Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 20

Tonight's Weeknight Study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 13

Servant Leadership

[This was shared during the Service of Installation for Pastor Dwight Hanson as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Eaton, Ohio.]

Mark 10:42-45
Recently, someone asked me whether the term “Christian leader” wasn’t an oxymoron, an internal contradiction. 

The question wasn’t unreasonable. After all, Jesus, the One we confess as our Lord and God, was a servant “Who,” [according to Philippians 2, despite being] in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant...he humbled himself  by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” This, the apostle Paul tells us, is how you and I are to be with each other in the Church, humble servants (Philippians 2:5-11).

Is it possible then for anyone to be a servant and a leader as a Christian? 

In Romans 12, Paul gives a list of seven spiritual gifts God grants to individual Christians for the benefit of the church and how the people given those gifts should use them. “If [your gift] is to lead,” Paul says, “do it diligently.” So, it appears, one can be a Christian and a leader. (Romans 12:8)

The reason that the phrase Christian leader may seem like a contradiction, I think, is that we get confused by what the world says a leader is. The world tells us that a leader is a kind of dictator who always gets his or her way. 

But even without delving into the Bible’s understanding of leadership, the world’s definition doesn’t pass muster. A friend of ours, General Curtis Scaparrotti, the son of the congregation I formerly served in Logan, Ohio and today the commander of NATO, once told me that even a general must rely on more than power to lead people. You can hold a title, but you only earn the right to lead others by being a servant. Leaders never ask those they’re called to lead to do things that they themselves are unwilling to do. And so when he was second in command in Afghanistan, General Scaparrotti regularly jumped out of aircraft with his paratroopers. Friends, nobody is worthy of designation as a leader who is not first of all, a servant.

That’s why I was happy to see the lessons from the Bible chosen for Pastor Hanson’s installation. It shows that he has a healthy, Biblical understanding of what it means to be a Christian leader who is a servant and disciple of Jesus Christ!

Our gospel lesson, Mark 10:42-45, teaches us all what it means to be a disciple and a leader in Christ’s Church. Just a few verses before, Jesus has told the disciples that soon, in Jerusalem, He’s going to be rejected, arrested, crucified, buried, and then, raised by God the Father. According to the gospel of Mark, this is the third time that Jesus told the disciples about His impending cross. They’re at least as oblivious this time as they were the previous two times. They don’t even react to the prediction. The idea that the Messiah--the Christ, God’s anointed King--would be overcome by opposition is so foreign to them that Jesus’ prediction of a cross doesn’t compute. “There He goes again,” they may have thought.

Just how little they thought of Jesus’ words can be seen in what happened immediately after He spoke them. Two of the twelve, James and John, brothers, make a request of Jesus: When He becomes king in Jerusalem, they want to become His right- and left-hand men. The vision that James and John, and apparently the other ten apostles, have of the kingdom Jesus has come to bring to earth is pretty much the same as all the other kingdoms in the world, only with Jesus and them in charge. They envisioned a reign in which they would have a piece of power, prestige, and patronage.

It’s in the midst of this confusion that Jesus brings clarity about what life in His kingdom is all about. Take a look at our lesson, starting at verse 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. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 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.’”

“The Gentiles, the pagans, the people who don’t know God or His amazing grace,” Jesus is saying, “have their own ideas about what it means to be important, to be a leader. They go around barking orders, always seeking to get their way.” But this is not how it is when you belong to the God we know in Jesus Christ.

This God sets free all who dare to trust in Jesus Christ, the One Who bore our sin and the punishment for it we deserve, death, so that when He rose from the dead, He could offer new and everlasting life to all who repent and believe. The only sermon given by Jesus that is recorded by the author of today’s gospel lesson, Mark, is contained in just one verse. Jesus says, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) That’s it!

We can do nothing to make ourselves fit for life with God. We can’t be good enough, influential enough, enough of a big shot, enough of anything. Only Jesus Christ and our faith in Him can make us fit for His kingdom. Only Jesus can justify sinners and make them forever new. And Jesus’ salvation can come to all kinds of people when they daily believe in and follow Him: big shots, little shots, no shots. 

