whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Jesus, teach us to be servants. LORD, don't let us lord it over those you entrust to us. Don't let us make our authority felt. May it not be so among us.
Earthly paradigms teach us that we need to do all we can to protect ourselves. We often run into people who do plot against us to destroy us by our own tongue. We all lament those who "carefully note" our every word to use them against us. When we have experiences like this we become defensive. We use our power and positions of responsibility out of a motivation of fear that cannot fully enter into service. We are too worried about ourselves to give of ourselves. We end up imposing our authority a little more strongly than is needed. We end up lording it over those you entrust to us, even in little ways. We impose emphasis to the places where we do have power because these places seem to be safe. This is hard to avoid when people plot against us even though we stand before the them to speak on their behalf to turn your wrath from. If we find ourselves in Jeremiah's position it is hard not to insist on our own rights, to make our own authority felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Jesus, how should it be among us? How should it be among those who follow you?
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
You only call us to that which you yourself perfectly embody.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.
When you begin to tell us about the way of the cross we risk this retreat into self-preservation. We hear that "they will condemn him to death, and him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified" and we run away. We shield our emotions from this deepest revelation of service and self-giving. We are OK with ideas of glory with you. We want to sit at your right and at your left. There is a sense in which this isn't wrong. But you want to teach us what it means to drink the chalice you drink. You want to teach us to make our hearts vulnerable before your cross and therefore open to service. Only when we are fully exposed, standing at the foot of your cross do we understand and appreciate the significance, the hope, the real and true glory of the fact that "He will be raised on the third day." Running from the cross is running from the resurrection.
We hear the crowds whispering and they frighten us as the plot and consult to take our lives. But he who seeks to save his life will lose it. Teach us to trust in you LORD Jesus. You enable us to lose our lives for your sake and so to find them. It is your saving power in which we trust, LORD.
But my trust is in you, O LORD;
I say, "You are my God."
In your hands is my destiny; rescue me
from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors.
With this trust in our hearts we do not fear those who plot against us. We need not use our authority to protect ourselves from them. With reckless abandon we can be the slave and servant of all. With this trust in our hearts we find joy and true life even as we give ourselves away.
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