When we think about our relationship with God in heaven, it can be easy to focus on ourselves. We tend to want the best seats and the best treatment in heaven. We forget that Christ teaches us to want more for others than for ourselves. The message of the Gospel, and the ultimate goal of Great Lent is for us to learn to put others ahead of ourselves.
Transcript:
My brothers and sisters, we just heard a very difficult story in the gospel. We don’t normally pay much attention to it as it relates to ourselves, but as is the case with the entire scriptures, it always relates to us. Now, we just heard Christ tell the disciples the… We could say in our modern understanding the inside track of information. He just told the disciples what was going to happen. He says, “Look, in a few days, we’re going to go to Jerusalem and they’re going to kill me.” Now, you would think my brothers and sisters at that news, you would think the disciples would show some kind of concern for Christ. What do you mean they’re going to kill you? How could you say that? You’re God, you’re the Messiah, how could you say they’re going to kill you? You are our savior. You would think that that would be their response.
Three years they traveled with Christ. Three years, they watched him perform miracles. They heard the wisdom from his lips, and yet instead of worrying and thinking about him, they thought only about themselves. Lord, we want you to do us a favor. “Really?” He says. “What do you want me to do for you?”
“When you come into your kingdom, provide that one of us is at your left and one of us at your right when you come into your glory.” And he says, “You have no idea what you’re asking.” He says, “First of all, those seats are reserved and according to our tradition, the seats are reserved for Panagia and John the Baptist.” We call that the great dais, like the platform dais, the head table as it were, and yet they wanted the best seats in heaven. He says, “you don’t know what you’re asking.” He says, “Are you able to endure what I am going to endure?”
“Sure,” they say. “With you,” he says… He’s talking to his disciples. He’s talking to us, my brothers and sisters. He says, “The Gentiles, when they have power and authority, they lord it over each other.” Now we know what that feels like. Our society, our political leaders, our communities across the world, etc, they like to lord everything over the people so we know what that feels like, but Christ says, “But it can’t be that way with you.” He says, “You have to be different.” We, my brothers and sisters have to be different. He says, “You have to be the servant of all.”
He says, “Whoever is the greatest among you must be the servant of all. Whoever desires to be first must be the slave of all.” Now, this is the important thing. Remember, because Christ says, “Are you willing to do for you what I’m going to do for you?” He says, “For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” This is the example that Christ offers to us and for us. Instead of being like the world, instead of always placing ourselves at the top, God wants us to serve each other and to serve the world.
Now, this does not mean that we are supposed to enable poor behavior. Serving someone does not mean enabling their poor behavior. It means wanting more for them than for ourselves. You see, God wants us to be Joyful that we’re going to be in heaven. God doesn’t want us to worry like the Apostles did, whether we have the seat of honor in heaven, the first seat, the second seat, even the 13th seat after all 2000 years, I don’t know how many seats are left up there. By the way, there’s seats enough for everybody. No one is going to go without a seat at the Lord’s table, so why worry about the pecking order in heaven?
It’s bad enough that we worry about the pecking order on earth. This is what God is calling us to. That sense that we care more about the needs of other people. We want more for others than we want for ourselves. Because Christ gave us that example. Christ gave his life so that we could live. God wants more for us than we want for ourselves. Let’s honor him by doing the same for our brothers and sisters in our world. Not just our blood relatives, not just our friends, but our enemies, our strangers, our co-workers, our neighbors. Stop caring more about ourselves and more about others.
That is how we live the Gospel of Christ. This is our final Sunday of Great Lent, if you can believe it. For those of us who have been fasting, we’ve been fasting now for more than five weeks. We’re getting a little wheezy at times. Woozy, not wheezy. But if our fasting is going to be of any benefit for us, we have to learn the lesson of this morning’s gospel and love others, and serve others and put their needs above our needs and above our desires. Then we can truly live the message of the gospel. Not easy, but blessed. Glory to God for all things.
