Who of us is the Greatest?

“Which of us is the Greatest?"

Rev. Stephen Milton
Lawrence Park Community Church
September 22, 2024

Today’s scripture asks a simple question: who is the greatest? For Christ’s disciples, they know who is great. They have been living with Him. Jesus has been showing them wonders they have never seen before. Jesus has created a lot of excitement in Galilee. He has been working miracles by healing people, and by speaking with a spiritual wisdom that amazes his listeners. His words and works have gathered a following of loyal men and women, most of them humble peasants and fishermen. They can sense that Jesus is glowing with a spiritual power they haven’t seen in anyone else. He’s been talking about going to Jerusalem. They can’t wait to see what kinds of miracles he performs there. In their hearts they hope that he may be the one who can defeat the Romans, so Jews can live in peace again.

But in today’s scripture from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells them that he is going to be killed in Jerusalem, and after three days he will be raised from the dead. This makes no sense to them. How can this extraordinary movement result in his murder by the authorities? And even stranger still, how can he be raised from the dead in three days? This all sounds like nonsense. Their leader is talking over their heads, and not for the first time. 

They arrive in Capernaum. This is where Peter lives, and it seems pretty likely that at this time Jesus is living with Peter’s family. It’s a town on the hillside of the Sea of Galilee, with a great view of the water. It’s in this house that Jesus asks the disciples what they were talking about on the road. 

They were debating which one of them is the greatest. If Jesus is great, surely one of them will be his second in command, the greatest of the followers. Who doesn’t want to be great? Being great is better than being least or powerless. Being good is better than being a sinner. The disciples are thinking in a linear way, where we can draw a straight line from least to best, worst to greatest. [ draw a line with my hand]

But Jesus sees power and greatness in a different way. His approach is more like a circle. [ draw one with hand] If greatness is at the top, and being least is at the bottom, then the path to greatness is a circle. The great need to become the least, at the bottom of the circle, before they can be great and stay great, at the top of the circle. He explains this to them by saying, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” He takes a child on his lap and says, if you want to be great, then receive one of the least in my name. To be the top, you have to go to the bottom.

This is a confusing teaching. Most powerful people we know of have spent their lives getting away from being weak and poor, aiming for wealth and power. 

Elon Musk got rich acquiring companies that make cars and rockets in new ways. He wasn’t worrying about the poor, and he didn’t want to be poor. And it appears that he still isn’t giving much to charity. ^[1

Warren Buffet, one of the world’s richest men waited until he was in his 70s before he started giving his money away^[2]. 

When Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs died, he left all of his money to his wife and one of his daughters, with none of it to charity.^[3]

Most rich and famous people focus on getting to the top and getting away from poverty and the weakest in society. They don’t consider their path to the top to be through caring for the least powerful. Sometimes they think about that when they retire, as in the case of Bill Gates. But few of them worry about it on their way to the top. 

Christ’s path doesn’t make sense now, and it didn’t make much sense to his disciples, either. But as usual, Jesus was talking about the spiritual path, not the path to the palace or the mansion. He is talking about the path that each person must go through to achieve personal greatness as a spiritually attuned person, as a conscious child of God. It involves a circular path, from the top to the bottom, to the top again, but always with an eye on the bottom of the circle.

The Apostle Peter’s life is a good example of this. Jesus met Peter when he was a humble fisherman, on the Sea of Galilee. He became the first disciple. Jesus tells him that he will become the rock on which the church will be founded (Matthew 16:18). That’s how he earns the nickname Peter, which means rock. But Peter has a hard time understanding Jesus’s paradoxical teachings. In last week’s scripture reading, Jesus announced that he would be killed and raised from the dead. Peter took him aside and tells him to stop talking like this, it’s bad for morale, and its nonsense. Peter is always direct. Jesus rebukes him, saying “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.” (Mark 8:32-3). Peter can’t get his head around this idea that to succeed, Jesus must die. That makes no sense to him, so he argues with Jesus.

