Sermon by Pastor Mike Buttonnn

Servant Song
Text: Mark 9: 30-37

^NRSMark 9:30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; ³¹for 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." ³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. ³³Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?"³⁴ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

May God’s peace surround and sustain all who make peace; for the sake of Jesus. Amen.

I think that maybe the hardest part of being a servant is that people will sometimes treat you like a servant. If you’ve ever cared for a loved one, or had a hand in raising a child, or took on a job that was more to you than just a paycheck, you probably know what I mean.

When you take on the mantle of servanthood and make that journey from consumer to provider, from taker to giver, from simply being blessed to becoming a blessing, you can pretty much take it to the bank that you’ll have your toes, or worse, stepped on. It’s just part of the servant life. Some people will take your servanthood as carte blanche to take you for a ride, or take you for granted, or take advantage of you. Not all the time, thank God, but sometimes you’ll get lots of criticism, and very little praise. You’ll get blamed you for stuff you didn’t do, while others will take credit for the stuff you did. You’ll have times when you’re treated like the proverbial hired help, and occasionally you’ll find yourself getting the dirty ends of sticks held in the hands of family, colleagues, and people you thought were your friends. You think you’re serving a greater good, but they think you’re just a means to their ends, somebody to take care of them and clean up their messes.

In today’s gospel Jesus redefines greatness in terms of servanthood. He does that first by repeating his own call to be betrayed into human hands, killed, buried, and after three days, raised again. This flies right over the heads of Jesus’ disciples’ heads, because, as soon becomes obvious, they don’t have the slightest idea what true servanthood entails, and they lack the courage to ask. They think they’ve hitched their wagon to a star, and to be honest, I can certainly understand their confusion.

For the first half of Mark’s gospel, the disciples are eyewitnesses to one amazing deed after another. Right out the blocks, Jesus casts out an unclean spirit. Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever. Jesus cleanses a leper. Jesus gives back working legs to a paralyzed man. Jesus takes the withered hand of another afflicted soul and returns it to him whole and well. Jesus stills a storm. Jesus raises a child given up for dead, and on the way, heals a woman with a chronic issue of blood. I’m skipping over things, but are you getting the picture? It’s like Jesus can do anything, and naturally, in the course of all this miracle-working, Jesus is also teaching deep mysteries and attracting a huge following. No wonder the disciples thought they had signed on with a winner who would reward them for their faithful service.

That was how the ancient world worked, and for all intents and purposes, that’s how our world works, too. You be nice to me, and I’ll be nice to you. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Remember that scene in “The Godfather,” when the undertaker Bonasera comes to Don Corleone to ask him to take his revenge on some young men who had disgraced his daughter. The Don initially demurs, but eventually he agrees, and then he stipulates, “Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.” In Latin, that’s called “quid pro quo,” literally, something for something, and of course the disciples carried that understanding with them into their relationship with Jesus. Why else would they be debating among themselves who was the greatest? In the world of quid pro quo, big favors are rewarded in big ways.

You can understand, then, how the disciples get so flummoxed when suddenly Jesus begins telling them that he must be betrayed, killed, and only three days later be raised. The first time Jesus told this to his disciples, Peter immediately objected, and then was told by Jesus, “Get behind me, Satan!” Hearing this again for the second time, the disciples now know enough to keep silent, but not much more. They’re still stuck in this “I’ll-serve-you-so-you-can serve-me” mentality.

To take on and undermine this mindset, Jesus first states, then illustrates. As baldly, bluntly, and blatantly as he can, Jesus tells his disciples (again!), “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then to illustrate, Jesus takes a child and placing that child in their midst says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Is Jesus just being sentimental here? Is he telling us to like children? Be nice to children? Love children? I’m sure Jesus would agree, but there’s more to what he’s actually saying. The thing about children is that they can’t do anything for you, especially when they’re very young. From a strictly economic point of view, kids are dead weight, right? They can’t carry their own weight, much less anybody else’s, which is why in the ancient world children were not typically regarded as full human beings. In ancient Greece and Rome, infanticide, the killing of a newborn child, was not considered murder but was, instead, reckoned a father’s prerogative. Jewish law forbade the killing of children, but in the world that Jesus walked little boys had no status until they became “sons of the law,” at about age 12, and girls had no status at all until they married. To this day, this same approach to children remains in place in many, many parts of the world.

So given this understanding, the only way to welcome or receive a child is without any expectation of payback; it’s love for the pure sake of love. Jesus lifts up this illustration to teach us how we are to receive him – without strings attached, without any calculation for what’s in it for us, without the quid pro quo mentality that governs so much of the rest of life. If you love someone simply for what you expect to get out of him or her, that’s not love. It’s manipulation. By contrast, Jesus teaches his disciples, both then and now, that to be a servant means giving up all expectations of being served, because only then is it possible for us to enjoy the blessings of servanthood.

Our own experience confirms this to be so. If you were raised by a parent who expected you to fulfill their life and make them proud, you already know what misery ensues. If you are a parent and you’re raising a child to take care of you, make you happy, be the meaning in your life, then you can only expect deep disappointment. We see the same dynamic in our work lives. Service is a component in all our callings, both inside and outside the home, and if you undertake that service with the idea that in return for your good work you’ll get good things, then you will end up burnt like yesterday’s toast.

When I became a pastor, I fully expected people to respect, honor, and support me for all my fine service. That was, I thought, part of the deal. What I didn’t realize was that I was painting a target on my clergy shirt for every manipulative, mean-hearted person in the world looking for a patsy. What happened was that I continually found myself being controlled by a few people who were experts at withholding praise, finding fault, and nibbling away at me like a cow dropped in a school of piranhas. The more I tried to make them happy, the more I bent over backwards for them to see my good intentions, the more they rained on my parade. I really (really!) wanted to make everybody happy, I wanted everybody to love me, I wanted to have one, big deliriously joyful church family, where everybody would say, “O, you’re such a good pastor! O, you’re such a great guy! O, how we ought to shower you with love and affection!” But all I managed was to make myself miserable.

Jesus doesn’t reward us with places at the table of the Lord based on how well we’ve served him. That’s not grace. That’s not love. That’s not even servanthood, but rather, servitude. We proclaim that in Jesus God loves us with a love so pure, so true, so amazing that, out of gratitude for this totally free and undeserved love, we want to serve God by loving our neighbors as ourselves. When we take this approach to service, without the graceless quid pro quo, then it doesn’t matter that we’re not perfect servants. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt, but it finally doesn’t matter when people find fault or forget to say thank you.

When we receive our neighbor without the cost/benefit calculation, that is, as Jesus receives us without asking what’s in it for him, then suddenly service becomes its own reward regardless of what people say. For Jesus promises, that when we receive him in our neighbor as we would a little child, we receive not him, but the Father who sent him.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen