24 August 2008 St. Athanasius Lutheran Church
St. Bartholomew, Apostle
Vienna, VA
“Gospel Greatness”
Text: Luke 22:24-30 (2 Cor
4:7-10; Prov 3:1-8)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father,
and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Greatness is the world’s system, not God’s system.
The stuff, Jesus says, of worldly rulers, authorities, and benefactors. This
greatness measures your value by what you do, and what you are able to achieve.
To be great in this way is to be recognized and approved and exalted in the
sight of men. And for me to be the greatest
is also to let you know: you are not.
So what does Jesus say about that? Very simply: not
so with you. Because while greatness is the world’s system, the Gospel is our Lord’s way of doing
things. The Gospel which measures your value not by what you do, but what Jesus
has done for you. The Gospel which is not something you achieve, but what you
receive. The Gospel which recognizes, approves, and exalts those the world
often casts off, ignores, and considers worthless.
Greatness and Gospel - the two couldn’t be more
opposite.
So why then were the apostles arguing that day about
which of them was the greatest? Well, why do we? Yes, we do it too. Perhaps in
a more subtle way than the apostles, but are we not constantly measuring
ourselves against others, trying to determine who is more successful, more
faithful, more confessional, more pious, more missional, more doctrinal, more
liturgical, more on fire, more involved, more knowledgeable, more this, more
that . . . or in other words, trying to figure out who is the greatest. Pastors
do it, congregations do it, you do it too. It is the sinner in us, the pride in
us, wanting recognition for what I am and what I have achieved. Even if those
things I want recognition for are good and churchly! The devil can take what is
good and turn it upside down.
No, Jesus says. Not so with you.
And we need to hear that! First of all so that we
will repent and say: God be merciful to
me, the sinner. But even more we need to hear those words in this way: that
it is not so with you because it does not
need to be so with you. You do not have to be the greatest or earn your
Lord’s approval - you have it already. You do not have to climb over others to
the top of the heap to be worth something - the Son of God came down to you
because He considered you someone worth dying for. You don’t have to be an
olympic champion in the Christian life - Jesus has already given you the gold medal:
the promise of everlasting life with Him in His kingdom. And you simply cannot
get any greater than that!
And all this is yours because you have been
Baptized. Which was our Lord’s idea, not yours. Before you could do anything to
earn it or deserve it, the Son of God came for you and made you His own. He
called you out of this world and established you in His kingdom. He forgave your sins, gave you a new life as a child
of God, and gave you all the promises that go along with such an exalted
status. And so in Baptism we renounce the devil and all his works and . . . all his ways . . . including
his ways of greatness. The things of this world are no longer who we are. The
Lord has put His name on us. We are His.
And so when we strive for worldly greatness, we are
acting out of character; we are not being who we are. We are, in fact, denying
our Baptism and seeking something else, something better, something higher. As
if there were something else, something better, something higher than that! But
it’s an easy trap to fall in to because, as St. Paul put it, we
have this treasure in jars of clay. Or in other words, when we look at
the church - well, it doesn’t look so great. We see fighting and schisms and
disputes. Then we look at ourselves and see not a saint but a sinner. We look
at other Christians and see shortcomings and failures. And we think: Baptism
must not be so powerful. We need to add something. We need to make these
greater - greater in our eyes and in the eyes of the world.
No, Jesus says. Not so with you.
For what Jesus has done cannot be added to or made
greater. And when we try to make the things of God greater in the eyes of the
world and on their terms, we are really doing the opposite, and taking away
from what Jesus has done. We are focusing on what we can do, instead of what He
has done, and so becoming not more and greater, but in reality poorer and less
than what our Lord would have us be.
So Jesus sets forth another way. Rather,
He says, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as
one who serves. Not only because that is what Jesus did, but because when that is how we live we are confessing
with our lives what Jesus did, and that He did it for me. That I do not
have to make myself great for I am already great in the eyes of my Saviour.
That I do not have to be served by others because Jesus has come to serve me,
and so now I am free to serve others. That I do not lord but forgive, for
Christ Jesus my Lord has forgiven me. And while none of this looks great in the
eyes of the world, and is often despised by the world, it matters not. We live
in a kingdom the world knows not, and that kingdom lives in us. A kingdom of
grace, of forgiveness, of dying and rising. A kingdom where the King dies for
His subjects, and gives us His throne. Where the King does not levy taxes on us
and demand satisfaction for our sins, but pays it all Himself, not with gold or silver, but with His holy
precious blood, at Calvary. And then in rising from the dead, a kingdom
where the King lives to give all that He has achieved to you. His Good Friday
your Good Friday, His Easter your Easter, His Heaven, your Heaven.
And in order to give you all of this, Jesus gave one
more thing: His apostles and the pastors that come after them. Folks like
Bartholomew. To pour this kingdom into you in the waters of Holy Baptism. To
speak this kingdom into your hearts in the words of the Holy Gospel. And to put
this kingdom into your mouths in the body and blood of Jesus, the Lord’s
Supper. Apostles and pastors are not great, but servants, for they serve the
great ones who come as guests and recline at the Lord’s Table: you. And they serve in the name of the
Great Servant, whose gifts these are.
As so you are never so great as when you fall on
your knees in repentance and receive His forgiveness, and when you open your
mouth hungering and thirsting for righteousness and receive His body and blood.
You are never so great as when you lower yourself to serve, to love the
unlovable, and to forgive the unforgivable. You are never so great, for in
these ways you receive, confess, and live a greatness not your own, but given
to you. The greatness of your Saviour. The greatness of the cross.
That is a greatness that Bartholomew and the other
disciples and all of us must learn.
To trust
in the Lord with all your heart, and not to lean on your own understanding,
as the Proverb said. For this kind of greatness does not come naturally to us.
In fact, what comes naturally to us is the way the world thinks, and its greatness.
And so the Christian life is never easy, but a constant struggle to trust in a
way that seems so weak and backwards. But hear again what Jesus tells you about
this struggle through St. Paul, that we are afflicted in every way, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. There’s
hope in those words. Not of our victory, but the Lord’s victory. That while in
this world we can (and will!) be afflicted, we cannot be defeated.
And Bartholomew learned that, as it turns out he got
what he had been arguing for - just not in the way he expected. For he became
the greatest apostle - he received the greatest suffering in his martyrdom:
when he was skinned alive and then crucified. But he was not defeated. The Lord who gave him life, and then gave
His life for Bartholomew, gave him life again. Eternal life, in a Kingdom which
has no end. And so it is with us. By believing as Bartholomew did and living as
He lived, we may or may not end up on the wrong side of the flaying knife and
nailed by those considered great in this world. And it matters not. For the
kingdom and life that we receive here
the world cannot take away. That is Jesus’ promise for you, guaranteed by the
empty tomb.
So go ahead and love, serve, forgive, and maybe even
lay down your life a time or two. Confess to the world what true greatness
really is, and in whom it is really
found.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.