In 1919, a flamboyant evangelist named Charles Manuel Grace founded the United House of Prayer for All People in Wareham, Massachusetts. He made a splash by wearing extravagant suits and glitzy jewelry, purchasing high-profile real estate, and conducting baptisms in city streets with a fire hose. Sweet Daddy Grace, as he was called, preached a straightforward gospel — by following his lead, you could guarantee yourself bundles of money sent straight from heaven. This was exceedingly good news to his largely poverty-stricken flock. It’s a message that has not worn out over time.
We probably think we’re too sophisticated to believe Sweet Daddy Grace’s promises, but we do bring our own expectations to Jesus. We often talk about discipleship and church as the answer to all our problems. Where is your life a mess? Come to church and we’ll fix it. Our Jesus is the means to get what you want. We don’t promise glory, but something close to it.
This is nothing new. In Mark 10:35, we read how James and John come to Jesus. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Throughout Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been teaching the disciples that his way is not the way of the world, the way of glory and power. Yet James and John end up asking for the best seats at the Lord’s table. They seem to believe that Jesus’ new world will be set up just like the old world — only with new leadership.
Jesus reminds them — and us — that it doesn’t work that way. His response presents the deep challenge and joy for all who would follow him:
“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:42-44)
The number ones are not the powerful ones carousing at the head of the table. They are the quiet ones slipping in and out among the guests, refilling glasses and laying out clean silverware. The great ones are not dignitaries to the left and right of the head chair — they are in the kitchen stirring pots, testing the soup, and taking out the trash. Jesus-followers are those trained to ask the important questions: “Has everyone been served?” “Is there enough food on the table?” “Does anyone need anything?”
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
Perhaps we’ve heard this teaching so often it’s lost on us. The end of the line is the best place to be. The lowliest job is the one to covet. Lovers of God find less status, not more.
Too often we treat our call to servanthood like an intermediate phase of life — like purgatory or boot camp. If you do your time as a servant without whining, the glory can be won in the end. But Jesus is not simply pretending to be a servant until the time comes to throw down the basin and towel and ascend his throne. He is a servant through and through, and he isn’t in it for the reward. Jesus is in it for the love of God, a love which promises him nothing except the opportunity to give himself away.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes about it with characteristic precision: “The best seat he will get this side of the grave is a throne full of splinters, and when he is hung out on it to dry by the powers that be, it will not be James and John on either side of him, but two unnamed bandits, one on his left and one on his right.”
No, the Gospel is not the solution to all our problems, the cure for all our aches and pains, another strategy for getting what we want. The Gospel — Yates Baptist Church, your discipleship, your service — these are the means God uses to get what God wants for us and for the world. Let it be so with us.
Grace and Peace,