Have the Nerve to Serve

Mark 10:35-45, Taught by Pastor Tom Lacey at Church on the Hill, March 17, 2024

Often people define greatness in terms of power or possessions, prestige or position. If you can demand service from others, you’ve arrived. Being a servant is not what we aim for. There is danger, however, in seeking to be served and not to serve. Scripture famously says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Even so, if you had to ask whether someone wants to be out front, up top, a leader and not someone stuck behind, down under, or a follower, she or he would say, “Give me what I deserve.”

Most people want to stand out. Many kids dream of glory, awards, top jobs and the money that comes with it, fame. Adults, even after all these years, still want to be considered special, and to be recognized for what we do and contribute. The truth is thousands of books have been written on leadership, but few on servanthood. Everyone wants to lead; no one wants to be a servant. Even Christians today want to be “servant-leaders,” not just plain servants. But guess what to be like Jesus is to be a servant. That’s what he called himself, and that’s how he measured greatness. God determines greatness by one measure: by how many people you serve, not how many people serve you. Make the flow of your life go outward rather than inward. Be more like the sun that gives energy and light than the moon that must take light to have light.

Sometimes serving others isn’t that big of a deal. It means merely thinking of them, rather than oneself. I’m now in a career and a location where respect is talked about a lot. The students need to learn to respect other students and their teachers. When they don’t practice respect, then they’re being disrespectful, which is a bad thing. I’m not a big fan of the need for respect and the need to see things in terms of respect and disrespect It gets us into all kinds of issues, such as need for control and a slight whiff of authoritarian hierarchies, and so forth. In truth, I think students can just be rude. I prefer the idea of not being rude—that’s if I were to name such behavior in a certain way, which I’m also not in the habit of doing.

The truth is I don’t need them to give me anything. I don’t gain respect or lose respect by what some 13, 14 or 15 year kid says or does. It’s not in their power to determine such a thing. I would never outsource my integrity and self-respect in such a way. I’m always the one who is for them. They are not for me. I give to them or I don’t give, but they don’t have the power to give or take from me. I serve them and never expect them to serve me. I see them; I hear them; I help them. Again, I serve them. Because I serve them, I’m more powerful, more in control, and freer. By serving, I lead them, and they don’t lead me.

But how hard this can be. It’s like we’re born or trained not to think of others and instead only consider ourselves. Have you ever noticed how impatient and fidgety we are when we’re in line, a slow line at a grocery store or a bank? While we’re waiting our turn to be served, we can’t believe how long it’s taking, how slow the customer is or the cashier or bank teller is. It feels like it’s going to take forever, and we’re going to not get done what else we’re supposed to get done, even if we can’t think exactly of any other pressing business at that moment. We just know this isn’t going at the right speed.

But when we’re the one who is getting our groceries scanned and bagged, and when it’s our turn to pull out the credit card and swipe or insert, and when the cashier talks to us, then time is no matter. When it’s our turn and the bank cashier has a problem with the math or she can’t read the numbers on our deposit slip and we have to rewrite it and it takes longer, we don’t feel the slowness. Time seems to stop when we’re being taken care of.

It’s strange how different it is when someone is taking care of us, when we’re being thought of, and served. How right the world feels at that time. How little we sense another’s situation when it’s not ours any longer. The problem with this of course is that when things are like this, we’re all alone. The world may be our oyster but remember there’s only one pearl in an oyster. This is not the way to live. How much more vibrant and interesting the world is when anyone and everyone can be someone to serve.

Dr. Mohammed Basha remembers Jimmy. He says, “As I walked through the parking lot, all I could think about was the dire diagnosis I had handed my patient Jimmy: pancreatic cancer. Just then, I noticed an elderly gentleman handing tools to someone working under his stalled car. That someone was Jimmy. “Jimmy, what are you doing?” I yelled out. Jimmy dusted off his pants. “My cancer didn’t tell me not to help others, Doc,” he said, before waving at the old man to start the car. The engine roared to life. The old man thanked him and drove off. Then Jimmy got into his car and took off also.”

Our servant’s heart will reveal our maturity. Make the world truly right by putting another at the center. Don’t orbit around yourself. Free yourself from being consumed by your needs, wants, intentions, and desires. Practice  raising up others.

Anyone can be a servant. All it requires is character. “No one is useless in this world,” wrote Charles Dickens, “who lightens the burdens of another.” In our reading, Jesus and his disciples have one of the most memorable dialogues in the New Testament. In so many words, Jesus insists we must climb down the ladder to greatness.

The way Mark sets it up is dramatic and unflattering, to say the least. Jesus had just finished telling the twelve disciples he is going to Jerusalem, to be betrayed, rejected and killed. Instead of anyone showing concern, James and John take the moment to come up to Jesus and ask him to see what he can do about putting them at the highest positions of his coming kingdom. The right-hand seat was reserved for the person who was second in rank, while the left-hand seat was reserved for the person who was third in rank. James and John saw themselves as the leaders among the disciples and they wanted their positions made permanent. Considering the timing, it’s not only prideful but cold-hearted and self-centered.

But Jesus fields the request with gentleness and patience, diffusing any potential arguments among the twelve. Instead of scolding James and John for wanting to be great, he teaches them what greatness means and how to achieve it. “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.” To be someone who serves doesn’t require thinking less of yourself. It only requires thinking of yourself less.

It’s easy to create explanations for not serving: “I don’t have time” is a big one. Sometimes it’s true; other times not. “I don’t know what I would do” could be true, but often serving isn’t something that demands high skilled training. Also, if training is needed, it’s usually provided.

At the heart of these is the idea that we aren’t needed but that’s simply not true. One person makes the difference. One hour helps. One child or teenager or adult whose burden is lightened changes that person’s life. How far your gift of service will take them, we may never know. But it was given and received.

But it’s not like servants don’t get to experience something special. In fact, sometimes we’re in on the ground floor, while those who don’t care to serve never get to see the power of God’s love working in the world. Servants get to see miracles. In John 2, Jesus was at a wedding and the couple was running out of wine for its guests. He tells the servants to fill several big jars to the brim. When they served the water to the guests, it was wine! The guests never knew what happened. Only the servants were the ones who witnessed the miracle.

The truth is when we do for others, we do like Christ. Serving helps us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. We’re never more like Christ than when we care for someone else in their need. More than this, we never see others more like Jesus sees them than when we serve them. We never increase our faith more like Jesus’s faith than when we serve others. We never increase our spirit toward Jesus’s spirit than when we minister to another. We never share God’s love or feel it or know it’s real or rely on it as much as when we think more of someone else and less of ourselves.

Serving increases faith. Serving others increases our hope. Serving the needy increases our love. Treasure your giving heart. Hold onto your serving soul. In any way you can, serve another, like on a certain airplane flight. As the passengers settled in on a West Coast commuter flight, a flight attendant announced, "We'd like you folks to help us welcome our new co-pilot. She'll be performing her first commercial landing for us today, so be sure to give her a big round of applause when we come to a stop." The plane made an extremely bumpy landing, bouncing hard two or three times before taxiing to a stop. Still, the passengers applauded.

Then the attendant's voice came over the intercom, "Thank you for flying with us. And don't forget to let our co-pilot know which landing you liked best." See, will there’s a will to serve, there’s a way.

Find your serving place. Give something so others receive. Be a conduit for goodness. Have a servant’s mindset.

When someone shows you a picture of a group of people that includes you, who’s the first person you look for? Ourselves. I must admit I do it also, but most of the time it’s to see how far my hairline has receded, since it seems to occur non-stop at this point. Instead, practice looking at others first. Think about someone else more. Start with your loved ones, and then expand to colleagues or friends, and continue to embrace strangers, the poor, the needy, God’s world.

Can the church say Amen.