Who Is the Greatest?

Scripture         

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

 

Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them, and, taking it in his arms he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

 

Sermon                 

Jamie Tartt is one of the best footballers in the Premier League; in fact, he’s considered one of the greatest footballers of his time, not to mention the most famous. At the opening of season 1 of Ted Lasso, Jamie is on loan from Manchester United to AFC Richmond. The limelight-loving, brand-obsessed Tartt, who is a brilliantly gifted striker, sees himself as the only real talent on the team. He speeds toward the goal at every opportunity, a one-man powerhouse who, really, doesn’t consider himself a member of the team at all. He carries the team. Jamie is the greatest. And he’ll be the first to tell you that.

 

The fictional character of Jamie Tartt is a beautiful image of what the world tells us it means to be “the greatest.” Strong, talented, good-looking, rich, at the top of his game.

 

Enter Ted Lasso, AFC Richmond’s new coach, who looks at Jamie and sees a challenge: how to make him a member of the team. By the end of the second episode, Ted says to the young man, “Jamie, I think that you might be so sure that you're one in a million, that sometimes you forget that out there, you're just one of eleven.”

 

This morning’s passage finds Jesus back in his home region, Galilee, and, once again, predicting the worst his followers can imagine. He calls himself “the Son of Man,” a phrase common in the Hebrew Scriptures, where it simply means “the mortal one.” The one who will die, sooner or later. Jesus says, it will be sooner. The Son of Man will be betrayed into human hands to be killed, and after three days, he will rise again. This is Jesus’s second prediction of his death. Remember, last week, Peter pushed back when he heard these words. Today, there is no pushback. Instead, as they make their way through Galilee, Jesus’s friends are mostly quiet about it. They don’t understand, the narrator tells us. They are confused. Jesus keeps saying this thing, a thing they don’t want to hear, and don’t want to believe. Not only don’t they want to hear it; they are also afraid to ask him about it—no one wants to be called “Satan.”

 

To be fair, the disciples’ anguish around Jesus’ prediction feels understandable. They have all left home, family, jobs, and connections to follow Jesus as he teaches, heals, and feeds those in need. They have found their guru, the one who is leading them into the light and a deeper experience of their faith. They all witness the difference he is making in people’s lives. Why does he have to die a horrible death? Can’t he just keep a low profile? Try not irritating so many influential people, and fly under the radar for a few years? But that is not what Jesus came to do. He came very much to get on people’s radar (his insistence that everyone keep it all a secret notwithstanding). Knowing who he is, and how unlikely he is to change, they move along, their worry simmering until it reaches a boiling point. This is where the argument starts.

 

So, they revert to their cultural expectations around what Jesus being the Messiah means. They conclude, again, that despite what he’s told them, Jesus will be a leader who will somehow defeat Rome, kick the Herods off their thrones, and bring in a new era of peace and prosperity. The only thing to work out is, who will be vice-King? Who will be Chief of Staff? Press Secretary? Attorney General? Who, among them, will be the greatest?

 

The fight is low-key enough that Jesus doesn’t hear what they’re saying. But he knows what’s up. So, once they arrive at Peter’s house in Capernaum, he asks them directly. “What were you arguing about along the way?” And suddenly everyone becomes very interested in the floor, and some start to fiddle with the sleeves of their robes, and everyone avoids eye contact with Jesus at all costs.

 

Then, Jesus sits down. That’s what rabbis do when they’re teaching, at least, in Jesus’s day. Jesus sitting down is a signal that there is something his friends need to learn, so he calls them all to gather around him, and they do just that. We don’t know how big Peter’s house was. Maybe they are outside in a garden. Maybe they are on a patio of some kind.

 

Jesus speaks: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” he says. Greatness, in the kingdom of God, is not what we expect. We think greatness correlates with power, with dominance, and an unabashed display of self-interest, but for Jesus, it could not be more different.

