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Text: Mark The Pecking Order In the name
of him who loved us and gave himself for us, dear friends in Christ: After a
long day on the road, Jesus and his disciples finally arrived at the house in They had been arguing about which
one of them was the greatest. And that’s
rather offensive to us, isn’t it? It
seems so beneath them that it’s easy to be embarrassed for them. Sure, we may remember carrying on something
like that when we were children, bragging on about who could do this or that
the best, or who had the smartest dog, or nicest parents, and so forth – it’s
part of being a kid; but somewhere along the line we learned that such
conversation is not socially acceptable.
No one likes a braggart. And so it’s kind of hard for us to
imagine these twelve grown men – and not just any men, but the twelve guys
handpicked by Jesus to take the Gospel of salvation to the world, carrying on
in this way. (On the other hand, maybe
some of you ladies here today don’t have any trouble at all imagining grown men
acting like this.) But seriously, it
would make all of us uncomfortable to listen to this kind of talk coming
from adults: “Well, surely I’m the
greatest because Jesus picked me first.”
“He picked you first because you’re a slow learner and because you
needed the most work! He saved me for
last, so I’m obviously the greatest.”
“Yeah, well I gave up the most to follow Jesus. I had a six-digit
income before he called me; but I let it all go when he said, ‘follow me’. It’s clear that I’m disciple numero
uno.” “You were a lying, cheating,
low-life tax collector. That’s what you
were: a traitor to the Jewish
nation. And just because you changed
jobs doesn’t mean you changed your status:
I still don’t trust you. I, on
the other hand, was a freedom fighter, risking my life to rescue our holy
nation from the hated Romans oppressors.
All the rest of you cared about was making money. Any fool can see I have the most noble character.”
On and on it might have gone, who was the smartest, the most spiritual,
the most learned, and who knows what else. Shameful behavior—especially when
you consider that at the same time they were following Jesus down the trail and
carrying on this self exalting conversation about which of them was supreme
behind his back, Jesus was leading them and telling them how he was going to
abase himself, become the lowest of servants, suffer, and die in order to save
the world from sin. While they were
jockeying for position on some sort of heavenly pecking order, Jesus was
talking about taking the lowest place for himself. Small wonder that they couldn’t understand
what he was talking about. But we do. We know how the story unfolds and how our
Lord pointed out that humility and servant-hood are virtues that every
Christian should be striving to achieve.
We couldn’t imagine sitting together over coffee after a worship service
and arguing about which one of us is greatest in the Now, as it turns out, I have run
into a few people who said things very similar to that, though in a different
context; and I suspect you have too. I
remember one, a young officer candidate, who had his sights fixed on a
political career. He was interested in
military service only to the degree that it might pad his résumé. I can him remember him constantly asking what
things he could do to achieve greater recognition that could be done with minimal
or no effort. When assignments were
being given, he would carefully weigh the relative importance and visibility of
his assigned mission, and very often he’d ask, “How will this
look on my record?” If he decided
it wasn’t good enough, he’d try to get something better. Every time he did or said something like
that, you wanted to shake him and ask, “Don’t you understand that we have a job
to do, and that the world doesn’t revolve around you and your plans to get to
the top?” Though not quite as brazen as
that guy, I can remember a fellow seminary student who had his pastoral career
all figured out. He figured he’d spend a
couple years as an assistant pastor in one of those huge mega-churches with
several thousand members, then he’d be promoted to senior pastor in a similar
church for maybe five years, and then on to the synodical hierarchy where he’d
eventually land an important but cushy bureaucratic position. (Last I heard it seemed the Holy Spirit had
other plans for him.) And before I go on, I want to make
it clear that there’s nothing at all wrong with having or desiring important
positions of authority and leadership.
We need people to serve in such positions – but serve is
the operative word. We thank God that he
raises up among us people with talents, experience, and reputation who want to
serve as leaders in business, community, and the church. What offends us are
those who want to climb the ladder without qualifications and who are only
interested in serving themselves. But my point is this: we are
justifiably shocked when we hear such a person unabashedly express such
ambition. We wonder how anyone can be so
self-absorbed that he can stand there and say he plans to use people as
stepping-stones to reach his goals without it ever occurring to him that people
who hear him might not want to be stepped on.
We wonder how a person could be so blind to his own selfish ambition …
and that should raise a red flag for us.
If that person can’t see his own selfish ambition, what makes me
think I can see mine? Why do you suppose
they call it “blind ambition”? That is how St. James is
convicting us in today’s Epistle lesson:
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the lusts that battle
within you? … For where you find envy
and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” Do you have a conflict or quarrel with
someone? James suggests you turn your
view inward to discover its cause. The truth is that we all tend to
create in our minds a kind of moral and spiritual “pecking order” very much
like the ones the disciples were arguing about.
