Servant of All

Text: Mark 9:30-37

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            In 1936 a book was published that’s gone through several versions and even more reprintings. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is self-help book that has become one of the bestselling books in the history of the United States. In it, the author says that he can teach people to convince others to come around to your own way of thinking, even if they’re initially opposed to it. It’s a guide for teaching people to how to gain status in the eyes of others and bring people over to your side. In many ways, this book helped launch the national obsession with self-help books that’s still readily seen today. Every year, countless books are published, seminars and classes are run, and self-published websites are created to teach people how to advance themselves in their own circles and beyond.

            Jesus is not doing that in our reading today. “If anyone would be first,” He teaches, which could be the beginning of a self-help seminar, “he must be last of all and servant of all.” That’s where His teaching would meet with publisher disapproval. If you would be first, be last.

            That’s not to say that people haven’t tried to turn this teaching of our Lord into some kind of way to win friends and influence people though. Many have tried to find some sort of sociological shortcut through these words. They’ll spin it as if Jesus was saying that if you want to win someone over, you have to show what you can give them; or if you want to be great, you have to start from the bottom; or if you want to find a backdoor into people’s hearts, you do it by serving them, taking care of them, making yourself indispensable. But none of these things are what Jesus is talking about. Our Lord is not interested in teaching us sneaky ways to befriend people, nor is He showing us some hidden backroad to self-glorification. Because, if we take an honest look at humanity, not a single person has ever had trouble finding ways to self-aggrandize and become the heroes in their own story.

            The disciples certainly already had this self-help road to greatness figured out. As they’re walking to Capernaum, they’re arguing among themselves about who was the greatest. Some had a better case than others, I’m sure. But no matter their claim, they knew that they had just come from a massive failure. They were walking from the very spot where the disciples had failed to cast a demon out of a poor child. So for all their arguments and reasons for who was greater than the others, none of them had much ground to stand on. They all had paled in comparison to Jesus, who had shown up and banished the demon with a word.

            So it has gone with all fallen humanity. The Pharisees made a science out of figuring out who was greater and who was lesser. Adherence to the Law and the rules of the elders could easily help quantify someone’s standing before God and the community of fellow believers. The earliest Christians found ways to do this too, relying on things like bloodlines and genealogies, or holding to this or that particular rule or custom. And we today still find ways that we can jockey for rank, ranking ourselves as more devout, or purer, or more dedicated, or more pious, or busier, or more independently thinking, or more of whatever than someone else. We may do it with obvious, overt ways, like announcing our achievements or how busy we are in the kingdom. Or we may do it by cloaking everything in a veil of false humility, fishing for compliments, knowing full well that our status has risen in other people’s eyes but playing it cool, which only adds to it. Like the disciples, like the Pharisees, like all of humanity, we need no lessons on how to find our own routes to self-glorification.

            But Jesus takes this entire concept and overturns it. You want to be great? “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Not appearing to be last or simply saying that they’re last. This means actually coming in last place; everyone—and He means everyone—ahead of you. And in order to demonstrate this, Jesus doesn’t point to any of the Apostles. He doesn’t back up any of their cases for why this one or that one is the greatest. Instead, he takes a child—whose name is still unknown even today—and puts him in the middle of the Twelve. He embraces this child as the greatest in that group. A child—who, in the world of the Roman Empire was without any legal status, without any clout, without rights; who, at best could become a valuable bartering chip in brokering marriages—a child is embraced by Jesus as the greatest in that assembly in Capernaum.

            But before we try to hijack this and turn it into yet another secret route to status, notice that Jesus doesn’t stop there. This child is not just an object lesson, a thing to make His point. Jesus continues to teach and gets to the heart of what this entire lesson has been about from the start: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” Jesus is not teaching how to achieve greatness by secret means. He’s teaching what He has come to do. This lesson is about Him.

            Jesus, the greatest, the Son of God and Second Person of the Holy Trinity, has come to this world. And He did it not in a triumphant, powerful, or impressive way. He came as a child—the child of Mary, born and wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger. And whoever received that child received the fullness of the Son of God. And whoever receives the Son of God also receives God the Father, who sent Him. Further, Jesus came to this world not to claim thrones and empires. How did this entire lesson begin? “[Jesus] did not want anyone to know [He was passing through Galilee], for He was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘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.’” Jesus came to be a servant and give all—even His life—for every single fallen sinful person. So He serves not only the great and powerful, those you would expect to have servants. He comes not only for the respectable. He even comes to serve not only those who love Him or even just those who like Him. He comes as a servant to the outcasts, the lowly, the poor, the lepers, Gentiles, and unclean; tax collectors and sinners. He’s servant even to those who hate Him as He cries out on the cross where they’ve nailed Him to the wood: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

            This whole lesson is about how the greatest, Jesus, regards us, lowly, flawed, fallen, silly, and even at times childish humanity. He serves us and in doing so, He regards us as great, as first in His thoughts, as worthy of everything He has, simply out of His love for us. So He gives us everything we have to support our bodies and lives. He gives us His body and blood to forgive, nourish, and sustain us. He gives us His blessing. He gives us Himself, completely and freely.

            And now, being served and nourished by Jesus Himself, we then have the resources and ability to serve others. Because it’s all coming from Jesus, and behind Him, God the Father, we’re able to serve others, even those who are lowly, strange, poor, and broken. That’s where the Church has thrived: serving at the fringes, at the margins. That’s where Jesus’ forgiven people have followed their Lord. That’s who we serve. Because it’s all coming from Jesus. It’s all a gift from the Father, the entire Trinity. That keeps us grounded. It helps us remember that we’re not doing these things, serving, for status or because it earns some rank from God or the world. It’s all God’s doing anyway. We receive Jesus’ service, His gifts, and then we become the instruments through whom He serves others. It’s all about Jesus and what He’s done for us. It’s all about Jesus and what He does for others through us. In the name of Jesus, the Greatest and the Servant of All. Amen.