Sermon preached by the Rev’d Fredrick A. Robinson
The 16th Sunday after Pentecost
It would be an interesting exercise some day for us to go through our buildings and count all of the crosses of various kinds. They’re everywhere, especially here in the church. There is the large Redeemer cross above the altar. Most of the crosses do not have a corpus, that is, the body of Jesus, on them; although here by the pulpit there is a crucifix—a cross with the figure of the dying Christ on the cross, reminding preacher and congregation that we are to preach Christ crucified. The cross by the lectern is called a Christus Rex, Christ our High Priest, clothed in Eucharistic vestments, reigning from the tree. There is a crucifix also on the beam above the chancel steps, facing the choir and ministers. A cross goes before us in processions, and many Christians wear crosses around their necks. The cross is the single most accepted symbol for Christians throughout Christendom.
Ironically, it is so much a part of faith that often it goes unnoticed. Some people only really see this crucifix by the pulpit in Lent, when every other cross is covered.
We know that our Lord suffered and died on the cross for our sins. We know that that was the purpose of the Messiah. Before Jesus suffered and died on the cross, however, the disciples could not begin to comprehend that that was what must happen.
In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus announces to his disciples on three occasions that he must suffer and die and on the third day be raised from the dead. And on each of these occasions they fail to understand what he is saying. The disciples knew that Jesus was the Son of God. They knew he was the Messiah. What that meant to them, however, was that somehow Jesus would become King and deliver the nation of Israel from the hands of the Roman government. Messiahship meant victory, not defeat; it meant strength, not weakness; it meant dominion, not servitude. The cross, which was the form of capital punishment for political prisoners, was the very last thing the disciples expected to be the destiny of their Lord.
And so, it seemed quite natural for them to talk among themselves about who was the greatest among them, surmising who would have the most power and prestige in the new kingdom. Of course, they missed the whole point. Not only did they not understand that Jesus was not the kind of Messiah they expected, but also that that meant that their own roles as his disciples were vastly different from what they expected. The weakness of Christ, his submission, his servitude, and his willingness to die, were to become the criteria of greatness for the new kingdom, the Church. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Like the disciples, it is part of our fallen nature to think that greatness consists in being served, rather than in serving; in grasping all that we can get, rather than in giving all that we can give, in living life for our own pleasure, rather than in dying to self and giving ourselves for others. Yet, Jesus tells us, as he told his disciples, that true greatness, true happiness, is only to be found in service to God and to our fellow human beings. This is certainly the meaning of all of the crosses which adorn our churches, our homes, our processions, and even our own bodies. The way of the cross is our way.
As hard as it is to take on this attitude of service, we realize the truth in it. We know that the truly great leader is one who serves, whether we’re talking about the head of the ushers or the President of the United States. We gladly give our allegiance to someone in authority if that person is a person who listens to the needs and wants of those in his or her charge. On the other hand, the person who is very gifted, with all of the charm in the world, but who is self-serving, has a difficult time gaining the cooperation of those he is supposing to serve.
Donald Craig Kerr tells the story that I have told you before about soldiers building a fort during the Revolutionary War. I hope you don’t mind my telling it again. The soldiers were struggling to put an especially large log into place. The soldier who was in charge of the project called out, “Heave Ho, Heave away, men!” The words were intended to help the men pull together to move the log.
But it wouldn’t budge. Try as they might, they could not get the log into place. Just as they were about to give up, a man on horseback dismounted and walked over to the soldiers. “Why don’t you help them with the lifting?” he asked the soldier. “Don’t you see that the log is heavy?”
The soldier answered, “I’m a corporal. I can’t help with that kind of work.”
The man added his strength to the crew and said, “Now heave ho!” And up went the log into place.
As the man went back to his horse, he said to the soldier, “Next time you have a heavy log to lift and you need help, just call on your Commander-in-Chief.”
That man was George Washington. He knew what it meant to be a leader because he knew what it meant to serve.
It is this kind of selfless service to which Christ calls us, not just once in awhile, but as a way of life. And Jesus tells us that greatness is to be found in this way of life.
I pray for this kind of greatness in my own life and in the lives of all of you. I pray for this kind of greatness in the life of the Church of the Redeemer. Jesus Christ wants Redeemer to be a great parish, a parish that serves, a parish that dies to itself. Many look at us from the outside and see Redeemer as a great parish, and it is precisely because we are a parish that serves our community and many places beyond our community. I was speaking with a fellow clergyman of another denomination a year ago or so, and he said he really admires Redeemer because it obviously has a heart for service, and he said he wished his church could be more like Redeemer. I will never forget what he said. I was overjoyed to hear it, because Jesus wants us to be that kind of parish, just as he wants each one of us to be a person who serves.
Are you a person who serves? Do you aspire to greatness, as Jesus has shown us what greatness is?