In our gospel reading for today, Jesus tells his disciples once again that he will be betrayed and killed, and that he will rise again triumphant on the third day. And as if to demonstrate how completely the disciples missed the point of what Jesus said, they then spend the time travelling to Capernaum in a heated discussion about which one of them was the greatest. Jesus frees them, and us, from striving for the worldly greatness based on power....by giving us the example of a little child....
As excited as I am for the prospect of a federal election in the near future, I know that there is a period of pain that accompanies elections – know as the “cam-paign.” If and when an election is called, we will be subjected to the media blitz of political leaders in heated discussions with one another over which one is most deserving of our vote – in other words, which one is the greatest. Most of the time, watching our potential leaders debate on TV reminds me of the style of debating used in school playgrounds, whoever yells first and yells loudest wins, regardless of any factual arguments. And most of the time, the topics yelled about by our potential leaders are not even the topics that are most important to the country. Style is king and substance is near-irrelevant – it's all about who can be the most charismatic, the most prime-minister like, the most popular. And the prize, of course, is worth all the pain of nastiness and rhetoric, because the prize is power.
Think of the discussion that the disciples had on the way to Capernaum. Jesus had just announced that he would be soon be killed. The disciples now know that there will soon be a leadership void in this new religious movement that Jesus has started. And so, the trip to Capernaum becomes a political debate, with the disciples arguing over which one is the greatest – the most influential, the most charismatic, the most likely to be popular with the world. Which disciple is the most likely to be able to REPLACE Jesus and exercise power?
But when Jesus asks the disciples what the argument was about, the disciples know that they've been busted, and they clam up. They know that the basis of their argument has been bitter envy and selfish ambition as James puts it in our second reading, the product of worldly wisdom, unspiritual, and devilish. They are ashamed and they remain silent before Jesus, unable to look him in the face. They know that by competing for greatness as the world measures greatness - with power - they have missed the mark completely.
How do WE measure greatness? Who comes to mind if I ask you to think about a great person? Hopefully, people of extreme competence come to mind: competent inventors like Steve Jobs, competent scientists like Marie Curie, competent artists like Pablo Picasso, even competent athletes like Wayne Gretzky. But when the history books are written, most of the space is reserved for people of extreme power: people who used power for good like Sir Wilfred Laurier, or people who used power for evil like Mao Zedong. Eventually, the memory of world events shifts from the tireless exploits of the competent, to the armchair quarterbacking of the decisions of those great people in power.
We are also tempted to equate greatness with power as the world does. For men, competing for greatness primarily means striving for positions of authority over others in business or in government. Women also compete for greatness in those areas, and in other arenas as well, including physical appearance and popularity – the power of celebrity and obsession. As families, we measure our greatness by the power we wield in our church and in our town, how much pull we have to get decisions in our favour. As churches, we measure our greatness by the power of numbers in the pews and dollars in the plate. And so, we head down the road to Capernaum, arguing about which one of us is the greatest - which one of us gets to replace Jesus and exercise power.
But Jesus has a different way of measuring greatness. He tells his disciples, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And to reinforce the point, Jesus brings a little child among the disciples – a person with no power, no prestige, no ability to contribute - someone who is helpless and needy and likely has a skinned knee and a runny nose. Disciples are to be servants of all...and especially those like this little child...NOT because it leads to accumulation of power, but because it PREVENTS accumulation of power. THAT is greatness according to Jesus – those who do that, will be first.
And that is the greatness that Jesus models for his disciples. The human race is helpless and needy before God our Father – more helpless than it realizes - with skinned knees and runny noses. And Jesus becomes the last of all. “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him.” Through his death, Jesus is servant of all, freeing all from sin, and making possible for all, eternal life with God, as only he is capable of doing.
And as we live within this promise Jesus makes to us in baptism, Jesus frees us from the dangerous game of striving for worldly greatness. Jesus gives us the wisdom from above, which reveals to us how worldly power is character destroying, and temporary. Beauty fades, popularity wanes, businesses fail, and at some point, every regime that exercises power is brought down by another regime. But with the wisdom from above, Jesus makes our hearts pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. Jesus gives us hearts to welcome the little child, and provide to the world our gifts of competence, just as he did. And in serving the powerless, and in rejecting power ourselves, we welcome Jesus and draw near to him. We welcome not just Jesus, but the Father who sent him. And God the Father welcomes those who welcome him, to live with him forever.
Gracious God, we repent of our petty arguments about which of us is the greatest according to the world. Help us to resist the temptation to power, and give us a heart for the little children among us, so that we may share in the true greatness of serving, in Jesus name, amen.