Issue 249
Based on Mark 9:32-37
If ever there’s a place of competition, it’s the workplace. We compete for jobs,market share, customers, status, recognition, parking spaces, offices, desks, PA support, popularity and – everything else. Even if you are not the competitive type, you are part of a system that is. Hospitals are now being asked to compete for patients, trusts for budgets and consultants for reputation.
Schools are now ‘Ofsteded’ and included in league tables, and almost every other media employee seems to be working on a show where contestants compete. It’s ‘dog-eat-dog’ out there and it has been so ever since we were puppies.
This human characteristic breaks out on a grand scale during world championships or Olympic games, and on a devastating scale when old men and women send young men and women to war.
Behind it all is one question: a question which is asked with a million varieties of intensity and seriousness. It is the question of the Road to Capernaum : “Who is the greatest?” This question can be an endless source of fun or pain. It can build amazing communities or structures, or destroy all in its path. And Capernaum is where we hear it.
The followers of Jesus were asked what they were arguing about. An embarrassed silence followed because they were arguing about greatness. This version of the question was not healthy, free-market or fun; it was destructive. The master-class that followed lasted all of 43 words and took less than two minutes. Greatness, according to Jesus, is not about the ability to come first but the willingness to come last. Winning seems to be about serving the needs of others rather than of the self. What follows appears to be an invitation to be childlike or even kind to children. Both would be consistent with Jesus, but this is not the lesson. Welcome a child, and you welcome me, welcome me and you welcome the one who sent me. It is an invitation not merely to be child-like but Christ-like. God’s child is with them. Arguing about greatness is ludicrous. The challenge is to see the servant of all in front of them. If you can see him, you can see greatness.
Right in front of the eyes of those men of the world was the most powerful force of all. Capable of winning any market-share, any sports competition and any trial of strength imaginable, yet he was putting the needs of everyone else first.
Don’t miss the point: there is nothing wrong with wanting to win; there is nothing wrong with wanting to be great. It’s just that the road to Capernaum is the road to war and violence. Arguing about greatness is not greatness. Finding a way of serving has a habit of finding a way to be first, even if it doesn’t always look that way.
Mark 9:32-37
32 But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. 33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. 35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” 36 He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
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Geoff Shattock
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