They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then 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 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.”
(Mark 9:30-37)
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I have to confess that when I hear the words “the greatest,” I do not think immediately of these words of Jesus. No, when I hear “the greatest” I inevitably think of Muhammad Ali. He was “the greatest.” As he admits, he said he was the greatest even before he knew he was the greatest! His greatness mostly stems from his boxing career. Many people forget that in 1960 he was the Olympic heavyweight gold medalist representing the United States in the Olympic Games in Rome. And of course most people know that after that as a professional he became the three-time heavyweight champion of the world. That does mean that he lost the title twice – but only once did he lose it in the ring, and he followed that up by winning the title back a few months later! But it wasn’t only what he accomplished in the ring. He was a man of strong beliefs and principles and he was willing to stand up and pay a price for them. After returning home as Olympic gold medalist in 1960, he assumed that he would be respected and even honoured for being an American Olympic champion. Instead he found that the people of his home state of Kentucky (and perhaps most other Americans) still thought of him as just another … well, I won’t use the word. But he threw his Olympic gold medal into a local river in disgust. A few years later his religious convictions changed and he became a Muslim – which earned him the wrath of many and there were people who for many years refused to call him “Muhammad Ali” but insisted on using “Cassius Clay” instead. And a few years after that Ali risked jail time by refusing to be inducted into the United States Army to fight in Vietnam. No Vietnamese had ever hurt him, he said. The only people who had hurt him were other Americans, so why would he go to war for America against Vietnam? He didn’t go to jail, but he was stripped of his title for that. Those things perhaps stand out as a sign of greatness. And perhaps it was just his colourful and larger than life persona. But there were reasons for thinking of Muhammad Ali as “the greatest.” There are others. In hockey there was Wayne Gretzky. And in baseball there was Barry Bonds. And basketball today has LeBron James. World champion – most goals – most home runs – most points. That’s usually how we define greatness. It’s about accomplishments. The great ones are those who are better at something than anyone else and who get noticed for it. That’s why it’s fascinating for us to have had the chance in today’s Scripture passage to see how Jesus defined greatness.
A lot of things can distract us from the work of God. One of those things is human pride; the desire for greatness. This story today illustrates that. It tells us that as the disciples traveled with Jesus, they got distracted. As they walked with Jesus, the passage tells us, even though they were supposedly devoted to him, “they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” I’m sure it was a fascinating argument. Peter said, “It’s me – because I’m the rock!” and John said, “No way! It’s me, because Jesus loves me the most!” and maybe Matthew, being a tax collector, said “It has to be me because I have the most money.” And maybe Thomas was the tallest, and Andrew was the most handsome. Judas probably even had something he could point to. You get the point. They had argued about which of them was the greatest – using very worldly definitions of greatness, no doubt. Now you would have thought that being in the presence of Jesus they might have conceded that title to him, but human pride can get in the way of what seems to be reasonable and it can get in the way of doing God’s work.
The disciples seem to have thought that they had carried on their argument very discretely and so it must have been an embarrassing moment when Jesus suddenly turned to them and said, “What were you arguing about on the way?” There were probably red faces and feet scuffing the ground and eyes turned away. Some hemming and hawing. Mark tells us that “they were silent.” It was one of those awkward moments when you get caught doing something that you know you shouldn’t be doing and you just really don’t know how to respond – but you do discover how fascinating it is to be counting the number of tiles on the floor, because the last thing you want to do is look the other person in the eye. But the good news for the disciples – and for us, I daresay – is that Jesus didn’t become angry. Instead, he saw a teaching moment emerging from this silly argument.
