Sermon 10.29.2023: Reforming Greatness

Jesus preached a radical, upside-down gospel that lifted up the lowly and served those on the margins. But his disciples still longed to be great. How do we understand greatness in light of this Jesus? Join us on Sunday as we learn together how to be more like Jesus! 



Scripture

Mark 10:35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.

So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Sermon Text

What makes you great? Not you-plural, meaning all of us or all of humanity, but you, in particular. Take a moment to think about it. What comes to mind for you?  What have you done or been or accomplished that makes you great? 

I’d be curious at some time to hear what came to mind for you. When I think back on my own life and try to answer this question, the immediate things that come to mind are a little ridiculous. 

What makes me great? Well, the first things that came to mind for me were:

• how in 8^th grade I placed in a national writing contest, and
• how in high school, I did just well enough on the PSATs to be a national merit scholar
• and how I won that one obscure preaching award in seminary for creativity.

Friends, I am a middle-aged mother of three, with an incredibly fulfilling job, and my ideas of what makes me great boil down to academic achievements that I made nearly 2 decades ago! 

The mission trips I’ve taken aren’t what come to mind. The meals I’ve sent to families when they’re sick or grieving aren’t what come to mind. Raising my three kids isn’t even what first came to mind! 

And as embarrassing as that is, the reality is that we all have these instilled notions of what counts as great in our society, and we often conform to them. 

For me, those were the achievements that mattered to me because they seemed to matter so much to others. My school, my teachers, my parents seemed proud of me.

They celebrated my success in those moments. And so, those have become the core memories of what I amount to when I think of my own “greatness” or achievements. 

Maybe for you, it’s not quite so juvenile or academically-oriented. Perhaps for you it was your medals in sports or an athletic scholarship, maybe it was how well you placed at a solo and ensemble contest, or now as an adult meeting your financial goals or career goals or getting recognition at your company.

We are certainly allowed to celebrate our successes, and we are allowed to be proud of our accomplishments. 

But today’s passage reminds us that those are not what make us great.

Alexander the Great, who lived from 361 to 281 BCE, that’s before Christ was born, was considered great for creating a vast empire through military might. Over two thousand years later, many of us still consider that to be a way to greatness.

• Think of Russia and its invasion of Ukraine.
• Think of the Israeli government whose people have suffered so deeply because of Hamas, but has now launched massive retaliative actions in Gaza.
• Think of our own government and how in the 2023 fiscal year, we budgeted 1.8 trillion dollars for the Department of Defense. 1.8 trillion dollars! 

A strong military, the ability to make big weapons, the acquisition of land and property through power and force, still count as greatness today. 

In Jesus’ day, greatness was also often thought of as military might. Some things never change, I suppose.

Pax Romana, this idealized period in the Roman Empire, was only achieved through destroying and killing anyone or any group who dissented. Those who incited sedition were put to death. Jesus, in fact, was crucified by Rome for blasphemy, yes, but also for sedition - inciting rebellion against the Roman authorities. And preaching justice as a means to peace was antithetical to Rome’s values. 

The pax in Pax Romana, means peace. But that peace was achieved and maintained through force and fear, not through ensuring that all had enough and were treated fairly.

So, when James and John ask Jesus “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory,” they are likely imagining some kind of military or political glory: King Jesus reigning in power and in authority with James and John at his side. 

To which Jesus responds, “you have no idea what you’re talking about.” After all, who does end up on the right hand and left of Jesus at the end?

Mark 15:27 records, “And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.” At the very end, on the cross, Jesus has two common thieves, on his right and to his left.

Mark Davis comments: “For Jesus’ followers, one of the awful effects of living under the Empire is the temptation to imitate them.”

If even the disciples of Jesus, who traveled with him and ministered alongside him, were influenced by what the world called “great,” I think it’s only natural that we are, too. 

After all, from a young age, we are taught that good grades, high test scores, popularity, and being rich equals success. Being the fastest at running or the best at the monkey bars can give us a claim to greatness early on in kindergarten. And millionaire Malcolm Forbes is noted for coining the phrase, "He who dies with the most toys wins."

