There are a lot of things about Jesus that the Bible does
not tell us. We get some of his words, and some of his actions, but
that’s it. And while I’m sure the things the Bible tells us are the
important things, and the things we really need to know, there are all kinds of
other things I’d like to know.
For example, I’d like to know what
Jesus looked like. Wouldn’t you? I’d like to know what he sounded
like. I’d like to know what he was like during the times that are not
mentioned in the Bible, when Jesus and the disciples were just walking down the
road. Did they have normal conversations, talking about the weather, and
the crops, and so forth? Did they tell jokes? What would have made
Jesus laugh?
One of the many things we don’t
know is what sort of gestures Jesus made. But I’ll bet I know one.
I’ll bet one of the things Jesus did a lot was this (facepalm).
I say that because there just seem to be so many times when
the disciples just did not understand what Jesus was trying to tell them.
And one of those times comes in our scripture today. After all the
things Jesus has told them about humility and serving others and all that, here
come James and John, and they ask Jesus if they can sit on either side of him
when he comes into his glory. When Jesus heard that, I just think he must
have done this (facepalm). He had to be thinking, “You guys just don’t
get it all, do you? After all this time, you still don’t have a clue.”
But we should not be too hard on James and John. After
all, they were products of their culture, and Jewish culture said that power
and wealth and honor were evidence of God’s blessing. In other words, if
someone was rich and powerful, it meant that they had done right in God’s eyes,
and God was blessing them accordingly. The idea of humble service to God
without any sort of reward was not one that would have made any sense to them
or to anyone else at that time.
It’s not that different today. Look at a poll of the
most admired people sometime. It’ll be a list of the richest and most
powerful people in the world. There’ll be the occasional exception—Mother
Teresa used to get a lot of votes, for example—but that was the result of
people saying what they thought they should say. I mean, people may have
admired Mother Teresa in the abstract, but there aren’t many of us who would
actually go and live that life. When it comes to being rich and powerful,
however, most of us would take that in a minute, if we could have it.
That may be the natural thing for humans, but it’s not what
God wants. Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be
a servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”
Now, as you probably understand, Jesus is not talking about
slavery as it once existed in this country. What Jesus is talking about
is voluntary service to others. Jesus is talking about choosing to live
our lives in such a way that we are constantly looking for ways to do things
for other people.
That’s not something that comes naturally to most of us.
We’ll do something for someone else once in a while, but there are a lot
of times we don’t. And there are plenty of times when we will do
something for someone else, but we make sure the someone else knows what a
sacrifice we’re making for them, so they’ll feel guilty about it and pay us
back somehow. Living to serve others, and doing so voluntarily, and in
fact not just doing it voluntarily but joyfully, is not something we tend to be
very good at.
We may not be good at it, but we need to get better.
And I think the way to do that is turn to God. Because, as I said,
living our lives in service to others is not something that comes naturally to
us. We’re trying to fight our own selfish desires, and we cannot do that
on our own. We need to get God’s help.
God wants to help us. And God will give us the help we
need. But God is not going to force us into service. God wants our
service to be voluntary. God wants our service to be done out of love,
love for God and love for each other.
It’s understandable that most people admire the rich and
powerful. But when we, as Christians, do that, God must go like this
(facepalm). Because as Christians, we’re called not to be like most people.
As Christians, we’re called to show God’s love to everyone. And the
best way we can do that is through our voluntary, loving service to others.
Let’s ask God to help us live our
lives in service. And then let’s go out and look for ways to give that
service to everyone we meet.
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