So, in the Kingdom of God, there’s no reason to push or shove. When I trust in Jesus Christ, I already have the kingdom of God and because of that I can be a servant, accepting whatever role that Christ has given to me. When you know you belong to the King of all creation, you’re not particularly concerned, as James and John were, with the seating arrangements. And speaking only for myself, I would say that in light of what a sinner I know that I am, I’m so content to be a saved child of God that I have long been cured of any human desire to be a big shot. That’s what it’s like to belong to a servant Savior in Whose kingdom the first are last and the last are first.

Because we know how much God loves us and all that He has done for us in the crucified and risen Jesus, the Christian can dare to pray the most revolutionary of prayer petitions, “Thy will, Your will, and not mine, be done, O Lord.” 

That’s the prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray, of course. But, servant-leader that Jesus is, it’s also the prayer He offered in the garden as He prepared to go to the cross for you and me and for all who, without a relationship with Jesus, would face a Christ-less eternity. 

Jesus has the authority to tell us to fall into the arms of God the Father because He dared to do just that on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday! 

And, Pastor Hanson, you will have the authority to call this people to follow Christ when they see that you, however imperfect and human you are, seek to follow Christ yourself.

Dear people of Grace Lutheran Church, you’ve waited a long time for this day. I’ve been following your journey and praying for you and I know how difficult it has been for all of you. But God has blessed you with a servant leader. He clearly understands what it means to be a Christian leader. 

• I ask you to pray for him and honor him for what he is for you, a gift from God. I ask you to pray for Kelly and him as they adjust to their life in a new place. 
• I ask you to take it upon yourselves to be servants of Christ in serving and working alongside them. 
• I ask you to honor his work here, the same work which the young pastor Timothy was reminded to do in our second lesson: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

Pastor Hanson, I ask you to be a servant of Christ to these people and this community as you seek to be faithful to the Lord Who has set you free from sin and death by grace through your faith in Him and has brought you to Grace Lutheran Church.

Galatians 3:28 tells us that in Christ’s Church, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Understanding that the only way to freedom from sin, death, and darkness is in following Jesus Christ as the Lord over our lives, Martin Luther once remarked that, “a Christian...is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian...is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”

In the freedom that comes from belonging to Jesus Christ for all eternity, I urge you, people and pastor, not to be afraid to serve each other, to pray for each other, to listen to each other, to worship together, to confess sin and be absolved from sin together, to work together, to witness together, doing all of this knowing that while you may differ in the functions to which God has called you in Christ’s Church, you do not differ in status. You are all redeemed children of God called to join together in telling the whole world the good news of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ.

God has called this congregation and this pastor and his wife together in partnership for one purpose and one purpose only: to be and to make disciples of Jesus. Dear servants of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen One, since that is your one and only mission: Have at it! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

[Welcome to Pastor Dwight Hanson, installed today as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Eaton, Ohio. The clergy of our Southwest Ohio Mission District are incredibly supportive of one another and a contingent was able to be present there today. Clergy l to r: Brian McGee, Dean Haferman, Heidi Holst, Alan Knoke, Dwight Hanson, me, David Matevia, and Marv Hileman. (Thanks to my wife for snapping the pic.)]

It's Not About Me ('I Am a Church Member,' Part 3)

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship this past Sunday morning, September 9.]

Mark 9:33-35

While I was serving in my first parish, the bishop appointed a group of twenty of us in the synod--ten laypeople and ten pastors--to be trained by a prominent not-for-profit institute as conflict management consultants. After receiving our training, one layperson, the superintendent of a northwestern Ohio school system, and I were sent to mediate at a small town congregation in deep conflict. The congregation's most recent pastor had been gone for some months, the latest of a series shepherds essentially driven out by one faction of the congregation. That faction actually consisted of just three people: a prominent business-person in the community and his daughter and son-in-law, who worked for “Dad.” It was them against the rest of the church.

My lay colleague and I spent several days and nights listening to parishioners. What became apparent was that these three people were calling all the shots. They viewed other members with a smug and smiling contempt, certain that their financial acumen gave them the ability and the right to make all decisions. 

After we gave our recommendations to the synod and to the congregation, those three people continued to be in control, eventually sending it on a death skid--even though at the time it was, like Living Water, a medium-sized and growing congregation--with their arrogance and penny-pinching.

Let’s be honest. We all like the idea of being in control. We’re born with that preference. It comes from our inborn sinful nature. And, no matter how much progress God has made in what the Bible calls our sanctification, the process of making us over in the image of Jesus, as long as we are still in this world, at our core, we will want to be in charge. 

