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03.22.09

4th Sunday in Lent

SERMON SERIES: ON THE ROAD TO THE CROSS

PART 4: ZEBEDEE’S WIFE

ISAIAH 53:7-12; MATTHEW 20:20-28

• Servanthood
• The Example of a True Public Servant
• Bill Merriman is a mail carrier in Cleveland, OH
• He was featured in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper a few years ago because someone had noticed that he did more than simply bring the day’s mail
• Much of his time was spent sorting and delivering mail, but he also took time to listen to the people on his route
• That alone was a big help to some of the shut-ins, but Merriman offered more specific help to others
• For immigrants who had recently moved into his delivery area, he helped them find classes for English as a second language
• Since many of the families on his route were Hispanic, Bill invested the time to learn Spanish so he could communicate with them
• He often referred battered women to places where they could find shelter, and he carried with him a list of social service agencies in case he needed to refer someone
• After a letter carrier on another route saved a toddler’s life, Merriman took a CPR class so that he would be prepared to help if such a situation occurred on his route
• And one day, he found a business on his route that needed a secretary, and around the corner he found a woman who needed a job, so Bill helped the two of them get together
• It’s clear that Bill Merriman worked for more than simply earning a paycheck and he was more than just a mail carries—he was a public servant in the purest sense of the word
• The Meaning of Servanthood
• One of the best definitions of a servant that I’ve heard is this: A servant is one who uses their life to help others meet their goals
• A. Ray Medley, in an article entitled “As One Who Serves,” which he wrote for a newsletter in the American Baptist Church, says this: “We lead by serving and we serve by leading.  We lead by serving.  Servanthood and servitude are often confused, but they are not the same.  Servitude is imposed; servanthood is embraced.  Servitude enslaves; servanthood emancipates.  Servitude denigrates; servanthood uplifts.  Servitude crushes; servanthood fulfills.  Servitude despairs; servanthood uplifts!”
• We can clearly see how the line between servanthood and servitude has been blurred in the recent examples of many of our public servants
• While often filled with good intentions when entering public service, it’s very easy for them to move from serving others to serving themselves
• The level of trust is often corrupted as power get misused and abused, as personal priorities shift, and as serving self-interests become more important than meeting the needs of those they are called to serve
• Living the life of a servant is difficult because being a servant of others seems to run contrary to our nature
• The opposite of servanthood is ambition, and there truly are very few of us whose ambition it is to serve
• Our ambition is to get to the head of the class or the top of the ladder—to be better than everyone else
• Our ambition is to make a lot of money and gain a lot of possessions so we might enjoy the finer things in life
• Our ambition is to gain as much power and control as we possibly can so that others might serve us
• While ambition can be a positive motivator to help us achieve our goals, in the extreme it can lead to an abuse of power and cause us to demand more for ourselves than we rightly deserve, and rob those who are in need of what little they have
• The measure of a person’s life is not the number of people they have under their command, it’s the number of lives they have touched and changed through their generosity and service
• I believe that, when we stand before God on the day of judgment, there will only be one                   question that we’ll be required to answer
• Our answer to that question will determine our ultimate fate
• That one question is this: “What did you do with all that I have given you?”
• In other words, “Have you lived your life for yourself, or have you lived it for God and for others?”
• Drinking the Cup of Christ
• The Son’s of Zebedee and Their Mother
• On the road to the cross, Jesus was confronted with a request from the wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John, two of Jesus’ closest disciples: “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
• This request is certainly one motivated by ambition
• She is jockeying for position on behalf of her sons so they might have positions of power in Jesus’ kingdom
• It’s important to note the placement of this story in the context of the Gospel of Matthew
• Jesus isn’t simply on the road to the cross as he had been all of his life—specifically he was on the road to Jerusalem, so the cross was looming larger and larger in the distance
• And this story is sandwiched in between yet another prediction by Jesus of the fate that awaited him in Jerusalem (vs. 17-19) and the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (Ch. 21), which would mark the beginning of the final, fateful week of his life
• The point here is that, even at this very late date in his life, after three years of traveling with him and learning from him, the disciples still don’t get it—they still don’t fully understand who he is and what he came to do