For a man who is supposed to be Jesus’ right-hand man, Peter messes up a lot.  Later, when they go to Jerusalem, Judas arranges to get Jesus arrested. Jesus knows what’s coming – a trail, and crucifixion. He’s a human being as well as God, and of course he is scared of being tortured and killed. So, on the night of his arrest, he goes up on a hill to pray, and he asks Peter two other disciples to stay awake with Him. But Peter and the other men fall asleep. An hour or so later, Judas arrives with the temple officials and soldiers to arrest Jesus. Jesus tells them there’s no need for guards, there is no danger here. But Peter pulls out a sword and slices off the ear of one of the men. Jesus gets angry, saying that this arrest is what must happen, so don’t try to stop it.( John 18:10-1)

And Peter keeps messing up. During Christ’s trial, Peter follows him into a courtyard. But when asked if he is a follower of Jesus, Peter denies it three times. And when Jesus is on the cross, Peter is nowhere to be found. And yet, it is this man, who makes so many serious mistakes, who gets in Christ’s way, who abandons him in his hour of greatest need, it this man who Jesus chooses to become the leader of the movement when Jesus is gone. Why?

When Jesus returns, resurrected, Peter realizes how wrong he has been. He didn’t believe Christ when he said he would die and be resurrected. He didn’t see that non-violence was the better way. Peter is laid down low, he hits the bottom of that circle, knowing he has been wrong so many times. And it is that humbling that changes him. After Jesus leaves, after his resurrection, Peter changes. When the Holy Spirit tells him what to do, in visions and dreams, he obeys. He stops resisting. His first order is to go see a Roman Centurion, go tell him about Jesus. This Roman is the enemy, a member of the occupying force, and a Gentile, too, a man a good Jew like Peter should avoid. But Peter does it (Acts 10). Before, he would have resisted, but now, he agrees to go with the Spirit. His humbling has changed him. When the Apostle Paul tells him that this new faith should be shared with Roman pagans, Peter goes against all his personal instincts and says yes (Acts 15:7-11). And as a result, the church starts to grow. 

Paradoxically, it was when Peter became humble that he became great. He is remembered as the first bishop of Rome. When Rome suffered a great fire, the emperor Nero blamed the Christians, and had Peter killed. He was buried outside the city walls. Early Christians built a small church over his grave

A bigger version of that church is still there – it’s called Saint Peter’s Basilica, the biggest and most famous Christian church in the world. A whole country, the Vatican, is built around it.^[4]

His face is on stained glass all over the world. He is portrayed holding the keys to heaven. Many Christians expect to see Saint Peter when they go to heaven, guarding the pearly gates. 

It's easy to think that Peter is great because he was always great. But the gospels show that isn’t true. To achieve greatness, he was personally brought down low. To the bottom of that circle. And not just once. During his lifetime, his story of denial and betrayal was told to new Christians. They would gather in houses, around dinner tables, lit by candles in the evening. As they ate, Christians would tell the story of how that man there, Peter, denied and abandoned Jesus. Imagine how powerful it was when a new person came to a Christian meeting while Peter was alive and heard his story. This man, sitting right there, the leader of the faith, had been such a screw up. And yet he was forgiven. If that happened to him, then surely, this faith has room for someone like me. And you. And you.

Christ wants us to understand that spiritual success comes through humility, not pride. God wants to help you in this life, but you’ll need to admit that you don’t have all the answers. Admit what you don’t know, face your mistakes, admit them to yourself and God. Be okay with the fact that each of us is really a person who just stumbles along in this life, wrestling with pride and ego all the time. We’re all Peter. We all make mistakes, and God still loves us, like Jesus still loved Peter. 

Christians are called to be partners with God in the creation and growth of this world. And God cares what happens to the people who get stuck at the bottom. Sometimes that’s you. Often it is the people who have the least, the poor and the marginalized. The homeless, the poor. God asks that those who have lots help those who have little. That’s the real path to greatness. This circle of great to least to great is for individuals, and for entire societies. It’s a paradox, a teaching that continues to puzzle us. But if you open yourself to it, you can experience a greatness you could never have reached on your own. A feeling of God with you, helping you through life, come what may. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And that is a blessing Peter would have understood, and we can, too, with God’s help. 

Amen.