Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-march-18-2024
Friends –
A couple of extra things have been thrown onto my schedule for today, and tomorrow I’ll be working the election as a poll worker, so I hope you’ll excuse a ‘re-run.’ Today’s Reflection was originally posted on March 30, 2020. Thanks for your patience.
Henry
Mark 9:33-41
Who Is the Greatest?
33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, they must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
36 He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
Whoever Is Not Against Us Is for Us
38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.
Today’s listed gospel reading includes both of these two short passages. They’re generally regarded as two unrelated pericopes. (That’s a ‘Bible expert’ term for individual blocks of scripture. You can amaze your Christian friends with it, but if you try to type it, your spell check will want to ‘correct’ it to periscope. It’s pronounced pe-RIK-o-pee.)
Anyway, it seems to me that the two passages actually are related, because in each of them, Jesus teaches an important lesson about what he has in mind for the church, and especially about how church leadership is meant to work. And what he says about leadership in the church seems just as relevant to those of us who are trying to follow Jesus today as they were to those who heard him speak these words on that day in Capernaum.
In the first passage, Jesus asks his disciples what they had been talking about on the road that day. We’re told that the disciples “kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.”
It seems pretty clear from the fact that the disciples ‘keep quiet’ that they are embarrassed to admit to Jesus what they had been talking about. Apparently this wasn’t the first time Jesus had spoken to them about the proper mindset for leaders in the movement he was establishing, because they seem to know he won’t be happy to learn they were arguing about who was the greatest among them.
But interestingly, Jesus doesn’t issue a strong rebuke to the disciples for this mistake on their part. Instead, he patiently explains (or maybe ‘re-explains’) that among his followers, there is to be a new standard for leadership. It’s a standard the church has come to call “servant leadership.” Among Jesus’ followers, the greatest leaders are to be those who are best able to set aside their own self-interest, and pour themselves out as their master did in service to others.
Then Jesus picks up child and sets him in the middle of the group. It’s not immediately obvious what the child has to do with his lesson about leadership, but Jesus clearly has a connection in mind. His point seems to be that the leaders of his movement are supposed to have the humility of a child in their culture.
In the ancient Near East, there was a different attitude toward kids than in our society. Kids weren’t encouraged to be cute and precocious. They weren’t encouraged to draw attention to themselves. The old attitude about kids being “seen but not heard” isn’t far from how they saw things. And Jesus seems to be making the point that the leaders of the church aren’t supposed to try to attract attention to themselves, either, but rather to try to imitate Jesus through humble service to others.
Now, this conversation starts out as a lesson about leadership, but it seems to me that Jesus expects all of his followers – whether we’re in positions of leadership or not – to adopt that attitude of humble service to others. Of course, that’s not really natural. Human nature being what it is, the craving for status shows up in the church just as it does in other institutions.
In the second part of today’s reading, the disciples tell Jesus they had tried to stop a man who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Which is pretty odd, and pretty presumptuous on the part of the disciples. Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus empower the disciples to enforce some sort of eligibility requirements on who can cast out demons in his name. Apparently the disciples thought the man wasn’t ‘authorized’ to do exorcisms, so to speak. He didn’t have credentials as an official part of the ‘Jesus organization.’
But Jesus tells the disciples not to try to silence those who claimed to be working in his name. He says, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” In other words, Jesus seems to be saying that having official credentials is less important than doing good in Jesus’ name.
It’s only been in the last few years that the church has begun making a sustained effort to stop making the mistake Jesus warned the disciples about in this passage – the mistake of trying to keep everyone in it under strict control. We’ve always talked about doing things “decently and in order,” but really we probably just have a tendency to be control freaks. But today, the church is trying to create a culture that’s ‘permission-giving’ instead of ‘controlling.’ We’re trying to provide help and encouragement to people who feel called to do good in Jesus’ name, worrying less about whether they have official credentials.
It seems to me that the two lessons from these short passages are among the most important lessons for church leaders to internalize: that true leadership among Jesus’ followers is always humble servant-leadership, and that we need to lay aside our controlling instincts so the Holy Spirit can call people into forms of service that God ordains. If the church – both the local church and the global church – can become known for that kind of leadership, its mission in the world would become a lot more effective in doing God’s work.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray that you would nurture within us a humble spirit of service to all, and send us leaders who demonstrate that spirit. And set us free from a craving to control others, so they can be set free to follow the calling you give in their lives of faith. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
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