October 17, 2021 – 21st Sunday after Pentecost
Jesus demonstrates greatness by being willing to serve – and expects the same of his disciples.
Let us bow our heads in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks for the gift of your presence in this time and place and within each one of us gathered here and gathered in our homes. Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living Word for us this day; and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
We have just heard the account from Mark’s Gospel that contains this request from James and John. Now James and John were definitely part of Jesus’ inner circle along with Simon Peter, but it does appear that they’re trying to grab the “most prestigious positions” in this new kingdom that Jesus is setting up. And their request becomes even more inappropriate when you read the immediately preceding verses in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus has just told them “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him and spit upon him, and flog him and kill him …” And the very next thing that happens is that James and John come forward with their request for positions of power from Jesus!
So it’s a little like this – imagine back in World War II, and your older brother is being sent to the front as a fighter pilot, and all of your family is deeply worried that they may never see him alive again. And then you suddenly ask him if, when he gets home, you can ride in the car with him in his victory parade! It just seems completely out of touch with where Jesus is trying to bring his disciples. So naturally the other ten disciples are angry with James and John. But Jesus uses this as a teachable moment. He uses it to define what true greatness is – in the Kingdom of God, and more immediately in the Body of Christ, the Church. He says these words, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.” And then he uses himself as an example, he says “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”
I think it’s very appropriate that this Gospel Reading came up on this Sunday, here, as we’re gathered, and as we give thanks for the gift of the former Parish of St. Stephen’s. Because in the Book of Acts, Stephen is described as being one of the original seven called to take up a ministry of serving. Today, we would take that as being centred in the deacon’s ministry. And Stephen became the Church’s first martyr. His death was a powerful witness to the truth of Jesus Christ. And now, St. Stephen’s Church, here in Winnipeg, has provided this beautiful window (you can see an image of it here) to All Saints – a witness of its commitment to the wider church.
So I want us to reflect for a few minutes on this call for Christian disciples – that’s us – to serve – and particularly as it begins with our experience of Church, of serving each other. So think for a minute – what has been your experience of serving in the Church? When is it easy – when is it difficult? I know for me, it’s relatively easy when it feels like I’m not being threatened or diminished in any way, when I’m carrying out that service – when I’ve feeling secure in my identity (who I am) and in my role.(what I do) When I was serving as diocesan bishop, I had no problem “going the extra mile” serving a parish by doing something not normally expected of the Bishop. One Sunday I filled in for a priest who needed to be away. It wasn’t an episcopal visit – nothing official – just a substitute Presider for the day, serving the parish’s needs. And that was a joy – not difficult at all. But if that “call to serve” involved me surrendering my agenda – my role – to someone else’s agenda, that was much more difficult. One example that came to mind for me was an instance when I was lined up to do an episcopal visit on Advent 4 (4th Sunday in Advent) But the Rector got back to me and said, “Well we won’t be having Holy Eucharist that Sunday (so therefore I wouldn’t be able to preside as Bishop at a Holy Eucharist with this congregation); and then he added, “Also, the Sunday School Christmas Pageant usually happens that day so we don’t normally have a sermon, but everyone would be delighted if you came and participated. Well – I pushed back. My primary function, I think, as a bishop, was to preside at Holy Eucharist and to preach, and I wouldn’t be able to do either. Now it could be easily argued that that wouldn’t be good stewardship for me as bishop – to go into that situation. But I think now, if I was truly committed to serving them, I would have been willing to go and blend in with the Sunday School pageant. My agenda, as well-intentioned as it was, prevented me from fully being a servant to that parish.
Sometimes in the Church the issue that can block our sense of service can be trust. Because sometimes we’re called to serve others by be willing to let go of some thing or some way of doing something - to let go and let someone else. I recall a parish I served in, as a parish priest, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. That parish was renowned for its famous fall turkey supper. There was one woman who had been in charge for years, maybe even decades, of preparing the turkeys for roasting. And it had to be done in a particular way. She informed the workers to take the stuffing and form it into stuffing balls – I had never heard of that before – and there had to be 6 stuffing balls in each turkey – not 5, not 7. And heaven help you if you offered to serve the fall supper effort by doing it differently. Now, was this woman mean or selfish? No, not at all! Her motivation was good – it was excellent – because she wanted the Fall Supper to be the best experience it could be for her community. But she could not serve the Fall Supper effort by letting go – by trusting that others might do things differently but just as well. These may seem like simple, trite examples of being willing to truly serve others – putting their needs first. But the same things apply when we look at much more difficult contemporary issues like serving in the midst of a Covid-19 pandemic, and the whole challenge around vaccines and those who won’t or can’t be vaccinated, and so on. What does service look like in those situations?
I think that I, and perhaps we, often get tripped up also in truly serving others – of letting go – of putting their needs ahead of our own ego or emotional needs, because we aren’t able to trust – and to entrust ourselves to God – that God will see to it that our real needs are met. Jesus could do that. That’s why he could completely let go of his position as Son of God – as Lord – and mix with his society’s outcasts and undesirables; and ultimately to surrender to false legal charges and be put to death, because he could entrust himself to God – totally!
God’s grace can bring about that trust in us – to entrust our welfare to God – that God will see that our mental, emotional and spiritual needs will be met – and free us to serve others. This is what we were praying for in today’s Collect Prayer when we said, “Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us your gift of faith, that forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to what is before, we may run the way of your commandments.” Jesus’ commandment, of course, is to love one another, and we do that by serving one another; letting go of our need to protect or defend ourselves even if we have been hurt in the past. Our prayer is “forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to what is before.” This is our calling as the Christian disciples of All Saints, and those from other parishes represented here, and this is the “greatness” to which each one of us is called.
Amen.