But friends, that’s not the way of life for a disciple of Jesus. 

And it’s not the way of life for those who are blessed to be part of Jesus’ Church. 

As we continue to consider the Biblical teachings on which Thom Rainer builds his book, I Am a Church Member, we come to one of the most frequently ignored essentials of church life: Being a member of Christ’s Church is not about my preferences. 

It’s not even about the preferences of a majority of church members. 

It’s about God’s preferences, God’s call on His Church at any given time.

Truly, if gratitude for God’s undeserved and saving grace was at the forefront of our thinking...if we consistently appreciated that Jesus bled and died for our sins and then gives a share in His resurrection with God to all who repent and believe in Him, we might never be selfish again in our daily lives or in the Church. But that’s a hard proposition.

To see how hard, all we need do is take a look at Mark, chapter 9. Please open a Bible to that chapter and consider it for a moment with me. 

Six days after telling the apostles that some of them would soon see the overwhelming glory of God, Jesus took three of them--Peter, James, and John--to a mountaintop, where His appearance was transfigured before them. The three apostles saw the perfection of heaven shining from Jesus and Elijah and Moses affirming the greatness of Jesus. They saw that Jesus was God. (Mark 9:1-13)

On returning from the mountaintop, Jesus cast a demon from a boy after the other nine apostles had been unwilling to do anything for him. (Mark 9:14-29)

Then, Jesus predicted, for a second time, that He would be crucified for the sins of the world, but rise again. (Mark 9:30-31)

Now, tell me something. If you had been, say, Peter, James, and John and you had just seen Jesus’ transfiguration, seen Him cast a demon from a child, and heard Him speak of how He was going to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and then, rise from the dead, wouldn’t you think, “I will do anything for this man’s glory. This is God and I will do what He wants and not what I want”?

But here’s a stunning truth: On this earth, before we have died in Christ and risen in His power, even when God's presence and power are manifested obviously to us, we will tend to want our own ways. 

Do you doubt that? Take a look at Mark 9:33-35. It picks up immediately following the events we’ve just looked at. Verse 33: “They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house [here, the house signifies the Church, the fellowship of believers in which Jesus talks to His disciples, including you and me], he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’”

Of course, Jesus knows what they’ve been talking about. His question is a bit like that posed by God to Adam in Genesis. He knows what Adam’s been up to and why Adam is hiding, but he asks Adam, “Where are you? [and]...Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” [Genesis 3:9, 11] 

As in the garden and God’s questions of Adam (and later, Eve), Jesus is giving the disciples a chance to be honest with Him, to confess their sins and receive His forgiveness. 

Listen: The God we know in Jesus is always anxious to give forgiveness and restoration to us if we will only be honest enough with Him to admit that we have sinned, that we’ve been selfish. 

King David in Old Testament times knew this and so he prayed, “...a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) 

None of us will ever be what we are meant to be as human beings and as disciples of Jesus unless we are willing to be broken in the realization of our sin and human limitations. We must leave all pretenses of being “all that” before God can make us whole through the grace He offers us in Jesus Christ.

Mark 9, verse 34: “But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.” The disciples were bent on getting their ways even though they were in the presence of the Greatest of all! It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Verse 35: “Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.’” 

Imagine how the lives of our churches and the life of our world would be changed if we took these words of Jesus seriously! 

Imagine what our families and communities would be like if we tried to outdo one another in serving each other, in not wanting to get our ways, in not wanting to push ourselves forward.

Folks, do you know what most turns many people off to the Church? It’s when they come into a congregation and see the “Christians” treating each other with the same disregard and nastiness that they see in the world at large. When outsiders see Christians bent on getting their own ways, they don’t see the One they need and, whether they know it or not, crave. They don’t see Jesus.

To be sure, no Christian is perfect. 

No Christian congregation is perfect. 

But in fact, a local Christian congregation is precisely the community of which imperfect, sinful people need to be a part. In this fellowship:

• we confess our sins together, 
• we hear the good news of Jesus together, 
• we together welcome new members of Christ’s body in the waters of Holy Baptism, 
• we are strengthened and renewed by Holy Communion together, and 
• we are together empowered by the Holy Spirit to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God.  

