“Last and servant of all”

This is the third sermon of the Lenten Sermon series on what it means to be a disciple according to the Gospel of Mark. This sermon is based on Mark 9:30-37.

I am not sure if you noticed this week, but the brackets for this year’s college basketball tournament came out on Sunday evening. Yes, the event known as “March Madness” is upon us. Once again a field of 64 teams will be whittled down to one champion, the greatest college basketball team in the land. If basketball is not your fancy, then maybe the Super Bowl would be a more honest metaphor for deciding who is greatest. Or perhaps the Grammy’s if you are into music, or the Oscar’s if you’re a big movie fan. It seems there is no shortage of events in this country to decide who is the greatest. I guess this is just part of our human nature. We really want to know who is the greatest.

So it is no wonder then that Jesus catches his disciples in an argument over who is the greatest. While they won’t come out and admit it at first, their whispered conversation along the way had nothing to do with what Jesus was talking about. While Jesus was teaching about his suffering and death and resurrection, the disciples were arguing over who would be the disciple of the month.

We talked last week about how the heart of the conflict for the life of a disciple could be found in the struggle over where we put our emphasis; human things or divine things. Today we see this conflict between human things and divine things play out as Jesus teaches his disciples that, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” In the face of their talk of greatness, Jesus turns to the disciples and tells them that putting themselves first will not cut it in the kingdom of God. Those who want to be first must become servants of all. To be a disciple of Jesus is to put others first.

The word Mark uses for servant is the Greek word διάκονος (diakonos) which means “one who is engaged in the maintenance of others.” This is a word of purpose, not status. It is a word that describes what someone does, not what they are. It is an active word, not a label. It is a way of life that Jesus is calling the disciples to; a way of engaging others in the world.

And Jesus does not place any parameters on who is on the receiving end of the disciple’s life of service. Jesus says that the disciples are to be a “servant of all.” There is no list of qualities, no particular social requirement, no application to be filled out. Jesus means that everyone, absolutely everyone, is someone who can be served by the disciples. And to drive his point home Jesus uses a visual aid to let the disciples know just what he means by “servant of all.” Jesus brings a little child into the group of disciples. He takes the child into his arms, Mark actually says Jesus hugs the child, and tells his disciples that “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Now this may not sound all that radical to us, children are not strangers in our community. But in the time of Jesus, children were considered as a little more than property by law. Children were on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Until they were old enough to contribute to the family or to society, they were seen as little more than useless. It was actually a common practice to abandon children if you could not take care of them or provide for their needs. In a society based on status and reciprocal payment for goods and services rendered, children had no ability to repay. Children were indeed the least of society, but Jesus counts them as equals. Jesus counts them as ones who need to be welcomed and loved.

This radical life of service is what Jesus is calling us to today. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be a “servant of all;” to be someone who is engaged in the maintenance of others. We are not called to decide who needs to be served or who gets to be served; we are just called to serve.

And I think this comes into sharp focus when we really take Jesus on his word. When we serve people who are like us, friends and family, yes we are still serving, but it only scratches the surface. After all, even with family and friends there can still be the underlying practice and expectation of repayment. But remember what Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” This is a metaphor for serving the least of these, those who are not like us, especially those who are not like us, those who have no ability to repay us for what we do. The full meaning of the life of service that Jesus calls us to is to serve without expecting anything in return; to give fully and completely without expecting something back.

The great preacher Fred Craddock tells the story of watching a van full of kids pull into the parking lot of a church he was visiting on a Sunday afternoon. There were about ten to twelve high school age kids who had just returned from a mission trip. He said they looked awful, “like something the cat would drag in.” He got to talking with the kids, about where they had gone for the trip, what they had done. Turns out they had built a church for a community. While the kids were waiting for their parents Craddock leaned over to one of the boys and asked, “You tired?” The boy replied, “Whew – am I tired! This is the best tired I have ever felt.”

We have kids in this community who have felt that kind of tired; the best tired you have ever felt. Last summer they went on a mission trip to Orlando where they helped those from whom they expected nothing in return, where they became servants of all. I hope that you have heard their stories, if not you should ask them sometime. And maybe you too have even felt that kind of tired, the best tired you’ve ever felt; the kind of tired that comes from serving someone else. These moments don’t have to happen on mission trips, they can happen in everyday life, they happen along the way. They happen when we recognize the child of God in someone and when reach out to others through the love of Jesus Christ.

The life we are called to as disciples of Jesus Christ is a life that is lived as a “servant of all.” Out there in the world, in the ordinary moments of everyday life, are the opportunities to welcome and serve folks in the name of Jesus Christ. In our world, where the status quo is constantly trying to decide “who is the greatest,” we are called to live differently. We are called to cast aside the human thing of status and arguing over who is the greatest. In the kingdom of God, those who are first, are the ones who put themselves last, the ones who become “servants of all.” Dear friends, through Jesus Christ we have been set free to be “servants of all.”