This is the second week of our July series, Together, exploring how Jesus offers us a different path than the division and hatred our culture insists on. This week, we’re looking at how Jesus calls us to Serve Together. As followers of Christ, we are called not to seek earthly power, but to use our strength to serve our neighbors. We follow the example of the One “who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
Today’s Scripture readings are Galatians 5:13-26; Psalm 37:3-9, 27; and Mark 10:35-45. Portions of this sermon, especially the beginning and conclusion, are adapted from my sermon on this Gospel reading from October 21, 2018.
Here’s the livestream of the service from Christ the King and the sermon podcast audio:
Powered by RedCircle
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Do you know about calling “shotgun”? If you’re in a group of people heading to a car and you want the front seat next to the driver, you yell, “Shotgun” and then you’re entitled to sit next to the driver.
Anyone know where it comes from? In the Wild West, the driver of a stagecoach would be busy holding the reins of the horses, making him vulnerable to bandits. So, to protect the stagecoach, someone else would ride shotgun, sitting next to the driver and holding a shotgun.
Now, there are some rules to calling shotgun, like you can’t call shotgun until you can see the car, and no one is allowed to call it until you’re done with whatever you’re doing and everyone’s ready to leave. You can find more detailed rules at, believe it or not, shotgunrules.com.
Basically, calling shotgun is a way of reserving the best seat for yourself. That’s exactly what two of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, are trying to do in this Gospel story we just heard.
Jesus has been talking about the kingdom of God, where the last will be first, and the first will be last. They figure that sounds pretty good, because they’re some of the last according to society. They’re not rulers or princes; they’re not particularly wealthy. They’ve given up everything to follow Jesus; they’ve left their homes and families.
Now, it’s time to make sure Jesus notices them. You’d hate to have wasted all this time following Jesus without some reward, right? So James and John go up to Jesus and say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
They don’t hesitate. They want the best place for themselves, right next to Jesus. In the kingdom of God, if Jesus is going to be the king, they want to be the prime ministers, the vice-presidents.
This is a great example of selective hearing. It’s like when a parent says, “You can have ice cream after you finish your homework” and all the kid hears is “You can have ice cream!” People hear what they want to hear.
In the verse right before our reading, Jesus says, “We are going up to Jerusalem,” and he says he’s going to be condemned to death and mocked and flogged and killed.
What James and John hear is, “We’re going to Jerusalem – that’s the capital, that’s where a king should go! This is going to be great!” They totally miss the part about suffering and dying. They want their reward, but they’re completely missing the point.
In our series this month, we’re talking about how God calls us together as church, how we are called to Christian unity, rather than the divisions our world seems to insist on. We started last week with the theme “Stronger Together.”
I was trying to look at it through the lens of resilience, how we support each other as a community. But that phrase “Stronger Together” can also lead us into the trap of thinking we’re meant to be strong as a sort of dominance, like we’re supposed to join forces so we can gain power, be the ones in charge. That’s what it sounds like James and John are going for.
There are a lot of prominent Christian voices that seem to fall for that temptation. Too many Christians form political committees to try to legislate their own agenda, to be the ones in power.
Somehow, though, when Christianity meets political power, it’s usually the political power that seems to get the better end of the deal, and Jesus just gets used to get votes. Too often, Christian political power seems to look more like banning people or ways of life they don’t like, rather than serving the least of these. Mixing earthly political power and faith is dangerous.
On the other hand, there are churches now and throughout history that avoid politics completely, so afraid of the temptation of power that they try to entirely withdraw from the world. It’s a tricky balance.
Our church seeks a middle way, where we do engage in politics, because politics are about how we live together and treat our neighbors. As a church, we believe Jesus calls us to seek peace, freedom, and justice, lifting up the rights of the oppressed, not trying to be the ones in charge. That can be a narrow path to navigate.
We need to publicly stand up for the least of these, the people the world overlooks, and we’ll talk more about that in a few weeks, but we don’t endorse candidates. We don’t try to make the government in our own image. That’s not the mission Jesus calls us to.
It should be obvious, but it seems worth saying after yesterday’s events, we don’t use violence to try to get our way. Our call is to work for peace as we follow the prince of peace. Our mission is to love our neighbor and share the good news of Jesus, no matter what political leaders are in office, no matter what government might be in charge.
The reality is, the Christian church has a lot of power. There are something like 210 million Christians in the United States, over 60% of the population, and as the body of Christ, we have a lot of power and privilege.
Last year, over $145 billion dollars were given to religious causes (source). That’s a lot of money! You might not know this, but the second largest charity in the country by revenue (sources: 1, 2) is Lutheran Services in America, the umbrella organization for groups like Lutheran Social Services in Wisconsin.
Look at the power we have together as Christians! So the question is, how do we use our power?
Is it on the works of the flesh, as Paul writes, in seeking our own pleasure? Carousing, drunkenness, quarrels, dividing into factions? It’s a long list, including things like sorcery, fornication, impurity, idolatry, jealousy, “and the like.”
What do those have in common? They’re self-centered. They’re about simply doing what feels good to you in the moment, thinking of yourself before others. Paul calls it gratifying the flesh.
Or, do we use our power, do we use our freedom, our resources, our time and energy to serve others?
Paul writes, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
God calls us to a life different than what the world offers. Those the world considers great, Jesus says, are those who seek power to lord over others. But Jesus’ way is different. He came not to be served, but to serve, and said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.” Living out those fruits of the spirit means serving instead of dominating, loving instead of exploiting.
What if instead of nominating people in the next few weeks as candidates for “commander in chief” we were looking for a “servant in chief”? Perhaps our standards would be a bit different. Certainly the campaign ads would need to be rewritten.
Imagine the change possible in the world when we serve together. That $145 billion of religious giving? That’s with roughly 5% of churchgoers tithing. 5%. And don’t hear me wrong; I’m not saying you should only give to the institutional church; I hope you support causes you care about beyond our congregation. What I’m saying is that when we combine our resources and offer ourselves and what we have to God, we can do a lot of good in this world.
And I don’t just mean our church, or Lutherans working together, or even Christians. We don’t need to agree on theology to partner in service with people! Lutherans are good at feeding people, and so are Muslims and Baptists. Sikhs have feeding people in need as a core part of their religion, even more than we do. Atheists feed people. We all want to prevent homelessness and reduce violence. There are all kinds of areas we can cooperate and serve together, without compromising our beliefs.
Paul writes, “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.” How much of the division in our country is because we insist on competing with one another instead of working together? How much do we waste trying to stay ahead of others, calling shotgun, rather than holding the door for others to get in?
Our nation needs the church to lead the way as a witness it is possible for service to bring us together. We can put aside the animosity of disagreement, we can lay down weapons, stop trying to score political points, and serve together out of love and care for our neighbors, even when we disagree.
I don’t want to pick too much on James and John for misunderstanding what Jesus’ kingdom is about, because it’s not just them. When the other disciples hear about James and John staking their claim, they get angry too. They’ve also missed the point, even if they’re not quite as ambitious as James and John.
It’s not just the disciples either. It’s also you and me. Our hearing can be pretty selective too. We can be pretty good at ignoring the parts of Jesus’ message that challenge us. It’s a lot easier to talk about the joy of going to heaven when we die than to talk about being a servant to all.
The idea of taking our power, taking our resources, our time, our money, taking our lives and laying them down to serve others doesn’t make sense to the world. It only makes sense in light of what God has done for us.
Each week in the Lord’s prayer we pray for God’s kingdom to come, for it to be on earth as it is in heaven. That’s a far more dangerous prayer than I think we realize. We’re praying for the world to change, for the last to be first and the first to be last.
As Martin Luther says in his Small Catechism, “God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us.” We’re asking for God to let us be part of building the kingdom. We’re asking God to use what we have to offer.
We’re praying to become great, not in the world’s scales of power and money, but on God’s scale of service and sacrifice. We’re praying to give up our earthly power. Jesus doesn’t just talk about serving and sacrifice; he lives it. He dies on the cross as the ultimate act of sacrificial love.
Jesus has not come among us to build an earthly kingdom by human standards, with an army and lines on a map and a growing GDP.
He has come to give his life away for the sake of the world. He has come to set us free from our selfish desires to be the greatest, to be the first in line.
He has come to call us to a higher purpose, to a life of serving others. And he calls you to join in his ministry of service.
Please join me in prayer.
Lord Jesus, you came not to be served, but to serve. You came to give your life away. Help us to follow your example and serve our neighbors. Inspire us to lives of service, to give ourselves away. May your kingdom come among us, on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen