Every teacher's nightmare ... well, maybe ONE of every teacher's nightmares, especially on Parents' Evening: pushy parents.
And it's all very well to tut, tut and roll your eyes, but when it's YOUR children ... well, if you're even aware of being motivated for your children to get on, you are probaby fully convinced that this ambition or aspiration you hold for them is perfectly justified and warranted in YOUR child's case!
Most parents DO have ambition for what their children will do or achieve.
But our idea of what constitutes 'greatness' or 'achievement' or even 'personal worth' can be quite wide of the mark.
In our Verse for the Day the Lord is readjusting the expectations and the values of an ambitious mother, and usefully challenging our ideas of what greatness and achievement really do look like, whether we are parents or not.
"Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the 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,
Matthew 20:25-26
Most people we hear from about greatness are really only looking at it from the outside. They have next to NO idea about it compared to the Lord Himself, and in this passage of Scripture He seems to be seeking to make adjustments to most people's idea of it.
What's going on here?
Let's quickly review what has been going on.
Jesus has just been describing the details of His coming crucifixion ... but nobody was really getting the picture.
The mother of two bright young disciples James and John (referred to at first as 'the sons of Zebedee') responds to Jesus's prediction of His death by asking for the best seats in Heaven for her sons.
It's like: 'he's going soon ... QUICK get your pitch in!'
It looks as if the boys didn't quite have the cheek to ask themselves so their mother speaks up, but Jesus sees right through that and makes His reply in the plural ... that is, to the brothers and not to the mother.
The boys are busted!
"‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ Jesus said to them. ‘Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?’
‘We can,’ they answered.
Jesus said to them, ‘You will indeed drink from my cup,
but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant.
These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.’
Matthew 20:22-23
Team talk called
Ambition, as ever, proved divisive, and the ten remaining disciples were fuming when they heard about this, so the Lord called them together for a team session on true greatness:
"‘You know that the 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 ..."
Matthew 20:25-26
But the Son of Man Jesus refers to is the One Who is pictured in Daniel 7:14 (and with Whom the Lord identifies in our Verse for the Day is the One Who:
"was given authority, glory and sovereign power;
all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away,
and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."
... and it is of HIM that Jesus here says:
"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.’"
The Point
In the Kingdom of God, authority and leadership are not there for YOU. They there for the people you lead, and it is as you serve that you fulfil the calling you've been given.
The satisfaction of faithfully serving and the reward of serving the Lord faithfully is what's in it for you.
We've seen too many church leadership scandals in recent days where this hasn't been appreciated and people have benefitted themselves from their church office.
These scandals arise from a failure to recognise that actual followers of Jesus (the Son of Man) embrace the service He aspired to for US, which means NOT seeking the sort of greatness that serves yourself.
The Takeaway
Let's do an audit of what we're looking for and living for in this life ... and pause to ask what that says about where we'll sit in the next one.
The next thing Jesus says on this occasion is crucial to all of this ... more on that tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment