Mark 10.35-45
whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
What a fascinating scenario is played out before us in today’s Gospel. The two disciples James and John want to be seen as Christ’s left- and right-hand persons. Now, we don’t know very much about their personalities or what made them the type of people who would want this. But maybe if you put any 12 people in a room, (and in my experience, especially 12 men), sooner or later there would be some attempt to establish a pecking order, a hierarchy, some way of making decisions and being together that would make a few people more powerful and influential than the rest. Whatever the case, it’s clear that at least a couple of these disciples who thought they had left everything behind to follow Jesus had a few desires that they hadn’t left entirely behind.
And so Jesus tells them and us that being an actual leader is completely different from the way it was envisioned by any of them. And even more, he is reminding us that life for his followers involves taking a very different view of the world. There weren’t any models for what Jesus was trying to describe here. The Roman Empire certainly wasn’t organized with the idea that a leader was a servant of all, the Jewish temple was not organized that way, and I doubt if anyone’s fishing business was. Even now, we don’t understand how what Jesus was saying could possibly work. We think … – of course there needs to be someone in charge if anything is going to get done, … – of course some people know more about undertaking particular tasks than other people. But when we look at how we structure ourselves, and especially for people at the top, it’s very rare to see a sense of deep obligation to the people who aren’t there in the inner circle. Instead there are insiders and outsiders, and the outsiders can be demonized, or criticized for not having bettered themselves, but mostly they are just forgotten
But Jesus is showing us a different view of the world. Look for a moment at the teachings of Jesus ….. everyone is connected, children are as important as adults, the poor as important as the rich, slaves as important as their masters, the outsiders as important as the insider. Everything and everyone is connected, everyone is part of Christ’s body. It is a bigger view. A broader, more encompassing view of our lives and our live’s purpose. And important to remember on this World Missions Sunday. And it is a tacit reminder that our view of life, so focused on this bag of flesh and the thin slice of creation that we can see but not understand, is merely a small part of our existence, one that begins with God and returns to God. How easy it is to forget that!
whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
These words are among the most powerful in all of the Gospels.
If you are a parent, or in a parental role, you have already experienced what it means to serve. The putting aside of sleep for those midnight feedings. Giving up your own plans for the day to tend to a sick child. Knowing that feeling of warmth when you reach the end of the day having done none of the things you planned, but instead having made your child’s day special. Served their needs, not your own. We can see and experience that in our own experience of Family. But when we take it to a broader audience, it speaks to a radical and disturbing break from how we see ourselves. Because it is difficult to see ourselves as servants, isn’t it?
We live in a world where we are rewarded when we are motivated to achieve. A world that is competitive, and where we are to become independent. We so often like to be the one who gives orders, and have personal power.
But to be a servant, is to be motivated not to achieve, but to serve. Not to compete, but to collaborate. Not to be independent, but to be interdependent. And rather than give orders, to listen deeply. And to recognise, not the power of the self, but the power of the community.
How foreign that sounds, doesn’t it. And how difficult. Because under all of that, is a call to be humble. In a world where humility has no value. It is a call to be compassionate, in a world that so often seems void of compassion.
Our Gospel today reminds us of the Paschal mystery. Reminds us that God stoops down from the heights of God’s divinity, to serve God’s own creatures. And just as God comes to serve us, so we must serve the least of society.
So please, continue to put yourself at the service of those you love. Continue to seek to be there for your children, your family. But don’t let it stop there. For there are many ways, as busy as you are, to give something of your time, your energy, your love, to those who count for nothing, To give something of yourselves to those whose God-given dignity is still veiled, still hidden to the eyes of the world. For we are all called to go and serve those in chronic poverty. To serve those suffering with grief and loss. We are all called to reach out to battered women, to the handicapped, to the refugee, to the dying, and to those who are nobodies in the eyes of the world.
But even more, we are all called to allow ourselves to be broken and poured out for the world, the way Jesus was broken and poured out. We are all called to give our lives – our body and blood – for the service of others . We are all called to be loving servants of God, and of our brothers and sisters, to be one with the people that we walk among.
In humble compassion, you and I are called to be servants.