Clean your room! Pick up your clothes! Take out the garbage! Do the dishes! Dust the house! Mow the yard! Rake the leaves! Wash the car! Who would like to take those orders day and night?

Most of us know what it takes to run a home and to keep the routines running. But few of us enjoy doing that kind of work all the time. Wouldn’t it be great if we could each have a robot at our disposal to do all the things we don’t want to do? And think of the time that would be freed up so that we could dedicate ourselves to doing something great! Our lives would be wonderful and everything would be great! Or would it?

That’s the question we’ve come to explore – this morning. What is true greatness? But first, let’s recall where we’ve been. If you’ve been following along, these past two weeks you will remember that we have looked at the image of a seeker – as an important part of our identity is being a search church. And we have lifted up the image of a herald – recognizing that a vital part or our identity is exerting proclamation power.

Today we are examining true greatness as we turn to the image of a servant. Don’t you feel good when you’ve done something for an hour or two – for those less fortunate than yourself? When you’ve done an act of service for someone else – don’t you feel an inner sense of satisfaction? And it’s kind of nice to reward ourselves every once and a while.

Was it that kind of day and was it that kind of feeling that led James and John to approach Jesus and request,

“We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

And isn’t that a pretty human tendency? I mean, wouldn’t it be nice if we could write our own ticket. When we’re honest with ourselves – aren’t there times when we, like the disciples, want a God who serves our needs. Don’t we want to be in control most of the time?

So, Jesus replied to the two sons of Zebedee by asking,

“What is it you would like me to do for you?”

And they answer,

“Aw, it’s nothing much – we just want to be at the top with you – sitting on each side of you in your glory.”

It’s always been great to be at the top. When you sit in the glory seat you feel so noticed and honored. And we all like to feel special and important. It’s kind of like being Number One – it feels so successful – it’s that great feeling of achievement when you’ve accomplished something very important.

The bigger the success, the better the feeling. And so we say – there’s success in numbers – there’s success in dollars – and there’s success in more. Some churches are really into the numbers thing right now – wanting to get bigger numbers at any cost – because as we’ve often heard – without them the church will die.

But I just have to tell you that that kind of talk really turns me off. Because I believe that fundamentally (and I mean in the best sense of the word) we are a servant church. Jesus understood himself as a servant.

“For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.”

It was that inner identity expressing itself through his outward touch that drew people toward him. The same is true for a church – when we are faithful to our identity as servants – then others will be drawn to the spirit of Christ – and not members for numbers sake. So although we hope to grow as a church – first and foremost we need to embrace the servant Christ and a more faithful walk in that image.

But let’s get real – who wants to embrace the image of a servant and a slave? With the abolishment of slavery in this country and the whole civil rights movement – who would ever want to reclaim those images? But whether one lives in the 21st century or the first century – the thought of being a slave or a servant has never been popular. It simply is not a pleasant thought - it never has been and never will be.

And yet, isn’t it possible that we are slaves to things in our lives – and we may not even know it. One writer of late has suggested that all Americans are addicted to something. Some people are slaves to their work, some to T.V., some to drugs or alcohol, and others to low self esteem – always trying to please others to enhance their own self-worth and identity – and the list could go on and on.

So perhaps, we need to re-examine what it means to be a servant. When we offer our service here for an hour or two and there for an hour or two – and then become masters of our lives again – we are only playing at the role of being a servant.

In the images we have considered prior to today – the church has been in a bit of a privileged position. I mean, it is a luxury to search – to have the time to explore the deeper meanings of living – rather than spending all our time simply making a living.

And proclaiming the word of God places us in somewhat of an authoritative position – at least in the sense that it is an authoritative word which we proclaim. But to contemplate the image of a servant suggests giving up a primary position for one that is not in the glory seat. Now, we need to put a twist on the way the world looks at being a servant. For in the context of faith servanthood is not trying to surround ourselves with as much oppression and misery as possible – but a joyful way of living through which we see a God who chose the way of servanthood to show us what his image truly is.

In this passage, the first segment of the Mark text that Beth Beam read to us,

“…they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’”

Hear our Lord again,

“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.”

True Greatness!

I want to point out to you that the Greek word here for great is “Mega.” True greatness in the world’s eye is: having mega-bucks, mega-success, mega-happiness, and mega-everything.

In his book, Compassion, Henri Nouwen writes,

“Something of this attitude appears in the expression ‘helping the less fortunate,’ which frequently can be heard from the mouths of those who ask or offer aid. This expression has an elitist ring to it because it assumes that we have made it and have gotten it together while they simply have not been able to keep up with us and need to be helped. It is the attitude which says: ‘Fate is on our side and not theirs. But since we are Christians we have to lift them up and give them a share of our good fortune. The undeniable fact is that the world is divided between the fortunate and the unfortunate ones. So let us not feel guilty about it, but reach out as good people to those who happen to be on the side of the fence.’ In this way of thinking compassion remains part of the competition, and is a far cry from real servanthood.”

True greatness cannot be seen by the world – but only with eyes of faith as we stretch toward mega-servanthood. The greatest thing in the world is not greatness. The key here is that if you want to succeed in the world – don’t use Jesus as a model.

It has been said that you can get all A’s and still flunk life. What that quip is saying is you can have all the success in the world – and never do one thing to advance the glory of God.

We now come to the crux of servanthood and to make the point I want to share a true story that was part of the “Today” show a number of years ago,

“To find out exactly what goes through the mind of a person falling into space, a group of aerodynamic scientists hired a young man who had never parachuted before, trained and equipped him, wired him for sound – and instructed him to record in full detail all his thoughts and sensations as he fell. To their dismay, when the tapes were played back, all that could be heard the entire way down was an exuberant ‘Whee-ee-ee!’”

You see, it is in servanthood that God is revealed to us. The movement of Jesus Christ is the downward pull – through which God moves closer to us – not further away. Jesus came to serve humanity in joy – not to lord his position over us. Servanthood – self-giving is the way God chose to be known to us.

And so we come full circle – for here we are touching true greatness in that service is an expression of the search for God – service is an expression of the search church. And further still, just as God’s nature becomes clearer in the servanthood of Christ – so too does servanthood become clearer in the proclamation of the church – for our actions of service become an integral part of the proclamation we proclaim.

Being a servant does not mean seeking suffering and pain – it means witnessing through service to a God who serves. We would do well to remember that God does not serve us by giving us everything we want. Just like the child, we do not get everything we want – like the new little red bike. But God serves us by giving us what we need.

And what of our service? We must serve more than ourselves. What makes our Christian service different from worldly servitude is that we serve God and not human masters. Our obedience is to God and not to others.

Serving a human master brings sadness. Serving a heavenly master bring gladness.

The Psalmist of old knew it well when he wrote,

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness.”

And yet paradoxically, the service of God leads to freedom – and the refusal to serve God leads to a life bound up in sin. For to serve God is therefore by choice – not by compulsion – to serve others. And rather than being condescending – true service bubbles up with joy.

Jesus – the one of true greatness – who lived out the down side of faith as a servant – came into the world that his joy might be in us. Just before his crucifixion he said,

“My joy I leave with you.”

On Sunday mornings we come to search, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and we go forth as God’s servants into the world. Sometimes I think we’ve confused coming to church to simply get a better feeling – with coming to church to gain greater faithfulness – which as a natural by-product gives us a better feeling of joy about life and ourselves.

Thomas Merton in his book, Seeds of Contemplation, makes a critical distinction, when he writes,

“Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for spiritual joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and spiritual joy you have not yet begun to live.”

It takes eyes of faith to look to the Lord of our lives and recognize that all his commandments are in the final analysis – joy! Being a servant of God is not making the world a better place to live by simply changing the social structures – that’s the humanist approach.

Serving God is sharing hope, love, comfort and care – which does not equate with prosperity and what the world calls success. It is:

Neighbor to Neighbor
The Soup Kitchen
Rebuilding Together
Honduras

It is diminishing racism and all differences so that all people might serve God together.

Two weeks ago I suggested that rather than coming to church – we come to search. And last week I suggested that rather than think of ourselves as a congregation – a noun – we think of ourselves as congregating on Sunday mornings to share in proclamation power. So too, today, I would like to propose that the house of the Lord is not the church but the world.

As John T. Robinson has observed,

“The church is the servant, and the first characteristic of a servant is that he or she lives in someone else’s house, not his/her own.”

What we do here this morning should go hand in hand with what we do once we leave -proclaiming and serving go hand in hand.

Our being servants should bear the marks of Jesus serving so closely that people will see clearly the image of Jesus in us. That’s a tall order. But it is also the joy and true greatness on the down side of faith.

“Jesus, we want you to do whatever we ask – we’d like you to put us at the top.” To which Jesus replies to the disciples and to us, “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 to set many others free.”

True Greatness – or – The Down Side of Faith!

Both are true when we embrace the servant Christ and let his image shape our identity! May it be so for us this day and always! Amen!