[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT 29 March 2009 "A Life for Others" Mark 10:32-45 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff, is quoted as saying that in a crisis there is opportunity. He seems to mean that one can cause a complete shift of policy when there is a crisis. Many critics have seen the present economic crisis as that opportunity to move our nation further toward European-style socialism. Those who are clever enough will see opportunity in a crisis. It is true now and probably has been ever since the political process was invented and sharpened down through the millennia. Certainly, opportunity in crisis is nothing new. James and John demonstrate that in our Gospel reading.

Very carefully our Lord Jesus Christ foretold his betrayal, suffering, and death at the hands of the Gentiles for the third time. Mark tells us that the Twelve were "amazed" and that those who followed Jesus along the road were "afraid." Those are two pretty good adjectives to describe the reactions to what they all perceived to be a crisis. "Amazed" and "afraid." As Jesus said it all very plainly:

"And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise." (Mark 10:34, ESV)

James and John saw opportunity in this "crisis." That opportunity became clear as they asked Jesus very boldly:

""Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory."" (Mark 10:37, ESV)

Their sin, and the sin of every other man, woman, and child in this world is accentuated, brought out into the open. It is this, that they displayed their "me first" attitude rather openly. Even when Jesus explained that they really did not know what they were asking, that they would not be able to drink the cup that he was going to drink, they still held firmly to their request. Even after Jesus said that such positions of power in the coming kingdom were not his to grant, they still saw opportunity.

It was at that point that the other ten caught wind of their request and Mark says that "they began to be indignant at James and John." It really means to be indignant against what is assumed to be wrong, be aroused, indignant, angry.¹ It's the same Greek word that described the Jewish religious leaders when the crowds shouted "Hosanna to the Son of David" on Palm Sunday. It's the same word used to describe the disciples' reaction to the actions of the woman who anointed Jesus' head with "very expensive ointment" the night of Passover [Matt. 21.15 & Matt. 26.8].

I suppose it is pretty close to the feelings that most of us have had with all the news of the 170 million dollars worth of bonuses paid to the bosses and managers of the failed AIG. One political cartoonist characterized those initials as "Absolutely Incredible Greed, Inc." with a screw as the "I" in the name [Nate Beeler, 18 March 2009, Townhall.com]. Those who are considered "great," says Jesus, lord it over others and exercise authority over them. How ironic it is that those who like to call themselves "public servants" seem to have things reversed! The public seems destined to serve those who tell us that they are really serving us! Not many politicians ever leave our nation's capital destitute. Most leave with far more money than they had when they arrived.

We know very well the way it works because we are guilty, too. We like to get close to the power because power means money. I have a series of screen savers that are very cynical, the opposite of those nice posters you see hanging in businesses and other places exhorting workers to be team players and to work hard, etc. One of my favorites is this one: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but it also rocks absolutely!" Yeah, we get it! James and John got to the front of the line while the others were napping.

The Church herself is not free of this self-serving attitude. It is the sad story in many congregations that some will use a crisis to take advantage by gaining power or honor. Let's take a concrete example. A visitor comes in the door and there are those who do their very best to woo the visitor. He is probably seen as a prospective member and the more members a congregation has, the bigger it will be, the better off financially it will be. So there is a kind of corporate self-serving attitude at work. Now that doesn't mean that you should be cold and unfriendly toward visitors, quite the contrary, but be aware of your motives. It's admittedly a fine line, just as it was with James and John. They wanted to serve in Jesus' kingdom. The trouble is, they saw themselves in executive positions. Or here's a fact: the Church is always asking for volunteers. I find that amusing, asking for "volunteers." It seems a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? We need you to "volunteer" to do the things that need to be done. We ask, we beg, we cajole, we use guilt to get things done. We put volunteer sheets in the bulletin regularly and few of them get turned in. We waste paper and ink trying to lure you out of your self-interest. If you really were acting in the interest of others, why aren't you offering yourself?

Even at home with our loved ones we act out of self-interest. I do what is best for me. Even children are not immune because they've been on the receiving end since birth. How many children volunteer to do jobs around the house? Parents have to teach them to be helpful, to do something for others. But even the parents aren't good examples because husbands and wives often act out of self-interest. We're tainted, defective, diseased with self-interest, like the twelve disciples, like the very worst manipulative politician. We'll cut in front of somebody on the road. We'll pretend not to see the person in need because it might inconvenience us. We'll think our own agenda more important than anyone else's. It is summed up in the confession that the penitent makes in Individual Confession and Absolution:

"I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most. . . .
I have not let his love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed.
There are those whom I have hurt, and those whom I have failed to help."

How different is Jesus! Jesus is the only One who has never acted out of self-interest. He came to do his Father's will. As we hear the Holy Gospel again on Passion Sunday and in Holy Week we will hear again how Jesus completely denied himself to do the Father's will. It was not easy as he prayed in Gethsemane that the Father would take the cup of suffering and death away from him, yet that did not happen. It was exactly why Jesus came, to be the Servant who would redeem the world from all sin. After Jesus rebuked his disciples for their self-serving attitudes and acts he summed up the Gospel:

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45, ESV)

Serving to death is what Jesus did for you and for every other self-interested sinner. It is not the way of the world, but its opposite. It is giving instead of taking. It is the way of the cross. Through his emptying of himself Jesus went to the cross, offering himself as the sacrifice. He was sacrifice and high priest at the same time, as the writer of Hebrews states in our Epistle. Although Jesus was the Son of God, he did not seek his own self-interest, but rather the interest of you and every other sinner in the world, offering up his dearest possession, his life, for you. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans,

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6, ESV)

Can there be any more living-and dying-for others than that? As our hymnwriter says in our Hymn of the Day, "Love to the loveless shown" [LSB 430.1]. Here is cup that Jesus drank for you and for all. And here in the Sacrament is the cup of forgiveness for all your sins of self-interest and self-absorption. Here in Christ's body and blood is the mercy of God. Here in the Sacrament is where you will learn to live "A Life for Others" because you receive in your body the life of Christ.

In Luther's Christian Questions and Their Answers [SC Section 4, LSB 329f], he asks:

18. Finally, why do you wish to go to the Sacrament?
That I may learn to believe that Christ, out of great love, died for my sin, and also learn from him to love God and my neighbor.

God the Holy Spirit grant it for Jesus' sake that you serve as God wills and that you find immeasurable blessing in doing so!

¹William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, "Based on Walter Bauer's Griechisch-deutsches Wör?terbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der urchristlichen [sic] Literatur, sixth edition, ed. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, with Viktor Reichmann and on previous English editions by W.F. Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, and F.W. Danker.", 3rd ed., 5 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).