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Sermon for Sunday October 4, 2009

Sermon Text: James 3:13 - 4:6 and Mark 9:30-35

Sermon Theme: Humility and the life of the Christian

James and Mark talk about a very similar topic.

They both talk about humility and the Christian.

Humility doesn’t necessarily come real easy for us people. On television after a sports game how many athletes have you ever seen hold up number two or number three or number 10. No, usually they all say we are number 1. In fact I along with many of you out there get quite agitated when my team or teams don’t do quite as well as I had hoped. The reason for that is quite simple. We want them to win. We don’t really want them to be all that humble. (Perhaps gracious in victory but we want them to be victors all the same)

So when Christ in the Gospel of Mark is talking about His coming death upon the cross we can sort of understand why the disciples might have been grieved and afraid of what He was saying. After all they wanted Jesus and themselves to win. They wanted to be number 1, but He kept on saying that he was going to die, be handed over into the hands of sinners, to be crucified.

Sometimes we can miss how directly Christ was hammering home His point. It’s a little clearer in the original language. He emphasizes over and over again that He is going to be killed. And to get this point across clearly in English it might read a little more like this, Christ said, “the son of man is going to be handed over into the hands of men and He will be killed. He will die. Just so you get the point, ‘I am going to be killed,’ and after I am killed, then three days later I will rise.” So it is no mystery why the disciples didn’t have a lot to say after this dialogue. They didn’t like the message at all and were afraid of it.

The one time Peter stood up to Jesus and said, “No you are not going to die you must be exaggerating.” Jesus came down on him like a ton of bricks. So the disciples got the point that when Jesus was talking about His death don’t speak against it. But this doesn’t mean that they got the death part. They did not. They clung fiercely to their personal hopes and their personal dreams despite what the words of their Savior were saying to them.

We can see this. On the road back to their home base of Capernaum they start discussing about who was going to be first when Christ brought in His Kingdom. They were arguing who was going to get the most glory and be the mightiest of the king’s men, and battle the fiercest against their enemies. An analogy would be that Jesus is singing “Onto dark Gethsame” and the disciples are still singing “we will rock you”. They are just not singing the same tune.

But it shouldn’t surprise us that the disciples are still clinging to their personal desires against Christ’s words. Sometimes we are a little unfair to these guys. We will sort of look at them and say how can you be so dumb? How can you not hear? But when we say or think thoughts like these we are forgetting ourselves. We are forgetting how stubborn we and all humanity can sometimes be. We are forgetting how hard it is to put down our own personal desires and hear the words of someone else.

Here is where we might say, “Pastor, I don’t feel all that stubborn today.” Well, I’ve gotten a chance to get to know a good deal of you. You all may not be German, but one thing many of us are, including me, just ask my wife, are stubborn. (Just raise your hand if you think your stubborn and if you are not sure just ask you spouse or a friend)

Being stubborn can be a good trait if you are holding to the truth or clinging to the cross of Jesus Christ. But what do we cling to? Only you can really answer that question, but let’s just give a few examples and maybe they will help you see where you fit.

Many of us subconsciously cling to a standard of living, and usually the money that is necessary to keep that standard of living. It is one of those things that really becomes quite easy to cling to. Life becomes established. It marches along on the lines and income level that we become accustom too. Then something happens. The income cannot be sustained. How do we feel about that change? Often there is a sense of panic and then many folks will do almost anything to sustain that life.

For a case in point just look at the national news, does the name Bernie Madoff ring a bell? Of course it does and you can probably think of many others, but this is why James says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet but you cannot have what you want.” See, James too even at that day and age knew how lifestyle, money and of course the envy there of can have a pretty dramatic affect and pull upon us.

Many others subconsciously cling to a job. Jobs are such a defining part of life. We spend so much time and energy on the places that we work that sometimes it just sort of sneaks its way in, but before we know it many folks have placed their personal value upon what they do. This too is rather dangerous because when this occurs we may do almost anything to sustain that career, even destroying other people. If we are on the other end of the stick then and lose our career, if who we are is wrapped up in it, then we too lose our self worth and our very identity.

James too speaks about this when he says, “where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” Do we see selfish ambition in our world? Yes of course we do. And because of it do we see disorder and every evil practice, even evil practices that can’t be named on a Sunday morning… why yes we do.

Many others in this modern world stubbornly cling to personal happiness. Here is where many of you may rightly say, “Wait a minute pastor it’s good to be happy.” Yes it is good. But when personal happiness is our highest good we can rationalize all sorts of abuses in the never ending quest to be happy.

This too is why James says, “You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” This reminds me of the movie Bruce Almighty. There is that scene where Bruce answers everyone’s prayers with a yes. What occurs? Well, utter havoc.

When we look at this story of Jesus with His disciples and listen to the words of James we often look at it like a spectator looking from the outside in, but that is not really the case. For what James and Matthew are talking about is clinging to something other than the cross of Jesus Christ. Usually what we cling too is seen as that thing in life which helps sustain us and support us. But what the above examples show us and what Christ knows is that when we cling to something other than Him how does that work for society and for life? Does clinging to a standard of living make life more fulfilled? Does basing our worth on a career add much to us? Does the pursuit of personal happiness against all else make us happy? The truly amazing thing is the pursuit of these goals doesn’t give us the happiness or security we are looking for. Often they take it away.

So since Christ knew His disciples were stubborn and would not easily give up their stubborn hopes, he looked at them and asked, “What were you arguing about on the road?” Christ knowing we are often like His disciples, and we too can stubbornly cling to the wrong places, asks us, “What have you been arguing about on the road of your lives?”

His disciples confessed and today we too have confessed that we have been clinging stubbornly to the wrong places in thought, word, and deed.

So Christ sat down and said to them and us, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” With these words we enter into the strangest Gospel confession and the great reversal. Because who in our world wants to be last? Christ did. Who wants to be despised? Christ did. Who wants to be homeless and die for someone else? Christ did.

In Christ and His cross the world is completely flipped upside down. All these people with authority and prestige surrounded Christ and he grabs not them but “a little child.” He says that with this little child is the kingdom of heaven and the very will of His heavenly father.

Christ’s cross and His service it all seems worthless to the eyes of the world, maybe something to dabble with in your free time but not to get carried away with, but to God it is His Wisdom. “The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”

This is the thing, the cross doesn’t say that your value is dependent upon your income. It doesn’t say your value is dependent upon your job. It doesn’t even say your value or life is dependent upon how happy you are at this point in time. And many of you have many good reasons to not be happy at this point in time. What Christ, the servant of all, and His cross say to you today is that your are the sons and daughters of God. You are forgiven, you are brought into his community. None of this will change upon whether all those things which we hold close and dear to us, often in selfishness, disappear. Indeed the strangest thing of all sometimes occurs. When those things we cling to in selfishness are taken away often our prayers are refocused to what we truly need, what our neighbors truly need, and who our Savior truly is and then they are always truly heard.

His love, active in our lives, unhindered from all the stuff that we sometimes throw in front of it can do some very amazing things. First, off it can make some pretty stubborn people do some incredibly loving things and bear their own crosses with a great deal of joy and love. This is what is so interesting about LWML. Through a bunch of pennies often some very important things have been done. Through things that seem so meek and mild. But so too the love that we share in this community and in our families and to the least among us, even the small little children, who are often considered very worthless in our society, show forth the love of the kingdom of Christ, the love that made the first, the son of god, the last upon the cross and who makes us poor servants sons and daughters of the Triune God. Indeed the first has become last so the last may become first. Amen.