But even then, the sin inside of us, the sin of the world, and the sin that comes from the evil one can trap us. 

I think that the author of I Am a Church Member, Thom Rainer underestimates how powerful the pull of sin is on each of us, even on Christians who want to be the servant-disciples Jesus calls us to be. Toward the end of chapter 3 of his book, Rainer writes of the commitments to church membership he has in his book, “...these commitments are not easy. In fact, without God’s power they may prove impossible.” 

I so recoiled at that last sentence that I crossed out the words, “may prove” and replaced them, in capital letters with the word, “ARE.” The sentence should read, I believe, “In fact, without God’s power they ARE impossible.”

My source for saying that is Jesus, Who has told all who would do the good to which God calls us, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) 

Without prayer in Jesus’ name and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we cannot believe (1 Corinthians 12:3). 

Nor can we make good on any of the commitments we make as members of Christ’s Church. 

You can find the commitments that we Lutheran Christian church members are asked to make at the top of page 201 in the green hymn books. This is part of the service of Affirmation of Baptism. We commit ourselves to 

• “continue in the covenant God made with [us] in Holy Baptism,...
• live among God’s faithful people,...
• hear [God’s] Word and share in His supper,...
• proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,...
• serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus, and...
• strive for justice and peace in all the earth…” 

And when we are asked to make these commitments, knowing that we can keep none of them in our own power, we’re also told to say, “I do [so commit myself], and I ask God to help and guide me.”

In the end, our capacity to live in the community of Christ’s Church and to accept that the Church and our own lives are not about our preferences and desires, we must daily come to God, daily confess our sins, daily receive forgiveness in Jesus’ name, and the power of the Holy Spirit to live more like the disciple Jesus died and rose to make me. 

We must give each day to Jesus if we are to live as God’s people and truly be members of His Church. 

May daily surrender to and trust in Jesus be the lifestyle of this congregation. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Real Leaders Don't Take Themselves Seriously

We should be wary of any would-be leaders who take themselves and their “dignity” seriously. That's part of what God is teaching me today.

Today, during my quiet time, I read the account in 2 Samuel of King David bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. The ark was the place where God dwelt on the earth. In later centuries, it would be housed in the temple, behind a curtain that shrouded “the holy of holies.” (Later still, at the moment Christ died on the cross, the perfect sacrifice for our sins, the curtain tore, meaning that God’s holiness and power were no longer confined to a particular place, but can go out to all who turn from sin and trust in Christ as their Savior and God. And, as Jesus said would happen, this God we know in Christ can be worshiped and known anywhere by anyone. [John 4:21-25])

When the ark arrived in Jerusalem, David took off his royal robes--though he was still clothed in the common garb men wore in those days--and put on the ephod. The ephod was a sacred vestment worn by priests (and a few kings) while worshiping or offering sacrifices to God. Wearing a commoner’s attire and the ephod, David danced through the streets of Jerusalem, honoring, praising, and worshiping God.

But 2 Samuel 6:16 says that one of David’s wives, Michal, the son of his predecessor, Saul, was unimpressed by David’s behavior: “As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.”

Why did Michal despise David? A few verses later we learn why: “When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, ‘How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!’” (2 Samuel 6:20)

Michal’s words are sarcastic and untruthful. She thought it unseemly, as her father before her would have, for a king to be one of the people, to divest himself of royal robes, even to honor and worship God.

The hubris that Michal commends to David is precisely what led her father Saul to have such a disastrous kingship. Leaders who are more concerned with their own dignity, power, and position than with honoring God or identifying with their people are worthless.

Michal didn’t know the difference between humility and humiliation.

David’s response to Michal is telling: “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.” (2 Samuel 6:21-22) [Italics mine.]

Those who are jealous for their own “dignity” think nothing of elevating themselves above others, ignoring the will of God, refusing to repent or take responsibility when they make mistakes, even denying that they make mistakes. Even if, rarely, they do express regret for wrongs, it has more to do with regret for getting caught than it is for doing wrong in the first place. (In the Bible, Saul and Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, have this latter trait in common, by the way.) They bully and are afraid of being bullied. They’re coarse and condemnatory, animated always to prove themselves to be the best. It was for all of these behaviors that God, with sorrow and regret, rejected Saul as Israel’s king (1 Samuel 15:10). 

You cannot be an effective, useful, or godly leader if all you can think about is yourself and your “dignity.” This is what cost Saul the favor of God. In fact, the Spirit of God totally left for Saul because of his self-obsession (1 Samuel 16:14.)

But leaders who are jealous for the Lord are unafraid of appearing “undignified” in the eyes of the world. They know too, like David, that those who humbly seek to follow the Lord themselves won’t regard a humble servant leader with contempt, but with respect.

David understood that he owed everything--his salvation, his calling, his life--to God. Like John the Baptist referring to Jesus, God-enfleshed, David’s humble worship of God said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

David understood what Jesus later taught: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:25-28) (David, of course, wasn’t always a faithful servant leader. But he knew how to repent.)

If even the Creator of the universe is a servant-leader, then how could I presume to “lord it over people” as though I’m “all that”? Jesus says that the first will be last and the last will be first (Matthew 20:16).

My dignity doesn’t come from whether people bow and scrape to me, or whether I have loads of money, or whether I impose my will on others. My dignity comes from being a human being created in the image of God and, by God’s grace, from being made a part of His new and everlasting creation through Jesus Christ.

King or president, powerful or powerless, if I trust in and follow Christ, nothing can separate me from the love of God or from the dignity that comes from being, through Christ, a child of God.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Let me lead others where You lead, Lord

This morning, for my quiet time with God, I read Joshua 1-3. There, God calls Joshua to lead the people in the way God leads him. It incited me to this prayer:

God, help me to always lead those you've called me to lead where You direct. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen

As a called servant-leader in Christ's Church, called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, this is my highest aspiration and most frequent prayer.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Important Point

From Servant of All: Status, Ambition, and the Way of Jesus by Craig C. Hill:

"We're not just the Rotary with a pointy roof"

I'm reading a book by Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, called Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life. I really love it and will probably write more about it later.

Some introductory remarks to the book were written by Williams' successor, Justin Welby. I didn't know anything about him and ran across this profile of him, written four years ago for The Telegraph. I appreciated most of what he said and was especially struck by this:

The Church, I say, is good at talking, but not at actually doing things to improve the social order [says the author of the piece] 

“RUBBISH!” shouts the Archbishop, genially. “It is one of the most powerful forces of social cohesion. Did you know that each month all the Churches [in the United Kingdom] – roughly half of the numbers being Anglican – contribute 23 million hours of voluntary work, outside what they do in church? And it’s growing. There are now between 1,200 and 2,000 food banks in which the Church is involved. Ten years ago, there were none. There are vicars living in every impoverished area in the country. This springs out of genuine spirituality. We’re not just Rotary with a pointy roof.”

We who make up the Church aren't just the Rotary with a pointy roof.

That's often forgotten, even by church members, ostensibly disciples of Jesus Christ on a life and death mission from the Lord to be and make disciples.

That fact will cause us to do what Welby calls "voluntary work," like the folks from the congregation I serve here who go each year to do real service in Haiti, Appalachia, India, and elsewhere.

Or the others who will feed 150 men at a Dayton homeless shelter next weekend.

Or those Living Water disciples who tutor impoverished kids or run the local Upward sports program.

But we do those things not because we're just a bunch of community do-gooders.

The Rotary is nice. But the Church plays for bigger stakes: The eternal good of everyone we encounter. Whatever good we do comes from and is all about Jesus alone.

There's nothing wrong we Rotarians, but we Christians commit acts of service because Jesus died and rose for us, liberated us to love God and love neighbor, and has sent us into the world filled with Christ's love not only to do loving things but to share the Good News of Jesus' death and resurrection that can change people's lives now and in eternity, when they turn from sin and entrust their lives to Him.

In fact, at Living Water, we don't even have a conventional "pointy roof," by which I imagine Welby means a steeple. It's people who rightly confess Christ and rightly share in the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion that make up the Church.

And having been made into the Church by the Three-in-One God, we serve others prolifically for much higher stakes than just relieving their discomfort, poverty, or pain. We serve to be windows onto the loving soul of God. Our serving gives a simple message: If God can turn someone like me into a confident, loving ambassador for Christ, He can change anyone's life for the better forever.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Who's the greatest?

This summarizes what God seemed to be trying to teach me during my quiet time with Him today. To see how I structure these intimate encounters with God, look here.

Look: “A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.” (Luke 22:24)

Before this verse appears, Jesus has just instituted the Sacrament. He then tells the twelve apostles that someone among them is going to betray Him and that condemnation will fall on the one who does this.

According to Luke, the apostles then shift into a debate as to who among them the betrayer could be.

But just as quickly, their short attention spans showing, they move to a different argument: Which of them is considered to be the greatest?

I checked on the Greek here for several key words.

The first is dispute. In the Greek in which Luke first wrote his book, the word is φιλονεικία (philoneikia). That’s a compound word, the first part of which means love, like in philadephia (brotherly love). Philoneika literally means lover of strife. It seems to refer to people who just like to argue.

At this dramatic moment, when their Lord has just told the twelve that He is going to be betrayed and die, their love for Him isn’t stirred. Instead, their first reaction is to see who they can pin the blame on for the betrayal. Then they indulge their love of dispute to argue over which of them is the greatest.

The greatest is with them, Jesus. Yet here they are, glorifying themselves. “I’m number one.” “I’m the greatest.”

It’s all so hollow. In a matter of hours, the one Jesus has already designated to lead this lot of losers, Peter, will deny any association with Jesus. Among those to whom he denies following Jesus is a powerless servant girl whose testimony is toothless in that ancient sexist world.

But neither Peter nor the other apostles mind pounding their chests with pride when they don’t feel threatened. They love a good argument when the risk is low. (They’re like moderns who battle with strangers on the Internet, but are loathe to confront or resolve conflicts face to face in their own daily lives.)

The other word I was interested in was considered. In the Greek, the word is dokia, meaning thought. The idea here is that the twelve were interested in how others perceived them. The question wasn’t really who was the greatest, but who people thought was the greatest. Rather than striving to be the greatest, they were aiming at being perceived as the greatest. (And we think that the whole desire to look good more than to be good is a new phenomenon.)

But Jesus, both by word and example, points the twelve to a different measure of greatness: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-27)

It’s true, as Proverbs 22:1 says that: “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”

But a true good name cannot be conferred by the world. The world is fickle. The world is confused, often confusing bombast and violence, wealth and possessions, for greatness.  True greatness, Jesus says, isn’t about celebrating oneself, pushing one’s self forward, bullying others, or even being seen as the nicest person in the room.

Looking great isn’t the same as being great. And we have to know the difference.

According to Jesus, true greatness=true servanthood. Just as Jesus came among us as One Who serves, we are to be servants.

So, Philippians 2:5-11 says: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

In God’s Kingdom, Jesus has the greatest name because He is the greatest servant of all.

He descended deep into the sin, violence, and darkness of our world and then deep into hell itself, in order to, respectively spare those who trust in Him from sin and death and to proclaim God’s victory over evil to the demons.

Jesus emptied Himself of all the advantages of deity and became a servant to all for the sake of all.

His was the greatest act of service ever rendered, not just because He was and is God, but also because He was and sinless, yet bore our sin on the cross.

“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7-8)

If we would have truly good names, names written in the book of life, we must daily give up our pretensions to greatness, we have to quit trying to be “all that,” whether among our families, churches, co-workers, etc., and seek, in the power of the God we meet in Jesus, to be servants.

Not servile.

Not suck-ups.

Servants: People who seek each day to be lovingly useful to God and to others. People who know where the real power is, emptying ourselves and letting the power of God’s Holy Spirit unleashed in believers in Jesus, be given expression and to take control of us. “...for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

My ambition is to have a faith like Paul’s, as expressed in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Listen: All I need is Christ. Christ alone. Through Him, God has given me life (Colossians 1:16). Through Him, God has given me new life 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 5:11-12). Through Him, God provides daily bread (although we human beings can be stingy about sharing it). Through Him, we know that more than daily bread, we need Him, the living bread from heaven.

When I’m full of myself or afraid or apprehensive or resentful or sad, I must remember that Christ is all I need.

Response: God, help me to act boldly with faith in Christ, knowing that You will empower me to do exactly what You want me to do. Help me to remember that when I give myself away to You and to those who need me, there isn’t less of me, there’s more of You and become more like the person You created me to be. Help me to live for Your glory, not my own. Help me to seek Your will, not my own. In Jesus’ name I pray.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]