October 21 sermon: Servant Leadership

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but 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 a ransom for many.”

(Mark 10:35-45)

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     When I was in Grade 6 at Knob Hill Junior Public School in Scarborough, I won something that was called “The History Award.” I’m not sure really why it was called The History Award because it really had more to do with current events than anything else. To be eligible you had to be in Grade 6, be nominated by your teacher, take a multiple choice quiz and write a short essay about leadership. I remember that I wrote about the different people who were leading Canada at that time: what their backgrounds were, what their goals were and what kind of people they were. I think back to that and I remember that there were a lot of people who seemed really important to write about: Pierre Trudeau, Peter Lougheed, Bill Davis, Allan Blakeney. Rene Levesque came along about a year after I graduated from Grade 6, but I’ll add him to the list today. These were significant people who I still remember today. Different parties, different philosophies, different styles – but I look back at them and I think of leadership. They had it. They had not just charisma, but what we’d call today “gravitas.” I can’t help but wonder what I’d write about today if I had to do it over again. I don’t mean to criticize but somehow Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley and Doug Ford and Scott Moe and Francois Legault just don’t seem to have “it” - whatever “it” is – in the same measure. There are times when I lament the state of leadership in our country and in our world today. I find myself thinking about leadership today. Once again we’re a day away from electing new people (or perhaps some of the same people) to positions of leadership and entrusting them with the responsibility of leading our townships and towns and cities for the next four years. I have not voted yet. It’s a mail-in ballot, but I haven’t filled it in yet and I’m going to hand deliver my ballot to the Brock Township office in Cannington tomorrow. So I have a few decisions to make over the course of the next 24 hours or so. Which forces me to ask myself: what am I looking for in a leader? It was Abraham Lincoln who said “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Whose character will I be testing, and whose character will we all be testing, over the next four years of municipal government in Ontario? And what will be my standard for deciding whose character is deserving of being granted that test? It seems to me that maybe the thoughts of Jesus have something to teach us about the qualities we should be looking for in those we select to lead us.

     “James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’” That’s how our passage from Mark’s Gospel opened this morning. James and John were part of what you might call the leadership team; pretty important disciples in the band of followers that had coalesced around Jesus. But what becomes clear just from those few words is that they didn’t as yet understand the concept of leadership as Jesus wanted to see it exercised. Did you notice that they actually seemed so full of themselves that they began by essentially giving an order to Jesus: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” In the overall scheme of things – the church at this point being little more than a tiny band of ragtag disciples following an itinerant preacher – there wasn’t much power to be had here – but apparently even a tiny little bit of power corrupts! “Do this for us,” they said to Jesus. And they wanted the places of glory: one to Jesus’ right and one to Jesus’ left. They’d be sure to be noticed there. Everyone would see them and be impressed at how important they were. They would have the importance and the power of sitting beside Jesus through all eternity. Oh yes. What a gig! But that wasn’t going to happen. James and John instead were going to have to be taught a lesson about the true nature of power and what it was all about.

     I think there are actually several things we learn about power and authority from this passage. The first is that power isn’t taken – it’s given. In some way, power has to be derived to be legitimate. If you seize power – well, you might have the ability to force people to do the things you want them to do or to silence them from speaking against you – but it won’t be real; it won’t be legitimate. Because it will have been taken rather than given freely. You can’t really be in any honourable position of authority over people if you have to force your authority upon them. And so Jesus said to James and John “… to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” You can’t have power just because you want it. You’re not entitled. It’s not your right. That’s lesson one.

     The second thing we learn is that power shouldn’t be about a competition that divides people, but should rather be about co-operation and bringing people together. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be legitimate disagreements among those seeking power or in power, but it does mean that behind it all is a common commitment to a common good; that there has to be a common goal that we’re all working toward, even if we may have different ideas about how to reach the destination. We fail in exercising power of we start to demonize others; if we start to set those who disagree with us up as enemies; if we start to pit this group against that group. Those are all failures of leadership. James and John set themselves up above the rest of the disciples. They felt entitled to these positions of leadership. They thought they were better than Peter and Andrew and Matthew and the rest. Rather than working together for a common cause, they wanted to be the ones directing the cause with everyone else working for them. But Jesus said that wasn’t what it was about. Being a leader doesn’t set you up above everyone else. In fact, that’s the third thing we learn about power.

