Tuesday Sermon: True Greatness

          Today's Gospel hits home with me.  When I was ordained, responsible for guiding the souls of this church, concerned with numbers in both of people and of monies, I focused on everything but concentrating on my own responsibility.  There's a story that put today's lesson into perspective.

          A preacher uses his cute, young children in every sermon:  his four-year-old daughter Elena is not only beautiful, but she's also a genius.  He told her often how proud of her that he is for various things, and how smart he thinks she is.  One day in the car as they were driving, dad hears from the back seat after a bit of driving silence:  'Daddy, I think I might be the smartest girl in the whole world.'  Okay, at four, she's cute, but the reason it's cute is because of the naiveté of a child.  A statement like that when wrapped in roots of pride and arrogance beginning to bud in the words of a fledgling Pharisee bloom in our ears and should make us cringe at our own words.

          Like today's gospel, we're often talking about political and societal position.  The disciples were seeking political rank, social status, perks and power that come from being buddies with the King. They're wondering about the org chart.

          In these words of Jesus, I must be converted from pride to humility; from worldly ambition to spiritual ambition; from godlessness to godliness.  Jesus has told us, we must be born again!  The gospel wasn't given to us to just to be an easy ride into a good place; it was given to cleanse us of sin by His blood and change our lives, from the inside out!  When I obey the gospel, I'm not just saying, "I was wrong about the church."  I'm actually saying, "I was wrong about how I was living my life, wrong in my behavior, wrong in my attitudes, ambitions and associations – I was lost!"

          Christ focused His listeners, "calling to Him a child, He put [the youth] in the midst of them and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'"  If we attempt to realize our own hubris, the size of our world, the amount of our knowledge, particularly when compared to Christ, we realize that like the pastor who recognizes the cute 4-year-old, we, too, must recognize that we are naïve, our world is quite small, and our understanding and perspective is actually quite trifling. 

          But here, Christ is telling us, with our own perspective of many more years than the 4-year-old child, we need to realize that we are still children in God's eyes, and eliminate the hubris, pride and arrogance that we practice, and change our attitudes in recognition of our actual reality.  We truly are children.  God, the all-powerful, the all wise, all good, perfectly right:  God, is asking us to see ourselves in relationship to Him, not relative to each other.

          Christ's message today is, if we want to be the best among the rest of the disciples, we're aiming far too low.  To enter heaven, we must realize that we are the child's position and have so much to learn in knowledge, in understanding.  We need to set aside our rights and privileges, and recognize our neediness and dependence,  The best way we can emulate Christ's actions is for us to serve others the way He served us.