SERVE ONE ANOTHER

June 18, 2009    Category: Message   

This year the Home Group that our family belongs to
is studying the spiritual disciplines discussed in
Richard Foster’s book ‘Celebration of Discipline’.
When it came to the discipline of service we looked
for an opportunity to put this discipline into practice,
together. On the evening of Thursday, March 19, we
all came out - parents, teens, and kids - to serve up
some music, a devotional message, and a meal at The
Sharing Place. We mixed in with the clients to eat and
get to know them over the meal. After dinner, the
younger kids brought around to each table fruit and
some cupcakes they had made and decorated for the
occasion. Everyone in the Home Group wanted to
make this an annual event.
For our devotional message we shared from
Matthew 20:20-28. In this passage the mother of the
apostles James and John comes to ask Jesus to grant
her sons the top positions in his coming kingdom. She
has no idea what she is really asking, but her
intensions are clear enough. She wants her sons to be
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And her sons,
who come with her to make this request, are obviously
in on the power play. When the other ten apostles hear
that James and John are jockeying for the top places in
Jesus’ kingdom they are furious. Hey! What about us?
I bet they wish their Moms were busy promoting them.
At this point Jesus calls everyone together. For quite
some time now the question of “Who is the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven?” has been on everyone’s
minds. The disciples asked this question back at the
start of chapter 18. And Jesus has been hinting at the
answer in what he says and teaches throughout
chapters 18, 19, and the beginning of 20. Now toward
the end of chapter 20 he is going to make the answer
plain. First he says: “You know that the rulers of the
Gentiles it over them, and their high officials exercise
authority over them. Not so with you.”
In other words, the world has always been about
establishing a pecking order - who is on top and who is
not. But this is not going to be the way among the
followers of Jesus. Then he says:
“Instead, whoever wants to become great among you
must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first
must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as
a ransom for many.”
Jesus teaches that his followers are not to seek
greatness and jockey for positions of honour and
authority. Rather we are to humble ourselves and
serve one another.
Marion Karasiuk