     Power is the opposite of what we usually think it is. We think of power as the ultimate achievement. We think of power as having the right to make decisions and to set agendas and to direct others. We think of power as something that fills us. We talk of people taking power or assuming power. But then we listen to Jesus and we’re struck with the reality: power doesn’t fill us – power leaves us empty. Power isn’t about getting people to serve us – it’s about us accepting the responsibility of serving others. “… whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

     The concluding verses of the passage force us to abandon the earthly understanding of power and to confront power as it looks in the Kingdom of God – and in that Kingdom what we see is the exact opposite of how power is usually exercised in the world. Jesus becomes for us the ultimate example of how power should be exercised. “… the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Jesus – with the power to command legions of angels to rescue him from his fate as he said in the days leading up to his death – displayed his power in the ultimate sacrifice, on the cross, his life ebbing away, giving everything for the sake of those he came to serve.

     I wonder: what would the world be like if our leaders and politicians understood power this way? I wonder: what would the church be like if our clergy and lay leaders understood power this way? I wonder: what would the world and the church together be like if we all accepted a call to power by committing ourselves to the simple service of all around us rather than grasping at power as a means to push our own agendas? I wonder?

October 14 sermon: Did He Really Mean Everything?

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age - houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions - and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

(Mark 10:17-31)

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     “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” Wait a minute here. I mean – hang on for one second. Did he really mean – everything? Seriously? Everything? I mean – surely not. Because – well, everything would mean a lot of things. It would be – I guess – everything! He couldn’t have meant everything. Could he?

     That’s what really makes this a tough passage for a lot of people to deal with. “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” Let’s face it – even the most hardened fundamentalist who insists that the Bible has to be taken absolutely literally is going to start looking for some escape clause on this one. Jesus was talking to someone who was apparently a man of wealth. So, maybe that’s our out. I’m not rich. Not me. So, sure, Jesus wants the wealthy to sell all that they have and give the money to the poor. But I’m not wealthy so I don’t have to worry about this one. Right? That’s a relief. Except. When we were in China in 2005, people on the streets constantly asked us for money. We had been warned by our guides never to give money to anyone who asked for it. It’s heart breaking, because they would send little children out of the shadows (3 and 4 year olds) to approach our group to beg for money. You wanted to give – but we were told that if we gave to one child, there were dozens of others watching and we would be immediately swarmed by others demanding money, and by their parents, and things would get out of control, and the police would have to be called to restore order, and – as we were told – “you don’t want to get involved with the police in Beijing.” I said to one of our fellow travelers that people must think that we were rich. My friend (who had been to China before) said “We can travel from Canada to China and back. To them we are rich.” And I thought about the fact that every morning I was going down to the front desk of our hotel and cashing $100 or $200 in travelers cheques without a second thought, being greeted by someone earning about $15 a month. So I have to wonder - who’s rich and who’s poor? The reality is that we here are a tremendously blessed people indeed, by any measure, and Jesus wants us to share our blessings with those who have less. But, still - “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” It seems a bit extreme. It grates on us. At the very least Jesus is reminding us that whatever we have, none of it is ours. Everything comes from God. John Wesley once said that “if I die with ten pounds to my name, I’ll have stolen it.” And he was making the same point – nothing he had was his own. It came from God and God expects us to use our blessings in order to be a blessing to others. Some people talk about “tithing” - the idea that we should give 10% of our income to the church. I don’t talk much about tithing – for two reasons. First because it’s easy for tithing to become a form of legalism, so that I do it grudgingly, only because I have to. Secondly, it gives the impression that actually only 10% of what I have belongs to God and the other 90% is mine to do with as I please. But Jesus seems to say “no.” Whatever we have and everything we have is God’s and our overarching God-given purpose is to use what God has given us to be a blessing to others.