• They’re still thinking in terms of an earthly kingdom while all along Jesus has been talking about a spiritual kingdom
• As close as Jesus was to the cross, the disciples were still fighting among themselves about which of them was the greatest disciple
• And when the rest of the disciples found out that Zebedee’s wife had made this request on behalf of her sons, they became indignant
• And the cause of their indignation was that James and John had beaten them to the punch
• They were angry because they got their request in ahead of the rest of them!
• In answer to her request, Jesus said to her, “You don’t know what you are asking.”
• Then he turns to James and John and asks, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” to which they reply, “We can.”
• To drink from the cup that Christ drinks means to follow Christ wherever he may lead, and to be like him in any situation life may bring
• For James, that meant becoming the first of the apostles to die a martyr’s death because of his faith
• For John, the cup was different
• John was the last of the apostles to die, and he died a natural death at nearly 100 years old
• For him, the cup was the constant discipline and struggle of faithful Christian living throughout the years
• For each of us, the cup will be different as we strive to follow him wherever he leads us and be like him in every situation we face
• Jesus proceeds to explain that the true mark of greatness has nothing to do with power
• Greatness is measured by our ability and willingness to serve
• All of these disciples were driven by the same ambition that the wife of Zebedee expressed for her sons
• The lesson Jesus taught them that day is that personal success does not come without personal sacrifice
• True greatness lies not in dominance, but in service
• In this community that Jesus is establishing, the roles are reversed
• In the world, those with the most power, the most money, the most possessions, are the ones with the most influence
• But in the Christ-community, none of those things are measures of greatness
• In the Christ-community, greatness is measured by servanthood—not by what we can gain for ourselves, but by how much of ourselves we are willing to give away in service to others
• A political or military leader commands respect, and their influence is based on power
• A self-giving servant earns respect and their influence is motivated by love and generosity
• Jesus uses his own life as an example of servant leadership
• He came, not to be served by the world but to serve the world
• He came, not to claim life for himself, but to give his life for others
• On the last night of his life, while gathered in the Upper Room with his disciples, Jesus demonstrated what servant leadership was like by girding himself with a towel and stooping to wash the disciples’ feet
• When he had finished and returned to his place at the table, Jesus had this to say—John 13:12b-17
• The Song of the Suffering Servant
• In our passage from Isaiah, the song of the Suffering Servant, we hear the prophecy that was fulfilled in the life of Jesus
• The suffering Jesus was to endure is described in great detail—slaughtered like a lamb for sacrifice
• But the sacrifice of a lamb could not fully atone for sin, so the sacrifice had to be repeated often
• Jesus’ death, however, atoned for sin once and for all because he was the perfect Lamb of God
• His death alone could accomplish this because he alone was fully human and fully God
• This suffering, of course, was God’s plan
• Without this suffering, humanity would never be able to be restored to a right relationship with God
• God’s plan was that Jesus would take on the role of a servant
• He was the servant of God, doing nothing contrary to God’s will, and he was a servant for us, putting our needs ahead of his own, using his life to help us become the best we can be
• Paul says it best in Philippians 2:5-11
• The example of servanthood Jesus set is the model we must follow if we are to live our lives faithful to God
• Developing the Mind and Heart of Jesus
• As we travel the road to the cross with Jesus, we see countless examples of Jesus as the suffering servant
• We see him demonstrate the humility that makes servanthood possible
• To say Jesus was humble is not to say Jesus was weak
• Humility requires strength of character and fortitude of will in order to think of others ahead of ourselves
• This is the attitude Paul charges us to develop in his words to the Philippians
• But not only must we develop the mind of Christ in us to live our lives as servants of God and servants of others, we must also develop in us the heart of Christ, which is the heart of self-giving love
• We cannot be humble in mind unless we are also loving in heart
• The love of Christ for us is nothing less than the love of God
• So, as the mind of Christ must be in us, the heart of Christ must also be in us if we are to truly live the servant life
• The love we have for others can be nothing less than the love of God flowing through us
• Humility and love are the marks of a faithful servant
• That’s what made Bill Merriman more than just a mail carrier
• In his actions, he demonstrated the example of Christ
• Humility and love make us more than what we are
• They give us the opportunity and the ability to touch and change more people’s lives as servants than we could ever do through power