also learn the greatness of servanthood by serving in humble ways.
Richard Foster writes, “More than any other single way, the grace of humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of service….nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service, but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition.”
Servanthood may begin with serving your roommate in a humble way. I had a roommate in grad school who loved to begin writing his papers at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. He served me by typing them out in another room.
Servanthood will involve serving your spouse humbly. When my friend Craig married Debbie, he surprised by pulling out a guitar singing her this folk song:
Sister, let me be your servant
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant, too
When Debbie got breast cancer and lost her hair and (in her view) her beauty, she was afraid that he would leave her, but he served more tangibly and loved her more deeply than ever before.
Serving may mean we serve a child or a younger friend.
In Mark 9 Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but the one who sent me.”
The last nine months have been different for me. In August when Joe was just six weeks old, I travelled to Mexico City to mentor with some young emerging leaders that were gathering there. It ended up feeling like a very long and hard week for Sakiko, as Joe didn’t sleep well and he cried a lot through the night. When I came back, I cancelled my traveling and speaking schedule for the year. Many weeks I still work too much, and Sakiko bears more than her share of the responsibility of raising Joe. But, being home more this year has meant that I have been able to change more diapers and occasionally get up in the middle of the night to soothe Joe (but if I am fast asleep, it is Sakiko that gets up and nurses him and soothe him). I have been able to help bathe Joe on most nights. It is a very different kind of service. (BTW, According to Dr. John Gottman 70% of couples experience their marriage tanking because of the addition of a baby, but Sakiko says that our having had Joe has brought us closer together. We are more interdependent. It is possible.)
Serving others means that we are willing to choose the non-glamorous over the glamorous.
Wayne Muller was a student of Henri Nouwen’s, and Wayne Muller describes in his book Sabbath how one evening when he was reading a political story in the magazine, The New Yorker, he came across Henri’s name. Apparently, Hillary Clinton had been reading Henri Nouwen’s writings on gratefulness and forgiveness. Wayne Muller said, “So I called Henri and asked him about it.” Henri told him that he had been invited to go to the White House to provide counsel during some difficult times. While he sympathized with the Clintons’ sorrow and while a White House invitation seemed to be recognition of the importance of spiritual matters, he nevertheless sent his apologies and did not go. “I don’t want to be the court chaplain,” he told Muller. “I am here with Adam, my disabled friend (in Toronto). There are others who can go to the White House. Adam needs me.”
Henri Nouwen said, “Be faithful in small things” and he was faithful in small things—small things which are great things in the view of Jesus because greatness with God and greatness on Earth are two very different things.
Being a servant means that we are willing to be interrupted (that doesn’t mean all the time, but it means we are open to adjusting our schedules to serve others).
The irony is that the week I was preparing this sermon I was “interrupted” a number of times. Someone came to my office unexpectedly who was experiencing what he said was a family crisis. Afterwards, it seemed like what he felt like he needed was some money. Someone in our neighbourhood had an emergency come up and asked us if we would take care of their dog, just as I was getting ready to leave for our elders’ retreat on the weekend. Part of being a servant’s heart means willingness to be interrupted.
Richard Foster tells of being in graduate school, desperate to work on his doctoral dissertation, a friend from church called him. The man had no car that day and needed to do some errands. Could Foster take him where he needed to go? With unspoken resentment Foster agreed to help the person. Just before climbing into his car, he picked up a copy of Life Together, a book written about Christian community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, just to have something to read. With each succeeding errand he did with his friend, Foster’s resentment at being forced to do these little tasks grew. When they came to a grocery store, Foster told the man he would wait for him in the car. He pulled out Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together and read: “Active helpfulness means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the humblest service…”
Do we serve in humble ways? School, home, work, church, in community?
Speaking of Life Together, we learn to serve by serving in community.
Being a servant means we serve in community and invite the people in community to influence us.
When I was an undergraduate student, I heard Helen Roseveare, an Irish medical missionary to Zaire, talk about how she learned this. She was the only doctor in charge of a large hospital where there were constant interruptions, shortages and red tape, and interference by the government. There was a time when she had been working so hard and so impatiently that her irritation was apparent to everyone around her. One Friday afternoon the African pastor of her church went to the hospital and gently, but firmly, insisted that Helen come with him. In his humble car he drove her to his small house and ushered her into a little room. He told her that she was to take a weekend retreat. She was to pray until her spirit was restored for the work ahead. She prayed but didn’t feel like she was making any progress in her prayer. Late on Sunday Helen humbly and desperately told the pastor that she was getting nowhere, and asked him to help her. “Helen, may I tell you what is the matter?” he asked. She nodded. The pastor stood up, and with his bare toe drew a long straight line in the dust. “That’s the problem. There is too much ‘I’. Too much Helen in what you are doing.” Then he went on. “I have noticed you in the hospital. A number of times during the day you take a brief break and ask for a cup of hot coffee. You hold that coffee in both of your hands while it cools off, and then you drink it.” Again, he took his big toe and this time he drew another line across the first one. “I want to ask you this,” he said kindly. “Every time you stand cooling that cup of coffee, why don’t you say in your heart, ‘Lord, cross out the ‘I’.” In the dust of that African village, Helen learned that her service had become more important than those she was serving, and even God himself.
Bernie Maddoff’s story shows us one kind of definition of power—money, prestige, power. He went up…up…up, but then he came crashing down.
Jesus shows us a different way to greatness—the greatness that comes when we serve the purposes of God, and the good of other people--the greatness that comes when we find our life by pouring others.
posted by Shigematsu at 3:58 PM
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