+ 17th Sunday after Pentecost – September 19, 2021 +
Series B: Jeremiah 11:18-20; James 3:13-4:10; Mark 9:30-37
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If I say the word greatness, I imagine every one of us begins to form a picture in our minds of what greatness is. Hockey has the Great One, Wayne Gretzky. Basketball has Michael Jordan. And so on.
It seems from birth, we’re hardwired to think this is way. Greatness is good. Bigger is better. Greatness is winning, not losing. Strength, not weakness. Power, not mercy. Being Master, not servant. If you’re not first, you’re last. This is greatness in the eyes of the world.
Not so fast, says Jesus. In the kingdom of God, greatness looks completely different.
“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.”
In the kingdom of God greatness is found in littleness; in the humility of the God-man born in a manger and suffering on the cross. In the kingdom of God God’s strength made perfect in weakness. Jesus’ cross is his greatest glory. Jesus’ defeat is our victory. Jesus’ death is our life. It’s a great reversal of cosmic proportions. And it’s enough to make our heads burst.
So you can appreciate disciples’ shock as Jesus says these words. Jesus’ normally talkative and inquisitive disciples are surprisingly silent. Speechless. “They did not understand Jesus’ words,” Mark tells us. Not only that. They were afraid to ask him.
Why were they afraid? Mark tells us. they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.
Crickets again. A painful, glaring silence. On the one hand you have Jesus predicting his own selfless, self-giving, humble death on the cross. On the other, Jesus’ own disciples arguing like ESPN talking heads about who’s the greatest. It’s no wonder they were silent, and afraid. Jesus had revealed their own selfishness and pride.
Jesus’ words do the same for us as well. There are no spectators in this story. There’s a little group of disciples within each of us arguing over who’s the greatest. Scripture reveals the ugly truth about us, just as it did for the disciples. That we are in fact the greatest. We’re great at quarreling, desiring, and coveting. We’re great at comparing ourselves and our sins to others. Great at being selfish and self-serving. Great at putting ourselves first and others last. Great at loving ourselves more than God and the least, lowly, and lost ones. Oh yes, we are great indeed. Great, big, poor miserable sinners.
If anyone deserves the title Greatest of all time, it’s not us, or the disciples; it’s Jesus. And yet, Jesus turns our notions of greatness completely on their head.
According to Jesus, greatness looks like the Son of Man being delivered into the hands of sinful men. Greatness looks like Jesus, the One who is greater than all, who became the last, the lowly, the least, and the loser on the cross
In Jesus crucified, weakness is greatness. Losers are winners. The lowly are exalted. The last are first. Sinners are justified freely.
To illustrate his teaching, Jesus placed a little boy before the disciples. “Aww, how cute”, we say. But we have to remember that children weren’t idealized or honored in the ancient world. Their social status was no different than a slave or servant. They were helpless, dependent, nobodies. In this way, we are that child: completely and utterly dependent upon God’s mercy to us in Jesus.
True greatness, you see, isn’t found in our greatness, or our humility, or our anything at all for that matter. Greatness is found in Jesus who though he was the greatest, yet for our sakes became the last. Greatness came to us in the weakness of a child born of a Virgin in a manger in Bethlehem, and in the humility of the Suffering Servant on the cross. Greatness comes to us ordinary bread, wine, water, and words that do as Jesus declares: give the greatest gift of all: forgiveness, life, and salvation.
In the kingdom of God, the picture of greatness is found in weakness. In the God who became man – a child in our midst – that through him, through his suffering and death – we might become children of God. Greatness is seen in Jesus the man of sorrows and the cross. In the Servant of all who gives his life for as a ransom for his enemies.
Do you want to be great in God’s eyes? Then you must become small and insignificant. Do you want to be a winner in the kingdom of God? Then you must become a loser in this world of winners “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Like that little child in the midst of the disciples – utterly helpless, utterly givable to, utterly dependent on God’s mercy. To be a child of God, baptized and believing, is to lose your life in order to save it, to become nothing so that Christ can be everything, to die in order to rise, to be joined to Jesus in His death and life.
You see, in the kingdom of God, greatness looks far different than greatness in the world, but also far, far better. Greatness is the manger where Jesus was born for you. The cross where Jesus was crucified for you. And the bread and wine where Jesus comes to you, feeds you, forgives you, and pours out his greatness in humble bread and wine for you.
Lord, help each of us to be great in the way of your cross, your sacrifice, and your humble, self-giving love.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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