Putting yourself aside to serve

Poatina Morning Tea devotion given yesterday

Where is your scar?

Today is the last of series of 3 devotions on Mark 10. This is the last burst Jesus has before he goes up to Jerusalem.  Here he is, trying to get through to the disciples:  “This is what you need to know guys.”

There are 3 separate challenges – in the first the Pharisees come and try to trick him and he says, “ These guys are trying to work it with your heads, but the Kingdom is about being here in the moment with God”.

Then the Rich you Ruler comes, and as Jesus asks, he says he’s been a really good boy.  It is nice though, Jesus looks at him and loves him,  and then says, “You’ve got to give all your wealth away.”  What does it mean to let go to things that you hold a bit too tightly to?

The final story comes as a couple of disciples start arguing about who is going to be the most powerful. 

James and John came up to him and said, “Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us.”

“What is it?” Jesus asked.  “Arrange it,” they said, so that we will be awarded the highest places of honour – one of us at your right and the other at the left.”  They couldn’t even agree who was to be on right or left!

Jesus said, you have no idea what you’re asking. Are you capable of drinking the cup I drink, of being baptized in the baptism I’m about to undergo? “   “Sure”, they say, “Why not?”
Then Jesus says, “Come to think of it you will drink the cup I drink, and be baptized in my baptism. But as to awarding places of honour, that’s not my business.  There are other arrangements about that.”

“When the other 10 heard about the conversation they lost their tempers with James and John, and Jesus got them together to settle things down. He said, “You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around, and when people get a little power, how quickly it goes it their heads.  It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be first must be a slave. That’s what the Son of Man has done:  He came to serve, not to be served.”

This is how Jesus ends the chapter.  With each step, whether about Pharisees, the Rich young Ruler and the two disciples question about power, he says, “This is not the way. The Kingdom works differently!

I’ve been quite affected by a meeting I had last year when I was in S Africa. We went to Robbin Island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated and we were shown around the Island by a former inmate who was a member of the ANC. It was clear from his clothes that he had money – he wasn’t showing us around because he needed money. But as he told his story there was a look of sadness in his eyes, “The reason we are telling this story, and wanting you to take photos, is because as many people as possible need to hear it and we want you to remember.”

I asked him later, “Do you enjoy your job?”  He said, “No, no I don’t”. He was doing it because there was a purpose behind what he was doing.  Every day he chose to face the memories of what this place had meant for him. He chose to serve because there was a purpose.  I can’t remember his name, but I know he was a great man.

Another story stands out to me about a rich lady well born lady who was attracted to the idea of being a num with Mother Teresa. Against her family’s will, she went. She loved the idea of serving the poor.  They gave her the job of cleaning the toilets. Apparently the toilets were something to contemplate.  She went to clean these toilets,  and this rich young lady who had been brought up in privilege began dry reaching.  She found an alcove and cried and cried. Then she heard a noise in the hallway, a shuffling. She saw this funny little old nun cleaning the toilet. ‘Without anyone watching, she went on to clean the toilets.  She wasn’t doing it to impress anyone.”  Mother Teresa didn’t set out to create an order but to make sure nobody had to die alone.

Here in Mark 10, Jesus redefines what leadership is about;  what greatness is about.  I recently read a paper on psychology that suggests we have misled people about psychology. We have somehow at some point concluded that what must be healed is the bad feelings you have about yourself and your past.  And we sit people down and help them work through their bad feelings.  Yet as far back as we have records there have been wise men and philosophers and healers who have taught and demonstrated that psychological health comes out of living out your values,  not working to do away, focussing on your bad feelings.

If you want to change the world,  really,  you’ve got to put yourselves aside.  Yep, you’re going to take up your cross, you’re going to suffer. Being great means being willing to put your own needs aside.  There is no secret to Poatina really, but it is just that there are people willing to put their own needs aside in order that others are cared for.

But I’m not always at my best and at times that’s the last thing I want – to put my needs aside.  When you come here, you get invited to a wrestle that Jesus talks about here in Mark 10.  Are you willing to serve -  to put other people’s needs ahead of yours?  Are you going to be serving others and their needs?

I am reading a book from Arrow Course, written by J. Oswald Sanders and in it there is a poem from Amy Carmichael

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail they bright ascendant star:

Hast thou no scar?

Has thou no wound?

Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent.

Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent

By ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned”

Hast thou no wound.

No wound? No scar?

Yes, as the master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow me.

But thine are whole.  Can he have followed far

Who hast no wound, no scar?

As Jesus unpacks it, the key to leadership is being willing to pay the price to serve.