Servant of All
A Sermon by the Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Fall Kick-Off!) (B), September 19th, 2021.
Mark 9:30-37
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me (Mark 9:30-37).
Good morning! It is so great to see everyone today and to be back with you after having been on vacation the past two Sundays. It is wonderful to celebrate the beginning of our new fall schedule.
Today is all about welcome, God welcoming us and us welcoming God into our lives. We worship a God who is radically and shockingly inclusive and our walk with Jesus is about learning to be that way too.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus and his mission are misunderstood, even by his closest disciples. Today he tells them that he is going to be betrayed, killed, and then rise again. And they really don’t get what he is talking about. Jesus’ Way is an upside down view of the world. The disciples argue about who will be first among them, and Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be first must be the last of all and servant of all.” His way is a way of service, not power and prestige. And the whole social order in Jesus’ day, as in our day, was and is about power, prestige and privilege.
When Jesus talks about attaining greatness by being a servant, it sounds shocking and non-sensical. Servants were of course at the bottom of the Roman social structure in Jesus’ day, and “servant of all” was the servant who was at the bottom of the servant hierarchy, so they were the lowest of the low. They were the very last person to eat in the household. They could have whatever was left after everyone else had had their fill. (The word translated as servant is “diakonos”, which is where we get the word deacon, which is one of the ordained orders of ministry. They have a special ministry to people on the margins. )
And then to make the point even clearer, Jesus takes a little child and says “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Servants and children were both at the bottom of the hierarchy. Little children could do absolutely nothing to contribute to the household wealth. They were certainly not power brokers and they weren’t thought of as deserving honor or respect. And yet Jesus tells them that when we show a child hospitality, we are actually welcoming him. And when we welcome him, we welcome God. Now that, is a radical thought, both in Jesus’ day and in ours. When we welcome a child, we welcome Jesus, and when we welcome Jesus, we welcome the One who sent Jesus into the world.
That is what we are trying to do as we begin Sunday school again. Our youngest are being welcomed on the front lawn today. Two year olds through 3rd graders are meeting there so that they can learn to walk the Way of Jesus and so that we can learn from them. The catechists, i.e. teachers, have gone to great lengths to show our children and parents hospitality during this time of Covid. And our older children and teens are continuing to meet on-line in the afternoon for Sunday school, so that they can be fully involved in worship on Sunday mornings. RevMo Crystal, Dr. Ben and all of our amazing children and youth leaders have worked long and hard to make choir and Sunday school safe. Hours and hours of thought and planning have gone into it. Why? Because when we show hospitality to children we are showing hospitality to Jesus and when we go the extra mile for Jesus we go the extra mile for God.
And Jesus was talking about children both literally and figuratively in today’s Gospel. Since children, like servants were the least and the last in his day, what he says about welcoming a child also applies to anyone who has no power or prestige. So when we show hospitality to someone who can’t do us any good in worldly terms, we are encountering Christ. When we show kindness, when we recognize that every person we meet shows us something of the image of God, we are starting to get it. Just like the first disciples, its hard for us to understand. That is why we have to be reminded, Sunday after Sunday. So much of what we have to navigate each day, in our work lives and in the world in general, is about power structures and coming to church reminds us that as we deal with the reality of the world, we are called to do it in that upside-down way that Jesus talks about. Treating others as a gift from God and not as a means to an end. Valuing them for who they are and not for what they can do for us. “Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all.”
That is how we are called to be each day as we walk the servant walk with Jesus in our individual lives and it is most certainly how we are called to be as the Body of Christ at Saint George’s. In our social justice and outreach ministries, we work to address social inequities and welcome everyone as if they were Jesus himself. Everything we do is about serving others from worship to finance to buildings and grounds to fellowship. We are a community of welcome, generous, radical welcome.
And that is the kind of community we ushered our new members into yesterday at the Diocesan Day of Commitment. We presented 14 adults for confirmation, reception and reaffirmation. We welcomed them into the Episcopal Church and today we welcome them as members of Saint George’s. There are people from each of the three Life, Community and Faith classes that we had on-line during the 18 months of Covid. They all went through a discernment process to see if Saint George’s and the Episcopal Church was the best way for them to live out their Christian faith. And it is such a blessing to see these new Saint Georgians making this commitment now, especially right now, given the context we are living in. They are claiming hope over despair, community over isolation, faith over indifference, welcome over exclusion. In his sermon yesterday, Assisting Bishop Porter Taylor talked to the confirmands about how their decision to be confirmed, received and reaffirm their faith, was about choosing to be led by their hearts.
Following Jesus is about generosity. And if there is anything that the world needs right now, it is more faithful, compassionate people with open and generous hearts , trying to love God and their neighbors as themselves.
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”