But that isn’t what truly makes us great, is it? 

Jesus is always complicating the narrative. And he calls together his disciples, the ones who are asking to be at his right and left hand, and the ones who are mad at the two for daring to ask such a thing. 

Jesus explains that greatness is defined differently in his kin-dom. He says, “…but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Jesus doesn’t mind that we strive for greatness. But greatness to Jesus is reached only by serving others. Not by power, not by might, but by my spirit says the Lord (Zechariah 4:1). And that spirit is one of service.

Jesus preached this upside-down gospel that dared to lift up the lowly and committed to serve those who were ignored and on the margins of society. And only by following his example of radical hospitality and radical love, will we know what it truly means to be great. 

The words slave and serve in Greek are δοῦλος (doulos) and διάκονος (diakonos).

Doulos literally means a slave, and unfortunately, in the Roman Empire, slavery was not uncommon. To be a doulos was to belong to someone else.

Jesus, through his ministry, sought to free the bonds of all human oppression, so when he uses that word doulos, he uses it so that we might become doulos to God, meaning that we would belong to God, find belonging in God, and no one or no thing else. 

Diakonos means to be in service to others. It’s the word from which we get the term deacons. So all you who’ve been ordained as deacons, this applies to you! But it applies to all of us, really. 

It literally means to “kick up dust” because you’re rapidly shuffling around to help others. It was often used to describe waitstaff as they served food and beverages to others. 

Doulos and diakonos are the ways of discipleship in Mark. And they mean to belong to God and to be in service to one another. 

Sounds a lot like the great commandment, doesn’t it? To love God and love neighbor? 

Jesus presents this alternative way of life. He promises us it leads to greatness. But will it be enough for us? Or will we keep striving to succeed in the eyes of our neighbors and our cultural norms? 

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, preaching on this very passage, said this:

[Jesus] said in substance "Oh, I see, you want to be first. You want to be great. You want to be important. You want to be significant. Well, you ought to be. If you're going to be my disciple, you must be." But he reordered priorities. And he said, "Yes, don't give up this instinct. It's a good instinct if you use it right.

It's a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up.
Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first.
But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence.
I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do." 

And he transformed the situation by giving a new definition of greatness.
… And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. …recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.
And this morning, the thing that I like about it:
by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant. [1]

“A heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”

Friends, it is easy to fall into the trappings of “keeping up with Joneses.” It’s easy to measure our successes by comparing ourselves to those whom society deems great.

We want to do better, be better, but all God asks of us is to serve better, and love better, and to work for peace a little better. 

So maybe that one networking event can be skipped to help volunteer at one of our Matthew 25 Partners for Change. Maybe we commit to giving away some of that bonus this year to a few organizations that will use it to show God’s love to communities in desperate need. Or maybe we forego a full-on vacation and use some of that time to serve the community instead. Maybe we write that note of encouragement and put it in the mail. Maybe we write our legislators and demand that they work for peace through an immediate ceasefire. 

There are big and small ways of being great, all of which is important, but ultimately it requires a realignment of our priorities and whom we choose to serve. It requires the radical discipleship of doulos and diakonos.

Today is Reformation Sunday. And at the core of the reformation is the tenet that we are reformed and always reforming. It is a continual process. 

So when we find ourselves chasing after all that glitters, and when we find ourselves striving for the ways of the world, as we inevitably will, may we find the reminders we need to wake up anew, as a resurrection people, as a people who have been reformed and can be reformed once again, as a people who choose to realign our values and our priorities. 

Today, we choose the way of greatness through Christ. So let us serve one another and the world. Amen. 

[1] Drum Major Instinct- a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [abridged] King's "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, given on 4 February 1968, was an adaptation of the 1952 homily ‘‘DrumMajor Instincts’’ by J. Wallace Hamilton, a well-known, liberal, white Methodist preacher.