If human pride was the problem afflicting the disciples, then a good dose of humility would be the solution. It’s said that Benjamin Franklin once made a list of character qualities that he wanted to develop in his own life. And he would work his way down the list, and as he mastered one virtue he’d move on to the next one. But he could never finish the list, because he finally reached humility. And, he said, then he encountered a problem, because every time he made progress in developing humility be became proud of himself for doing so! Pride is a hard thing to overcome and pride may be the thing, more than anything else, that pulls us away from God. Ultimately, it’s pride that makes us say “i don’t need God. I can figure this out all by myself.” And I’ve known all sorts of people who profess to have deep faith but who, when push comes to shove, demonstrate in all sorts of ways that they really want to handle problems and answer questions by themselves without making any room for God in the process – and sometimes, I confess, I have to fight that temptation myself. And it’s pride – nothing more; nothing less. It’s pride that puts the idea into my head that I can do it all by myself, and the Book of Proverbs tells us that “pride goes before destruction ...” Then, in the very next verse of Proverbs we’re told that “it is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.” This was advice Jesus obviously agreed with.
“He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’” For the next few weeks, I’m going to be taking a bit of a look at pride and its consequences and the challenges it presents to us, and then in about a month I’m going to be coming back to this idea of the followers of Jesus being servants and asking what that really means. But today I just want to focus on this obsession we have with greatness and with how we define it. I find the Guinness Book of World Records a fascinating thing, and it always amazes me how many silly and even dangerous things people will do to get in on being a part of a world record. Just a few days ago – at a Presbye=tery meeting of all things – I heard about people who tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by being a part of the picture of the most people holding stuffies! I’ve personally never done anything dangerous for that purpose, but I did once try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. It was several years ago in Port Colborne, and the City organized what they hoped would make Guinness as the biggest water gun fight ever. Hannah and I both took part. This is us after the fight:
It doesn’t show up too well in the picture but we were soaked from head to toe. We had spent about half an hour running around the local park firing water pistols at everyone we saw and having everyone we saw firing water pistols at us. Unfortunately, even though there were about 850 of us in the fight, I think we fell a little bit short of the record – but we tried. I have some other claims to greatness. I am one of the relatively few ordained people in the history of the Christian faith to have preached in two different millennia! And about 15 years ago I may have become the first (and maybe still the only) ordained minister to have baptized baby boys named Jackson on two consecutive Sundays. I mean – it’s not a common name, and it’s a pretty recent name! Whatever it might be, the ways we define greatness from a human perspective are a bit silly – because as Christians the only thing that should really matter to us is how Jesus defined greatness. Right? “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” From a worldly perspective, that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s true: real greatness is defined not by our spectacular accomplishments, but by our humble service. That’s easy to forget.
Jesus was a model of humility. Humility doesn’t mean never speaking out or being noticed – Jesus did plenty of that – but it means being noticed in such a way that you don’t always make yourself the centre of attention. So in response to the argument of his disciples about who was the greatest “he took a little child and put it among them ...” Even without the words he spoke (I’ll get to those in a second) the simple symbolism of putting a child among them was important. Children were looked on as weak and vulnerable and they didn’t belong in the company of adults. In the context of the time, they were to be seen and not heard, and preferably not seen if possible. But Jesus took the time to find a child, and put the child in their midst. The point was simple – Jesus took the time to focus on the weak and the vulnerable of his society; he invited them into his presence; he put them in the centre. He made them the most important people of all. But Jesus was doing more than just illustrating for his disciples that greatness is defined not by importance but by service to the weak and vulnerable. Jesus actually claimed identity with the child; he made himself one with the child: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” It is in those who are the weakest and most vulnerable and least privileged of our society that we truly find Christ; it is in serving them (not paternalistically as in “we know best” but as true servants who hear them and listen to them) that we truly serve God.
With all due respect to Muhammad Ali or Wayne Gretzky or anyone else who has either claimed the title of “the greatest” or has had it thrust upon them, greatness isn’t defined by how many people you’ve knocked out or by how many goals you’ve scored. Greatness is defined by humble service, and by a person’s willingness to give of themselves for the sake of the least, and by our willingness to make the most vulnerable the most important of all.
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