On Who is the Greatest
- Br. Lee Hughes, OP (Anglican)
- Sep 19, 2021
- 6 min read
[Sermon delivered at St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona (https://stmarysphoenix.org) for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 19, 2021]
✠In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
“Who is the greatest?”
Well stand back and watch the fur fly. There perhaps is no question, other than, “Does this make me look fat?” that will guarantee “conflicts and disputes,”[1] and not only, “envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.”[2] We know at the heart of questions like this the implied answer is, “It’s all about me, of course!” The question, while it may not be intoned as such, while on the surface it may not be intended as such, or even initially meant as such, is at its heart rhetorical. No one likes to hear an answer that negatively reflects on themselves to any degree. If the greatest is not oneself, then perhaps it is hoped, in asking the question, that it is one’s favoured celebrity, or one’s political leader, or social patron. In any case the answer is expected to be to the direct or even indirect benefit to the one asking the question.
That, my friends, is simple human nature. We the askers are the greatest. We are the ones with the most influence, we are the ones with the best things, we are the ones with the most respect, and we look svelte and debonair in everything.
Oh please.
What if I told you there is a more excellent way? There is, you know. We call it Christian Discipleship, a life of humility and self-sacrifice, a life lived for the service of others, a life of love, a life of righteousness. This is the life where the question is not even asked, it is pointless, because the answer is so antithetical to expectation that it is inconceivable. “Who is the greatest?” yields the expectation of who is the humblest, the utterly selfless, and so in love with God and neighbour that they are almost in perichoresis, that indwelling dance, with both the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity and the others around them.
I was only partly joking when I appropriated the phrases of our Epistle reading[3] earlier. St. James the Apostle in this Epistle was tackling a thorny issue common to Christians then as well as now. That issue was resting on one’s laurels as members of the assembly of the redeemed and making no effort to foster the fruits of that redemption. He addresses congregation after congregation filled with people who have forgotten the prime directive of the redeemed life in Christ Jesus Our Lord, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,”[4] and, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”[5] When we forget to utterly love God and to love our neighbour, we open ourselves to the conflicts and disputes that the Holy Apostle James mentions.
These conflicts and disputes, St. James contends, arise not from loving one as oneself, but from selfish desires, the “cravings that are at war within you.”[6] Granted, he paints what I sincerely and fervently hope is an exaggeration within the Christian community, murder and dispute and conflicts, but then, is it really an exaggeration? When we engage in bitter dispute over selfish goals, do we not kill each other just a little bit? Do we not tarnish the image of God in each other?
As he was writing this Epistle, St. James was probably recalling the exchange we heard in today’s Gospel.[7] Our Lord had overheard His disciples engaged in “conflicts and disputes” pretty much as St. James described in his Epistle. Someone had asked, “Which of us is the greatest?” He might as well have asked, “Does this tunic make me look fat?” and gotten a, “Dude, totally!” Apparently, the ruckus was noticeable, so noticeable that Jesus called them out over it.
Naturally, no one said anything. One hopes because they at least had the grace to be embarrassed about it.
We all talk about “teachable moments,” and this was no exception. Here Our Lord had a gaggle of contentious disciples still smarting from each other’s smackdowns and then the embarrassment of being caught doing it by The Teacher. They were in a vulnerable place, where they were open, and raw, and bleeding (hopefully only metaphorically and no one had a black eye or split lip!). What Jesus did here, however, was remarkable. He didn’t harangue them, he didn’t say the question was unworthy of them, and he didn’t say, “Well clearly it isn’t Judas! And don’t get me started on YOU, Peter!” He took their question and turned it quite neatly in on itself, and in doing so opened yet again the central truth of love and being and life to them. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”[8]
To illustrate this, Our Lord took a child and told them they were to serve and welcome such as these. In those days, other people’s children were at the very bottom of the social ladder. If they were big enough to fetch, they could just go and fetch for themselves and bring along more for the adults and be snappy about it. To tell us to serve and receive in hospitality such as these drives home the point that there was no one whom a Disciple of Jesus does not serve. No. One. As. St. John Chrysostom pointed out in his homilies on St. Matthew, “If you are in love with precedence and the highest honor, pursue the things in last place, pursue being the least valued of all, pursue being the lowliest of all, pursue being the smallest of all, pursue placing yourselves behind others.”[9]
St. Paul puts it another way: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”[10] Our Lord told us the greatest commandments are to love God and our neighbour. Our Lord told us that the greatest among us is the servant of the least of us. St. James and St. Paul tell us that selfish desires are not love at all. St. John echoes this when he tells us, “…This is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother,”[11] a sentiment St. James hearkens to when he wrote, “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder.”[12] The Apostles were not anything if not fans of stark contrast, and this is no exception. They have a point and want to drive it home. Life entails service to all, love for all, and denial of self. Death entails service to none, love for none, and denial of all but self.
When we do our daily self examinations (which are highly recommended), we should be asking ourselves where did we not love other people? Where did we love other people, but could have been better at it? Where were we not at our best? The yardstick here is love for our neighbour. From that springs life and righteousness as given to us by the author and perfecter of our faith. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”[13] What greater example of denial of self and service to others do we have than the example of Our Lord? What greater love is there than that He gave Himself for us to take on our condemnation and in doing so to destroy it? “For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”[14]
“Who is the greatest?” He who serves us all, who is our Passover sacrifice, who feeds us with His Body and Blood, He is the greatest. We should all be more like Him.
✠Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Saviour save us. Amen.
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