 

Jesus brings a little child and puts her in the midst of the disciples. (Let’s imagine it’s a girl.) They’re in Peter’s house… is it his child? How little is little? Is she three? Four? However old she is, I have no doubt she is loved by her parents and extended family. But here’s the hard truth about children when Jesus was walking the earth. They were the most vulnerable people of all. Putting aside the child mortality rate, which was high, Roman law gave the father, the head of the household, “the power of life and death over all except his wife. He had the right to kill his child of any age (ius vitae necisque), the right to decide whether a newborn would be allowed to live or would be exposed to the elements to die, and the right to sell his children into slavery. It was not uncommon for an unwanted… baby to be exposed.”[i]

 

That’s the world Jesus and his disciples inhabit. Now, hear what Jesus says about this little child: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

 

Jesus is speaking to this question of greatness, but from a very different vantage point than his followers. In bringing a child to everyone’s attention, Jesus is bringing the last person anyone would think of as “great.” And yet, he accords her the dignity, not just of any adult, but of himself. Of his Father. Welcoming a little child, Jesus says, is like welcoming God.

This seems outrageous even to us, doesn’t it? We believe all children should be cared for, should have plenty of food to eat, seasonally appropriate clothes to wear, a warm bed to sleep in, and all the love in the world. And, again, I’m not claiming that no one loved their children in the ancient world—I’m sure they did. But to give a young child the stature of God is strange. What does it mean? How can we make sense of it?

 

The kingdom of God is a topsy-turvy place. That’s where we begin. Almost nothing is as we expect it. Whoever wants to be first must be last, must be the servant. Children were often literal servants in the first century—some were sold into slavery. And to a certain extent that made them invisible—servants, slaves, were supposed to do their work while blending in with the surroundings, not drawing attention to themselves.

 

But Jesus is drawing attention to this child, the kind of attention no one expects. She has the right to every bit of dignity, every comfort, every advantage that the greatest person in the land has. Instead of letter her blend into the background, Jesus wants us to see her. Instead of being regarded as a nuisance or just another mouth to feed, she is to be cherished. Instead of being turned or chased away, she is to be welcomed.

 

Some years ago, during one of the many refugee crises we’ve all followed in the news, one group that was fundraising reminded potential donors, “There’s no such thing as other people’s children.” Maybe this is Jesus’ point. There is no such thing as other people’s children. All children are our responsibility. Jesus places in front of his disciples a child who is probably well-cared for. But remember, he spends his days on the road, greeting stranger after stranger, family after family. Healing child after child. And he offers his welcome to all, whether they are related to one of his disciples or not. We walk in Jesus’ way, and so we’re invited to do the same. We do it through our Food Pantry. We do it through offerings such as the upcoming Global Witness and Peacemaking Offering. We do it through our relationship with the Jennie F. Snapp Middle School. We share our resources so that we can help to care for children we may never meet, because there is no such thing as other people’s children. All children are our children. All children deserve everything they need to thrive, whether they are natives of Endicott or Binghamton or Venezuela or Haiti.

 

Do the disciples get it? That remains to be seen. They’ll probably be jostling for position for a while yet. I’ll spoil Ted Lasso for you, though. Eventually, Jamie Tartt gets it. He learns to pass the ball to other players, and not to hog it every time for his own glory. Working under a coach who is less concerned about victory and more concerned about helping every player to be the best person they can be, Jamie learns to be a member of a team—one of the eleven. Jamie learns that being the greatest isn’t actually the point. Being someone the people around you can depend on is the point. Being someone who sees the world with a generous heart is the point. Being someone whose cares and concerns go beyond the self, is the point.

 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 


[i] Carol Ashby, “The Roman Family: Power of the Father, Rights of the Mother, Fate of the Children,” from Life in the Roman Empire: Fact and Fiction, c. 2016-2024. https://carolashby.com/roman-family-power-rights-children/#:~:text=His%20children%2C%20young%20and%20grown,lives%20of%20her%20husband's%20familia.