The main difference is that we’ve learned that it’s inappropriate to
talk about it. But it’s still
there. And we tend to rate the people we
know and with whom we come into contact on that scale, moving them up or down a
certain number of notches based on the things that we know about them from
personal experience or that we hear about them.
That’s why we love to hear gossip, especially about those whom are normally
held in high regard: it allows us to
move them down on the scale. And the anchor to the whole scale,
the fixed point by whom all others are evaluated is
(naturally) “me”. Strangely enough, we
all tend to place ourselves at or near the top.
In the modified words of the old hymn, “Chief of sinners though I be, everyone else is worse than me.” “Oh, there may be a few Mother Theresa types
above me, but I have a real life to live, so I can accept that. But most of the rest of them that think they
belong up there are just hypocrites. If
we only knew the truth about them …” And because just about everyone
else is lower on this scale, when we come into conflict with someone else, it’s
pretty obvious whose fault it is. “Can’t
be mine, I’m up here.” And I want to
make it clear too that it’s really not necessary to have any outward ambitions
to make this true. Just because we don’t
want to be in charge and control things, still, we do think we are the
most qualified for the job – if not in terms of talent, then at least in view
of our superior moral qualifications.
Besides, it’s so much easier to back away from visible positions of
responsibility and authority and sit in judgment of those who do have them as
if the responsibility were ours.
That way we can feel superior without having to endure the heat of
criticism. I think one of the biggest
reason people try to avoid serving as leaders in the church and community is
the fear of all the armchair quarterbacks who will tell them how they are
supposed to be doing the job. What I want you to see is that
this scale that we all have in our minds, by which we determine who is better
than who, is a worldly construct that we create in our minds to support our own
ambitions and to help us think of ourselves as more righteous than others. It has nothing to do with the And James does not mince words
about what he thinks of it: “You
adulterous people …” he accuses us.
He’s saying that when we think in these ways we are being spiritually
unfaithful to the Lord who bought us with his own blood. He’s saying we are turning our backs on the
true God and turning to the things that the world seeks after: power, glory, fame, and in a moral sense, a
reputation for being a really good and godly person – if not outwardly, then at
least in our own minds where we enthrone the self with a sense of personal
holiness that far exceeds that of others.
And that’s the real problem, because people who are superior and holy on
their own cannot see their need for a Savior.
James calls us to see what’s there on the inside: the blind ambition and
the self-righteousness. And he calls us
to repent of it. And then he provides a better
way. Having thrown out the imaginary
scale of the spiritual pecking order in our minds in favor of the true scale of
God’s standard of perfection, and having shown us what place we occupy on that
scale: the very bottom; he reminds us
that God gives grace to the humble. It’s
when we see ourselves at the bottom – helpless, unable to climb with our own
effort – that we see that all we can do is ask for
help. And God provides it to us through
Christ his Son. It is he who came down
to where we are, at the bottom, to lift us up to where he came from by serving
us with his death on the cross. And
having risen, he lifts us up and fills us with his wisdom and understanding
that allows us to see each other as he sees us – in a heavenly way, without the
scale. James writes, “The wisdom that
comes from heaven is first of all pure.”
It is undiluted with worldly notions of pecking orders. It sees all people the same: sinners in need of God’s grace. “It is peace-loving.” That is, it seeks to resolve conflicts and
prevent them from recurring. “It is
humbly patient.” Not pushy, not
demanding, it’s willing to invest the time and effort needed to bring
harmony. “It’s compliant.” It gives in and cooperates where it can
without sacrificing truth and righteousness.
“It’s full of mercy.” That
is, it does not expect perfection from others, and it moves us to forgive for
Christ’s sake just as we have been forgiven.
“It is without partiality.”
It does not favor some and discriminate against others because of
friendships, relationships, or anything else.
And “it is without hypocrisy.”
It’s not an illusion. It’s not a
mask hiding our true feelings. It’s an
authentic, heartfelt desire to live Christ’s law of love. This is the wisdom that Jesus
wants us to have so that we can truly follow him – not like the disciples who
walked along behind him bickering about who was the greatest; but each
recognizing his own absolute worthlessness due to sin. This will bring us to the state of humility
that causes us to rely on his amazing grace, seek his forgiveness, and allow
him to fill us with his Spirit, his wisdom, and his love. That is how he will plant in us the seed that
produces a harvest of righteous works for him.
So may the Lord in his mercy show
us the truth about ourselves and make us truly humble, in order that by the
power of his saving grace in Jesus Christ he can make us good and faithful
servants, and produce in us a superabundant crop. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! |