     Part of the problem in this story was the rich man himself. He thought he could earn his way into God’s good book. He thought that if he just did enough things, everything would be fine and dandy and God would be so proud of him. But – maybe deep down inside – he seemed to realize that something was lacking. So he went to Jesus. “I’ve kept all the commandments. But I still don’t feel it. So what more do I have to do?” And Jesus basically said “everything.” So if you’re going to try to earn your way into God’s favour then you better leave no stone unturned. You better be willing to give everything and to do everything. So this rich man had a problem because he was willing to do things, but he had a lot of stuff, and he wasn’t willing to give his stuff away. You see stuff – whether money or any other possession – can easily replace God; it can become an idol; people can live for their stuff rather than for God; they can live to get more and more and more rather than to give abundantly and be a blessing. The rich man had done a lot of things – but most of what he had done hadn’t cost him anything. “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honour your parents.” Those things don’t “cost” us anything. In fact they come with a reward. We’re admired for doing those things. The rich man was admired because of all he had done, but now because he had been pious enough to gain all that admiration from people he expected to be admired by God as well. But he hadn’t really done anything for God. He had all the trappings of religion, but nothing particularly life-changing and he couldn’t figure out why that hadn’t given him any assurance. Gandhi, in a book called “The Seven Dangers To Human Virtue,” identified one of those dangers as “religion without sacrifice.” If our faith calls us to give up nothing (or as little as possible, or only so much that we don’t notice that it’s missing) then there’s a problem in our relationship with God. That, I think, is what Jesus was getting at. When he said to the rich man “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,” I don’t think he was calling so much for a material sacrifice but for a spiritual change of heart that would cause the rich man to understand that what he possessed was really God’s and that he needed to be constantly aware of opportunities to serve God by using what he had for the benefit of God’s people, regardless of the costs involved. That’s the point.

     We shouldn’t be too hard on the rich man of the story. At least he understood that something was wrong; something was missing. That’s why he went to Jesus. “I’ve done it all,” he said. “So what more is there?” In a sense this was a confession – a moment of blinding self-realization as much as anything. He realized that for all the stuff he had, he actually had nothing. He had been blessed, but he had missed out on the fact that God by blessing him wanted him to be a blessing. And there’s the challenge for us all: to live in such a way that not only acknowledges that all that we have is God’s (which is easy) but also to live in such a way that acknowledges that all that we have is God’s (and that’s hard because it calls us to make sacrifices.)

     Put this story into the context of where Mark places it in relation to Jesus’ life. By the next chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus would be making his entry into Jerusalem, being hailed by the crowds as Messiah, and then rejected by them mere days later but then confirmed with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Think about that story for a moment, and then think back to this story. We don’t actually know what happened to the rich man. Did he ever find the secret of eternal life that he was looking for? Jesus explained that secret to him rather well: “… go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” I think what Jesus was saying was that those who follow him have to be willing to give up everything – to give of themselves and their very being for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of sharing good news with the world and for the sake of being the good news to the world by how we give of ourselves for others. As I said, we don’t know what happened to the rich man, but I’d like to think that perhaps he followed Jesus into Jerusalem and saw – on the cross just a few days later – what Jesus really meant when he told the rich man to “… go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” It’s not just the material things – Jesus does mean that we have to be prepared to give out of that which God has given us for the sake of others, but there’s more. Jesus, I think, wants a change in our attitudes; a change in our perspectives; a change in our hearts. Jesus wants us to live each day knowing that, if necessary, we can give everything because we really possess nothing – it’s all God’s.

     So, let me ask you one more time: Did he really mean ‘everything’? Yeah. He did. Because ultimately he did it himself.

October 7 sermon - Who Are You Trying To Convince?

Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you. I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides. Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

(Psalm 26)

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     Whose opinion do you really care about? If there was one person you could name whose opinion of you really counted, who would it be? That strikes me as a relevant question in the world today. People seem to spend a lot of their time these days trying to convince others of how good they are, how successful they are, how talented they are – maybe, when you boil it all down, of how worthy they are to have the respect of others. Some people’s concern about how other people perceive them can make them seem a little desperate. They go so overboard in their desire to be loved that the end result is that others actually look at them with a sort of contempt. It’s too much. And the truth is that you can’t force someone to respect you. They either will or they won’t. But a lot of people try.

     I have to confess that the very first verses of Psalm 26 caused me to take a bit of a step back and ponder. It sounds as if the author is guilty of some of what I just mentioned. It sounds as if he’s trying just a little too hard to say how great he was. In a way, he reminded me a bit of Judge Kavanaugh – who you’ve probably heard of from Senate confirmation hearings in the United States – who gave an interview to Fox news in which he painted an altogether too virtuous picture of himself. In Psalm 26, it sounds as if the author is boasting about the depth and intimacy of the relationship he’s established with God; even being prideful of how obedient he’s been to God’s will. “I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering,” the author says. Those are bold words. How many of us here today would be able to say that we’ve never (not even for a moment) wavered in our trust in God? I can’t honestly make that claim for myself. But the author of Psalm 26 does.

