But How?
A sermon
delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson
August 5, 2012
at Gordonsville
Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia
Romans
12: 11c
Matthew
20: 20-27
Let
us pray,
Help us to see
despite our eyes
Help us to think
outside our minds
Help us to be
more than our lives
For your eyes show us the way
Your mind knows the truth
Your being is the life.
Amen.
20
Then the mother of the sons of
Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor
of him. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him,
“Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one
at your left, in your kingdom.” 22 But Jesus answered, “You do not
know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to
drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” 23 He said to them, “You
will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is
not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my
Father.”
24
When the ten heard it, they were
angry with the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and
said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their
great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you;
but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and
whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as
the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a
ransom for many[1]
I have been thinking this week about
what it means to serve, what it means to be a servant, or even a slave, and the
first thing that comes to mind is humility. The servant must be humble because
he or she is there to follow rather to lead, there to be at the beck and call,
the service of someone else. What kept coming to mind to me all week while I
was thinking about this text, and I'm not completely sure why, was the scene at
the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. By way of introduction, I'd like
to begin with that story. Indiana Jones has been following his father's quest
to find the Holy Grail, but all of his life the father had chosen the study of
the grail over spending time with his son, so there is resentment, there is
skepticism, and there is doubt, but at the same time real faith is necessary
because his father has been shot, and desperately needs the grail now to heal
his wounds, so Indiana must take over the quest, facing the three challenges,
led by his father's life's work. He has to put aside all of his resentment,
skepticism, and doubt, and follow another's directions, putting himself at
risk. He faces three challenges, all that require him to put aside himself and
be basically his father. The first is to follow the word of God, so he steps on
the letters that spell Jehovah, making it across. The next two challenges are
what have stuck in my mind. The first had the clue, "the penitent man will
pass." He's trying to figure it out, and just in time he does, the
penitent man is humble before God, he kneels before God, so Indy kneels, just
in time as circular saws spin just inches above his head. Then the last
challenge the step of faith. There is a ravine, that must be crossed, and it
looks impossible, but the book says the faithful can walk across, so Indy puts
aside his thoughts and fears and steps out, and what is revealed is a stone
bridge that was hidden in a camouflaged optical illusion, he safely steps
across. The cool thing about that scene in the movie is that Indy must become
humble, he must follow another's advice, he must follow a path of study, a path
of kneeling obedience, and last a path of complete "life on the line"
faith in order to get to the grail, and he makes it, chooses the humble clay
cup, wisely, and brings the grail out to heal his father. It is a humble walk
of faith, and such is service to God.
Serve the Lord. Serve the Lord, but
how? be humble, ok, but how? This topic is not as easy as it seems. If you look
at the world you will see a lot of different ways people interpret what it
means to serve the Lord. On opposite sides of the political aisle you find
people who are trying to serve the Lord in very different ways. In other
cultures and other countries service to the Lord takes very different shapes.
It may include sacrifices of animals, or fasting, or following lists of rules,
or any number of different things. In Sunday School class the last few weeks we
looked at Islam, which has its own set of ways for serving Allah, and this
morning we were looking at Hinduism, where service to god revolves around
following one's own dharma, which is a path that is very different for all
people. But what do we see when it says there in black and white in verse
eleven of out text, "serve the lord." How do we tell if the work that
we are doing is serving the Lord, or just serving our misguided sense?
One of the things that I have
noticed since I have begun the study of this passage is that the Marks of a
True Christian are the marks of Jesus, so one way of getting at what is meant
by serving the Lord is in following the example that Jesus has left us as the
servant, as described both by Isaiah and Matthew. The Gospel lesson for this
morning concluded with: "just as the Son of Man came not to be served but
to serve." What are the ways in which Jesus was a servant? There are some
that are very obvious. If we look at the life of Jesus we will see Jesus
teaching people about God, and life, and love. We see Jesus healing the sick,
casting out demons, and bringing healing to many. We see Jesus serving food,
washing feet, getting his own hands dirty. We see Jesus caring, caring seems to
be a big piece of the service puzzle. A servant must care enough about who and
what he serves, and there seems to be a connection between service and caring
for the people around him who are in need, and in serving God. These seem to be
the basics of service, but Jesus goes further than this, goes further than the
basics, though he doesn't by any means ignore the basics, but his mission and
service to God take him eventually to the cross, and the cross seems to be the
pinnacle of his servant hood, and for us, who are called to serve and called to
carry and be marked with the cross, must also include the cross in our serving
of the Lord.
And so what is the example of the
cross in serving God? To me there seems to be three important examples of
service found in the cross, and they are crucial examples. The three are,
Reconciliation, Setting people free, and Sacrifice. I believe these three ideas
must mark our service to the Lord. They become a good test to see if the work
that we are doing is in service to the Lord. Let's take a look at each one.
Reconciliation. Jesus died so that
we could be reconciled to God, forgiven. Service to the Lord must include this
idea of reconciliation. How can we work in our world to bring people together?
How can we work in our world to forgive those around us? How can we work in our
world to be an agent inspiring forgiveness in others? This needs to be a major
piece in our service. It is something that is always needed because conflict is
ever present in our world, but conflict does not need to be bad. So many times
we seek to avoid conflict at all cost. I don't think that is always good.
Sometimes conflict is needed because the working through it, the reconciliation
step brings us closer, more strong in our relationships because of the
experience of the conflict itself. Think about it: is the potential to our
relationship with God stronger, having gone through the fall, having understood
further the power of God's love for us, the amazing depth of God's love for us,
the boundless nature of God's love for us, so big that it includes the gift of
Jesus Christ. Of course the cost is great, but it shows the possibility and
power that reconciliation has. If the work that we are doing is not bringing
people together, but instead is dividing, it is possible that it is not in the
Lord's service.
The next is setting people free.
There is no greater example of God's work and love than this. All throughout
the pages of the Bible we can see the work that God does as a freer of peoples.
From the great freeing of the Israelite slaves in Egypt, to the freedom from
Sin that Christ buys for us on the cross we see a God who sets his people free.
How can we be freedom fighters in the world? How can we fight to set those
around us free. There are many things in our world that enslaves. We have drugs
that enslave our bodies, we have sin and doubt that enslaves our minds. There
is real oppression that surrounds us at every turn. All around the world there
are people who use and manipulate others for their own ends. The people they
use become mere pawns and tools. How can we set those people free? Finding ways
would certainly be following Christ's example and serving the Lord. If our
work's object is binding people rather than setting them free we are not
serving the Lord.
Finally, Sacrifice. Obviously
sacrifice was a major part of Jesus' work on the cross. There is pain involved,
there is shame involved, harassment, ridicule, even death involved, and Jesus
willingly goes through with it. Self sacrifice must be present in what we mean
when we say serve the Lord. We must offer up our complete self, and it is hard
to do. It is hard to do, but necessary. Reconciliation is many times impossible
without sacrifice. Many times we have to give up our own agendas, our own
manipulations, our own feelings of rightness to listen, to hear, to understand
those from whom we are estranged in order to reconcile. When we are setting people
free, many times the road is also fraught with danger, so willingness to
sacrifice is paramount to our success.
All through this series on the marks
of a true Christian, we keep trying to put the mirror up, and we continually
find more and more that we would need to be to truly live up to the
distinction. There is always more that we can do, always more that we can be,
and always more that we can give because our model gave all, and so must we if
we are truly to become Christians in reality. As Indiana Jones does,
sacrificing himself, not just physically by putting his body on the line, but
also his resentment, and his doubt, he sacrifices them to serve his father's
will, to finish his father's quest. He must walk the path of a Christian, and
in doing so he is reconciled to his father and sets him free from his life's obsession of the
grave. He also finds that he is set free, and finds a little piece of faith
along the way. There is something about trying to walk the path of God, which
is the way, shows the way, and brings us closer and closer to our heart's true
desire of being home again in the midst of our creator. God give us the
strength.
[1]The
Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mt 20:20-28). Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers.
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