My dear friends in Christ, I want to tell you about something that I didn’t really begin to figure out until I was about 24. Many of you figured it out long before you reached that age; some of you have not figured it out yet. But when someone finally does learn it, and it begins to sink in, it actually starts to change the way he thinks of himself, the world, and his place in the world. And its an astoundingly good change. A change that you would love to see in your own life, if you haven’t already.
Are you curious as to what I’m talking about? Are you wanting me to just come out and say what it is? Well, I’m not going to do that. It would be great if I could simply slap together a single sentence, a sound byte, that would instantly communicate everything I’m talking about, but I am simply not capable of doing that. So I’m going to ask you to be patient with me, stay with me for about 13 minutes and 20 seconds, and help me unpack this life-changing thing that shall, for the moment, remain a hidden.
Since we are going to talk about the change in our thinking with regard to the world and our place in it, let’s begin our little trip by considering the way we are accustomed to thinking about these things.
When we came into the world, we were, for the most part, in awe of it. As children, our eyes were made wide as each new aspect of the world was revealed to us. The world was big, a place full of wonder, excitement, and fascination. It could also be somewhat dangerous too.
Our parents shielded us from the danger in the early years. They taught us many things about the world. They encouraged us to pay attention in school and get an education so that we could get our lives in order; so that we would have the right stuff to carve out a place for ourselves in the world.
There were latent, God-given talents in each of us just waiting to be discovered and we discovered most of them. And then we developed them as we focused our lives in a particular direction and sought more education, experience, and training. Along the way, we also acquired what nowadays are referred to as “skills”. People skills, coping skills, relationship skills...and so on and so forth. We coupled these skills together with our education and we achieved a modicum of success in the world.
And we deserved it, because of all the hard work we had put into our personal development. And so we moved from the developmental stage, to the rewards stage. We had to do without so many things for a number of years, but now, we can finally buy the things we wanted. We deserve to buy them because of our tenacity and hard work. We deserve a house, the car, the good food, the pleasant vacations. We deserve it all because of what we have made of ourselves. This is life in the world as we are accustomed to viewing it.
But now, let’s take a moment to consider the world that we don’t see or perhaps have a tendency to overlook. Indeed we already were hitting all around it; there are hints of it all around us too, if we care to look.
I mentioned your parents. Think about these people! They gave you birth! They fed you and clothed you and dried your tears when you were hurt. They held your hand when you were nervous, gave you a push when it was time for you to grow in some way. For the most part they didn’t pander to you or try to win your approval. They simply tried to do what was right.
In spite of what you might be given to think, these servants, your parents who stood behind you, were God’s gift to you. They worked for free. As a matter of fact, they paid for the opportunity to give and sustain your life. There were many things that they might have wanted to do for themselves, but they were not able to, because they chose to do for you instead. And for the most part, they were happy to do it. Your success and happiness in life is all the payment that they ever needed.
And then there were all of your teachers; these too were God’s servants for your good even though they might not have realized it. They taught you to read and to think and to sort through a world of knowledge in a logical way. They opened up a world of information for you; made it possible for you to learn and grow in your knowledge. And like your parents, teachers, find their highest joy when they see their students succeed.
And then there’s your talents: God-given abilities, hard-wired into your brain and your body from birth. When God knit you together in your mother’s womb, it was he who would give you the particular grouping of abilities in yourself that you have now discovered and have put to use. And like your parents and your teachers, God is happy to see you make use of what he has given you.
And not only has he given you these abilities, but he has allowed the knowledge of the earth to accumulate. Allowed centuries upon centuries of study and research to come together. He has provided us with stable government and laws, so that we can use this knowledge in peace. If the truth be told we have all benefitted from the service of millions of people in the past who discovered things that God has built into creation.
So whether we admit it or not, if we have found our way to success, if we have found a place to stand on this earth, it is really on the shoulders of many great people before us. Our parents, our teachers, and millions of others who dedicated their lives to making the lives we now live, possible.
Kind of humbling, isn’t it? It makes all that talk about what we deserve sound rather presumptuous; even thoughtless. We think we did it all by ourselves, and we reward ourselves for being so brilliant, when in reality we are deeply indebted to the brilliance and goodness of God and the selfless sacrifices of a vast multitude of those he has given to us.
Our Lord is obviously right when he talks about our sinful nature. It has clouded our minds; made us self-centered; self-absorbed too. The “Rewards” stage of life should not be about us giving ourselves everything we want and living for ourselves. The rewards stage should be when we seek to ask “What now can I do for others?”
Can we change? Can we change the way we see ourselves, the world, and our place in it? Now that we’ve seen this truth about the world, can we change? The realization of the truth is a great fist step, but we’re going to need a lot more than that. We’re going to need something that can actually change our hearts.
And it is not at all surprising, having seen the giving nature of God, that his solution would be him giving to us once again. But this time, it was the giving of himself. It today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days rise.” He’s talking about the death that he would die. And guess what. He did all of this willingly! At any moment, at any time, the Lord Jesus could have put a stop to the foul treatment that he would receive at the hands of men. He didn’t have to go to the cross if he didn’t want to. But he wanted to. He wanted to perform this ultimate act of service for you. For he wanted to redeem you; To pull you out of the grip of your sinfulness and lift the veil from your eyes. And the reward stage for him, is when he sees you and me confessing our self-absorption and self-centeredness; offering up our sins to him, receiving his forgiveness and stepping out into the world as new men and new women who begin to see their place in the world as servants.
After Jesus told his disciples what was going to go down in Jerusalem, how he was going to die and so forth, You would think that they would have been awestruck. But they ignored the sacrifice that he discussed, even as we have a habit of ignoring the sacrifices of others. They were just too into themselves. Do you know what they were doing instead? They were arguing. They were arguing about which of them would be the greatest!
That’s the standard way of thinking. The way our sinful nature would have us think. And you could go that way. You could ignore all the things that everybody has done for you, you could deny the great shoulders upon which you now stand and all the people who have helped you along the way; you could spend the remaining years of your life trying to prove to yourself and everyone around you that you are the greatest and most important, most deserving person in the world.
And you know what Jesus would say to that? We have it, right here in his response to the disciples who tended to be just like us: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” I might not have been able to put it all into a single sentence, but Jesus surely has! He encapsulated everything I took so long to say in a single sentence, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
And it is so very true! The happiest and most satisfied, most decent, most fulfilled people in the world are those who have found a way to use what abilities and talents they’ve been given not so they can slather themselves in wealth, but to help other people. People have been helping you all of your life. Now its your turn. If you’ve already been doing that, then its your turn to do more. People have lent you their shoulders to stand on, now its time to lend yours.
Imagine a world where everyone thinks of the other before himself. Imagine the joy, the Love, the friendship that would be possible in such a world. Well, God already thought of that; that’s how he originally intended it to be before sin ruined it. But sin need not ruin you and me. We can confess it. We can be forgiven in Christ Jesus. We can overcome it. We can change the way we see ourselves, the world, and our place in it. AMEN
