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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, be looking at the gospel reading for today for this sermon text. Please be seated. You know, being a servant isn’t particularly popular. People prefer being served. And service-oriented jobs such as janitor, trash collector, and fast food worker aren’t really enviable jobs. People in that work are often seen as inferior, less educated, and maybe not having any real future. Such jobs don’t command respect. The people that do them may seem, well, lowly.
Now, sometimes an attempt is made to try to give them some respect by giving these servant jobs some fancy names. Actually, they sound kind of silly. Instead of janitor, sanitation engineer. Okay. Or instead of trash collector, refuse removal expert. Or fast food worker, convenient meal distributor. Nice try. Still doesn’t really give them respect. They’re still servants. We don’t see people flocking to colleges seeking to major in such lowly servant-type jobs.
Because being a servant or serving someone implies weakness, right? Or that someone is in control of you or in charge of you. You’re below them. You’re lowly. Or that you’re in debt to somebody. Even the judicial system has a way of making the word servant sound bad by labeling punishment for some misdemeanor crimes as community service. Nice try. Let’s face it, serving isn’t all that great. There doesn’t seem to be much benefit from being a lowly servant.
No, being great. That’s what’s preferred in our world today. Being the greatest. That is what is best. Who cares who comes in second place? The silver medalist at the Olympics doesn’t get their national anthem played. The immortal words of coach Vincent Lombardi sound true: winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing. And General George Patton, or at least the movie version of him, said, “Americans will not tolerate a loser.”
Greatness. In the text, in the Gospel reading today, Jesus confronts His disciples about their arguing about this. They were traveling to Capernaum, and they were arguing over which of them is the greatest. Wouldn’t you have liked to have been there for that? And this wasn’t the only time that this happened. They argued about this several times, even during the Last Supper. They argued about who was the greatest. Isn’t human nature a wonderful thing?
But this behavior of the disciples was somewhat normal and acceptable because questions of status and rank were very important in Jewish culture. And the lower rank of being a lowly servant was certainly not even near anything great. Wanting to be great, wanting to be the greatest, is normal today too. And sometimes how it’s sought is the problem because it’s sought out of selfishness. Stepping on co-workers, trying to climb the corporate ladder, ignoring your family in pursuit of business quests, padding your resume, or cheating on school assignments.
I’m sure we’ve all found ways to promote ourselves and make ourselves look great at somebody else’s expense. Trying to be the greatest may not only hurt your relationship with other people, but it can also hurt your relationship with God. Because when you’re thinking you’re so great, there’s not a lot of room in there or thought about serving others or about serving God. But it’s different with Jesus.
In fact, Jesus doesn’t require any greatness out of people. In fact, Jesus serves us. He became our lowly servant. The Son of God, the greatest person to ever walk on the face of the earth, serves us as a lowly servant. And He serves us by lifting up the lowly. In the text, to illustrate this, Jesus did a nearly unspeakable thing at that time by taking a child, who was considered lowly and pretty much did all the dirty work of a servant. That’s why they kept kids around: for them to serve people.
Jesus takes a child, stands him in front of the twelve who are arguing about who’s the greatest, and shows them what is really great. He shows them this child, embraces him, and says to them, you know, loving someone like this, that’s like loving me. Bam! Truly lifting up somebody considered lowly by lifting them up. That’s because Jesus himself became lowly. Even becoming a human being, the Son of God coming into our world, that’s a pretty lowly, servant-like act. And He’s lifted up.
In verse 31, Jesus was telling about his coming death, that he was going to be betrayed and killed. Well, in John 12, Jesus also said this: when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. He’s also talking about his crucifixion, where literally on the cross, he’s nailed to it and lifted up for all people to see himself. How God serves lowly human people who oftentimes think they’re so great.
On that cross, he died for all to see, publicly lifted up to die for the forgiveness of sins. He predicted that, but he also predicted his resurrection, saying that he’s going to be killed, but after three days, I will rise. Jesus was lifted up from the grave. He was lifted up, declaring victory over death. Lifting us up from death as well. Because we need this. We need this really badly because no matter how great we think we are or try to be, we are lowly.
When we really look at our lives, the imperfection, the brokenness, and when we realize that compared to the greatness of God, we really aren’t so great anymore. I guess if we’re great at anything, we’re really great at sinning. See, we’re much lower in our sinfulness. Jesus told his disciples about his coming death and resurrection and being lifted up and shows them the love of God in lifting up this child to show them not only the folly of wanting to be the greatest but also the greatness of being a servant.
Jesus is so wonderful. He doesn’t scold the disciples. He doesn’t tell them to stop doing that. Instead, he shows them God’s love and how it’s communicated to even lowly children like this. And then he would go on to show them this love in his death and his resurrection. Jesus was the greatest. He was the Son of God. But he sets that aside to become the servant of all. And he serves us so that we can do service.
Jesus is the servant serving the servants. And he wants us to be servants. In Philippians, Paul said this: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. 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 he 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. This is service.
This is the greatest one, becoming a lowly servant to lift us up and to put us on the road to serving others too. A great example of this that I know of is a once popular Christian musician who died in 1997 named Rich Mullins. Maybe you’ve heard of him. I was at a music festival that he was one of the guest artists at a press conference. And besides his music, Mr. Mullins was active in doing mission work. In fact, sometimes he would take off even years off of performing or writing music to be involved in ministry and mission work.
And one of the reporters at this press conference asked him about his ministry, probably hoping to know more about Mr. Mullins’ work in missions or his ministry in his music. And when Mullins was asked, so tell us about your ministry, Mullins replied, and I remember hearing this; I was there. He said, my ministry is to make sure I leave my hotel room in good condition when I check out. My ministry is to leave a good tip for my waiter or waitress. Every day, common stuff, that’s ministry and service to people, especially those who are lowly, clean our hotel rooms, serve our food.
We do it because Christ served us. And we can do the same. I mean, when you see a janitor, thank them for it. If you ever get to see your refuse collection experts, your trash collectors, go out and say hey to them. Thank them. Bring them some soda or something. Or the fast-food workers or anybody in a restaurant. Call them by name. They’re wearing a name tag. Why? Because they’re people. People. They’re real people.
I love doing this. I just recently was at a CeCe’s Pizza. I love CeCe’s Pizza. Oh, so much pizza. So much pizza for so little price. I’ll admit it. I watched the people back there; it’s hot, they’re working hard. And there’s this one gal; she was putting some new pizza out, and I said to her, you know, this must not be an easy job. Thanks for doing it. She said, that just made my day. Serious. And then I’m walking away with my pile of slices, and she says to the people in the back, I can hear, she goes, that guy just thanked me for doing my job. I said, that made my day.
They’re real people. They need to be served too. And we need to be served, and thank God He has in Jesus for us. He serves us in worship. You ever wonder why it’s called divine service? It’s because it’s heavenly. No, it’s… It’s because the divine serves us. This is one of very few things that blew my mind at the seminary, learning this. It’s called divine service. I always thought it was because it was heavenly, and also we serve the divine with our worship and all that. Complete opposite. It’s called that because the divine serves you.
Serves you in his word of forgiveness, and up here, serving you with what Jesus really serves you with, his body and blood, given and shed on the cross for your forgiveness. Divine service. The divine serving us. Is that not mind-blowing that He would do that? The greatest would become the lowest servant of all? And because Jesus served us, then we can serve others, especially the lowly service people in our world.
Our world encourages greatness. It wants you to be great. It wants you to be the best at everything you do. It wants you to be seeking to be great. But God comes to us as a servant, the ultimate service in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, serving us so that we then can also serve.
In Jesus’ name, amen. Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
