Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20B)

September 22, 2024

Text: Mark 9:30-37

            What is it to be great?  What makes one great?  Is it wealth and prosperity, fame, pleasure, power?  Is it physical fitness?  Superior skill?  Knowledge?  Wisdom?  Ambition?  These things certainly make one great in the eyes of the world.  Do we measure greatness in comparison with our neighbor?  Is greatness showing yourself wealthier, more powerful, more fit?  Is it putting your neighbor in his place, because you know better than he does?  You are right, and he is wrong?  Because you are wiser?  Because your ambition outpaces his, and is more deserving?  That is what Old Adam thinks, isn’t it?  But St. James says to us, “if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.  This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:14-15; ESV).  Yes, the source of this measure of greatness is not only the world and your own sinful nature, it is ultimately satanic.  When and where has this been your idea of greatness?  Examine yourself.  Where have you been touched by bitterness and jealousy, selfish ambition, and boasting, if not to others, in your own heart?  Repent of that.  Identify it for what it is.  Confess it.  Unload it at the feet of Jesus Christ.  Let it be put to death in Christ, the Crucified.  That you may be free.  That is what St. James means when he bids us, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (4:10).

            What is it to be great?  Is there a better example of greatness than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself?  He is the Great One.  What makes it so?  How is He great?  Oh, He is God, to be sure, and so He is great by nature.  But what does that mean?  How does He demonstrate His greatness?  By spectacular displays of power and glory?  By sheer force?  By putting us in our place (which, by the way, would be hell, O sinner) in exhibiting His infinite holiness and righteousness?  That is not what He does, is it? 

            Here is the true greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  God became a Man, for us men, and for our salvation.  But even more.  Now, as a Man, being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8).  That is His true greatness.  His humiliation for the sake of those who don’t deserve it.  For us. 

            That, of course, is the great Christ hymn of Philippians Chapter 2, and St. Paul tells us to have the same mind among ourselves.  To do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility, in Christ, to count others as more significant than ourselves.  To look not only to our own interests, but to the interests of others.  This mind is already yours as a gift, Paul says, because you are in Christ (vv. 3-5).  Baptized into Christ.  United to Christ by faith.  So… have it.  Christ’s mind.  Christ’s humility.  And therefore, Christ’s greatness, as your own.

            And then, at the proper time, God will exalt you.  As He did with Christ: Therefore God has highly exalted Him!  Resurrection.  Ascension.  Seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  Ruling.  All things subjected to Him.  The Name that is above every Name.  And soon, every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  Have this mind among you, and God will exalt you, too.  Not you exalt yourself.  God will exalt you.  You will be raised, and all will know your justification in Christ.  And you will know the justification of your neighbor in Christ. 

            Our Lord was teaching His disciples of His humiliation, suffering, and death for sinners, and of the resurrection that would come of it.  “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.  And when he is killed, after three days he will rise again” (Mark 9:31).  This is His greatness.  But no sooner had He spoken, than the disciples were arguing about who is the greatest?  This was one of any number of such discussions.  They were always worried about this.  This time, perhaps, the argument was precipitated by the fact that Peter, James, and John were privileged to witness Jesus’ Transfiguration on the holy mountain, while the other disciples were floundering with a failed exorcism.  And/or, perhaps, also because, if the Master is killed as He says, who will take His place as Rabbi?  So they’re jockeying for position.  They are comparing themselves over against one another.  Who is wiser?  Who is more faithful?  Who is the most loyal?  And who is not?

            Nothing has changed among the disciples of Jesus Christ.  We still do this.  I still do this.  I confess it, dear brothers and sisters.  And I repent of it, my pride and lovelessness in seeking to be great among you.  And I ask your forgiveness.  When it comes right down to it, every argument, every feud, every division in the Church has to do with who is greater, and who is not.  I’m right, you’re wrong.  I know, you don’t.  I do the good thing, and you do the bad.  And, to top it all off, I know your motives, and they are clearly sinister.  No.  No.  We have it all wrong.  None of that is greatness.  It’s a trick of the evil one!  And it is precisely the opposite of greatness in the Kingdom of God. 

            In the Kingdom of God, the world’s idea of greatness is turned upside down.  In the Kingdom of God, the first are last, and the last first.  The greatest are least, and the least greatest.  In fact, the one who would be great must become a servant of all.  And it is only the One crucified who is raised from the dead to live and reign. 

            Beloved in the Lord, you have been crucified with Christ.  And it is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you.  And the life you now live in the flesh, you live by faith in the Son of God, who loved you, and gave Himself for you (Gal. 2:20).  Dead to yourself in Him.  Alive to God in Him.  And so your greatness is in Him, and in Him alone.  What does that look like?  St. James, calling this greatness “the wisdom from above,” says it is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17).  See, all of those adjectives describe humility, the denial of self, the sacrifice of self for the good of the neighbor.  In other words, what Christ does for you, He now does in you for others.  And, he says, “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (v. 18).  In other words, what is the result?  The justified person (justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone), now doing just works (good works, sanctified works) in love for others, results in peace.  Have this mind among yourselves, to echo St. Paul, and we can enjoy peace with one another, to quote St. James. 

            Well, that means forgiving whomever you need to forgive, and asking forgiveness of whomever you need to ask forgiveness.  It means reconciling with whomever you need to reconcile.  It means covering over your neighbor’s multitude of sins with love (1 Peter 4:8).  It means suffering for your neighbor.  It means emptying yourself, all that you are, and all that you have, for your neighbor’s welfare and salvation.  It means loving the unlovable, and repenting of your own unlovableness.  It means receiving the least as the greatest.  Doing the thing you think beneath you for the person you think least deserving.  Like the child Jesus puts in your midst.  (Oh, how Jesus loves the children!  Notice where the child is, in our Gospel… In His arms!)  Receiving the little child, in reality, you receive Jesus.  And receiving Jesus, you receive the Father.  Actually, you know what it is?  It’s 1 Cor. 13 love in action.  It is patient and kind.  It does not envy or boast.  It is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way.  It is not irritable or resentful.  It does not rejoice… get its jollies off of… wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  It never ends.  Of course, you know (or at least I hope you do after all these years of catechesis and preaching), 1 Cor. 13 is not, first of all, a description of you.  It is a description of Christ.  He’s the only One humble enough, and therefore great enough, to love with this perfect love.  But it is also you, now, in Christ.  Only in Christ, but assuredly in Christ.  Christians love their neighbor.  It is who you are.  Have this mind among yourselves.

            It is yours in Christ Jesus.  Keep that mind as we have difficult discussions here in the Church, dear, beloved disciples of Christ, and in all your relationships with one another.  Don’t lose that mind.  The mind of Christ is a precious gift.  Rejoice in it.  Use it.  Love your neighbor through it.  Give yourself up to it.  That is true greatness.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.