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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, June 25, 2017

“The Gospel of Mark: The Last will be First” Mark 9: 33-37

Jesus had the disciples caught in a corner. They had been arguing the whole way to Capernum about something a bit unsavory - who was the most important amongst them. Now Jesus was asking them what they had been talking about, and they were too ashamed to answer him. 
We are now in the final week of our sermon series about deep lessons that can be learned from the Gospel of Mark, and today’s is perhaps the hardest for us in modern times - the last shall be first.
Have you ever noticed that when people feel threatened they often engage in one of two behaviors? They either get really loud, starting to argue with one another even over little things that aren’t of much importance, or they shut down. This is often called the fight or flight response. Well the disciples were knee deep in the “fight” side of this equation. There lives were filled with uncertainty. When they agreed to follow and learn from Jesus they weren’t given a step by step guide about where they were going or what they would be doing. Most days they didn’t know where their food was coming from. Most nights they didn’t know where they would lay their heads. They left their families behind, and now Jesus is talking about leaving them, saying that the Son of Man has to be killed. It’s almost like their brains were so overwhelmed that they shut down and just started to bicker about something of such little importance, especially in the context of being Jesus’s disciples - about which of them was the most important and who would be Jesus’s second in command in the coming Kingdom. 
They were right to feel ashamed about arguing about who was going to be the greatest - but before we start ragging on the disciples, let’s be honest brothers and sisters, how many times have we been there? How many times have we sat in the board meeting or the parking lot and argued about things that have nothing, I repeat nothing, to do with who Jesus is calling us to be as a church? Its almost like we get overwhelmed by the greatness of Jesus and the scope of who we are called to be as the Church, so our brains just shut down and we either go into fight or flight mode. 
When asked, the disciples were so ashamed of what they had been talking about that they couldn’t even answer the question that Jesus was asking them. But Jesus already knew. He knew that they were arguing about who was and who was to be the greatest, so he took the time to teach the disciples a hard lesson - the last will be first. 
Let’s be honest, very few people like to be last. We don’t want to be the last one picked for a team as a child. We don’t want to be the last one in line as adults. We want at least one person to be behind us, so we aren’t dead last. But when we take that aversion to being last and apply it to discipleship we miss the point. We think that Jesus’s love is like a pie or something tangible, where those who are first get bigger pieces and those who are last get the crumbs. Brothers and sisters, when we claim to be disciples its not about us, its about the Kingdom of God. Its about putting God first. And when we put God first we realize that there is more than enough love and grace for everyone. The Kingdom of God is not going to run out, if we put ourselves last.
In fact, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, when you position yourself to be last you may just be given opportunities to minister in God’s name. Recently, I was at the grocery store where too few lanes seemed to be open. People started to line up behind me with much smaller orders, so I let two folks skip ahead of me. When it was my turn, the cashier explained to that it had been a really hard day - cash registers and scanners seemed to be down and tensions were high, but how refreshing it was to see someone allow others to go ahead of me. What came naturally to me was a blessing for this worn down cashier. 
But Jesus’s teaching doesn’t stop with telling the disciples that the last shall be first, he also tells them that disciples need to be servants to all. Jesus was trying to show them to lead by being a servant first. Servant didn’t have any better of a connotation back in Jesus’s time then it does today. People don’t want to be servants, they want to be served. But Jesus was telling the disciples, and telling us, that the Kingdom of God isn’t about the things of this world -human power and privilege. Jesus is showing them what it looks like to be a servant first. 
A lot of people like to be in charge. We don’t like people telling us what to do or pointing out places where we can grow. We want to do thing our way, thank you very much. Part of human nature is to want power and authority and everything that comes with it. Jesus however says that the power of the Kingdom of God comes in laying our wants and desires and human nature aside in order to have God’s name be glorified. 
God has enough people, brothers and sisters, who will only be a servant or be last on their own terms. God has enough people in churches that try to bargain saying you know what God, I’ll serve my brother and sister, but not really with a willing heart. Or I’ll put myself last God, but only for show. Or I’ll do this for you now, God, but only if you do something greater for me later. 
The true measure of greatness, friends, doesn’t lie in misunderstanding or stretching what God wants from us. It comes in welcoming the child. Welcoming the vulnerable. In ancient society, children were often pushed aside and were seen as having nothing to offer until they became older. In a time and place where age, gender, and class mattered, children were seen as about as low as you could get.  The powerful oppressed everyone else in most cases, and especially children who didn’t have the protection of family were mistreated, becoming slaves at early ages. 
Yet, it was a lowly child that Jesus took in his arms and said that whoever welcomed the children welcomed him. What was Jesus saying? Jesus was saying that welcoming those who aren’t looked at in society as folks to get you ahead, that is servanthood. He was saying that it matters not who is the greatest, but how we treat people. 

Friends, the disciples that day weren’t just traveling to the physical place of Capernum, they were having their spiritual eyes opened to what it means to be a true follower of Christ. We are on this journey as well, and sometimes we screw up. Sometimes we start to fight about things that don’t matter. Sometimes we need Jesus to gently correct us and put us on the right path again - the path of servanthood and setting ourselves aside for the sake of God’s Kingdom. Amen. 

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