     In the opening words of the Psalm, the author opens himself to God. He’s almost challenging God with some of his words: vindicate me, prove me, test me. There’s a sense in which he sounds self-righteous, but a self-righteous person is either showing off to themselves – trying to convince themselves of their own goodness, or they’re showing off to others to convince them of their own goodness. And once I get through the first few verses of the Psalm, I start to realize that this is not a self-righteous person who’s showing off; this is a person who’s confident in their faith and who’s convinced of the love of Good. The author of the Psalm isn’t self-righteous; they’re “righteous.” And there’s a big difference between those two things. A truly righteous person opens is willing to open themselves to God’s scrutiny, because they’re certain that they’ll be found acceptable in God’s sight. I thought the Psalm gave us an opportunity to understand righteousness and how righteousness is different from self-righteousness

     The first point I might make is that a truly righteous person understands God’s judgment; they understand what it is that God is looking for from us. So the author of the Psalm invited God to “test my heart and mind.” That’s important. Think for a moment about what the author didn’t say. He didn’t say “look at all my good deeds.” He didn’t say “look at all the money I’ve given to charity.” It’s too easy for our actions to be for show. – the basis of God’s judgement isn’t our actions or appearances - it’s what’s in our heart.

     Second, a righteous person understands God’s love. “Your steadfast love is always before my eyes,” the author said.  That’s a way for the author to say that we are never – even for a moment – separated from God’s love. As Paul would later write in Romans nothing in all creation can ever separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Sometimes we may feel very distant from God’s love. Sometimes we may feel as if something we’ve said or done has made us either unworthy or unlovable in God’s eyes. The author of this Psalm reminds us that isn’t true. God’s love is always before us. God love is with us now and God’s love is our destiny.– that God is always yearning for us to come closer.

     And third, a righteous person understands God’s welcome – that God is always willing to accept us. “I walk in faithfulness to you.” At least in English there’s a potential double entendre to this verse. “I walk in faithfulness to you” might be a statement of the author’s faith – or it might be a statement that the author knows he is being welcomed by God – I’m walking “to you.” And either way, the emphasis on faith is the author’s way of showing that his trust in God is deep and abiding and will not be shaken.

     All that points out the main difference between righteousness and self-righteousness – it’s the audience. A truly righteous person is focused on God and on what God sees in us and is simply thankful to God for the opportunity to serve as they serve. A self-righteous person is concerned about others – how they’re perceived by others; whether they get credit or thanks for all that they do. So after being jarred a bit by the opening words of the Psalm, I came to the conclusion that the author wasn’t engaging in an orgy of self-righteous arrogance. Instead, this was an expression of humble righteousness. And in a way that’s a key question for us today: Are we most concerned with what God sees in us or with what others think of us? I liked the way that question was framed by Rev. Kevin De Young, whose words I cited in today’s bulletin: “I try to keep in mind the simple question: Am I trying to do good or make myself look good?” That strikes me as a good question on a Communion Sunday.

     Verses 6-7 of Psalm 23 struck me as what I’d call a Communion moment: they tell us that we approach the altar (the Lord’s table) thankfully and remembering the work of God within us and around us. We enter God’s presence not so that others can see how good we are, but because we know how good God is. When I served in Central Newfoundland many years ago I always found a Communion service to be a strange service indeed. There was the same phenomenon in every one of my three congregations: almost all the women would come forward to receive Communion, while all the men (except for one) would remain noticeably in their seats. I finally got so confused that I asked about this and was told by one man “I’m not worthy.” I told him that the table was for all Christians, and didn’t he think he was a Christian? “Yes, boy, but I know I’m too much of a sinner to take Communion.” And yet the looks on at least some of the men’s faces wasn’t a look of shame over some past sin; it was almost a look of pride; as if they were showing off. As they sat steadfastly in their pew while others came forward it was almost as if at least some were saying “Look at me. I’m so good I know how bad I am.” At least that’s how it often came across to me.

     Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Today is also World Communion Sunday. The point of receiving Communion isn’t to show others how good or worthy we are, or even to make a show of letting people know that we know how bad we are. The purpose of receiving Communion is simply to gratefully accept that which God has done for us. “My foot stands on level ground,” the author said as he finished the Psalm. “In the great congregation I will bless the Lord.” In this great congregation, may we all approach the Lord’s table with humble righteousness today, thankful to God for welcoming us, even if it might be in spite of ourselves.