“True Greatness in the Kingdom of God” Mark 9.30-37 Pentecost 17B, Sept. ‘15

1.      Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word today comes from Mark 9:30-37.  Here we see our Lord Jesus teach us about, “True Greatness in the Kingdom of God.”  First, Jesus teaches us what this meant for Him (vs. 30-32) and second, He teaches us what this means for us His followers (vs. 33-37).  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.      The TV series Downton Abbey portrays a great household, clearly divided between nobility and servants. There’s little doubt about who is greatest here: Lord Grantham, with his family arrayed underneath him. The servants are beneath the members of the family. They slave away to provide the family with a life of comfort, ease, and luxury. The lowest in the house, at least as the series begins, is the kitchen maid Daisy. Her duties include kneeling down to dirty her hands cleaning the fireplaces. She’s last of all and servant of all. Here are the world’s standards of greatness and service.

3.      Jesus’ words turn this well-ordered world upside down. The greatest in the Son of Man’s kingdom is the lowest of all, the servant of all (Mk 9:35). True greatness doesn’t come from having servants arrayed underneath one, but from serving others. Jesus’ words would declare Daisy the greatest in the household, above any member of the family. When Jesus came to this world, he came as a servant, working like the servants in Downton Abbey to serve us. He dirtied his hands, stained with his own blood, to cleanse us from sin. Jesus’ Church rejoices in the Son of Man who comes to serve us, freeing us from sin.

4.       What does the world view as greatness?  We have many examples of this in our world today.  A radio commentator not long ago revealed the disturbing results of a poll taken among U.S. high school students on the subject of cheating. About half admitted freely they’d be glad to cheat if they could get away with it, to get ahead of the next guy. That’s not just a youth problem, either. In business, on the road in rush hour, in sports, and in school, the main thing is to get ahead, to come out on top, to avoid holding the short end of the stick. Because Jesus knows that all of us have this “me first” attitude, he makes a special point to tell us that true greatness in the kingdom of God is living a life of service to our neighbor, just as Jesus the Son of Man didn’t come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.

5.      It’s God’s power that changes us from being self-centered and selfish to living a life of service to our neighbor.  It was God who humbled David after he had been trying to serve himself and his own sinful desires after having adultery with Bathsheba.  God reminded Jeremiah that as His prophet he was to continue to serve Him and proclaim the Word of God in all of its fullness no matter the cost.  And, it’s God who changed you too in your Baptism, with power based on Jesus’ saving acts (v 31; cf. Rom 6:1–4). We begin each new day with Baptismal repentance of our sins.  God changes us through His Son Jesus Christ from being centered on ourselves to instead looking to the needs of others.

6.      Jesus reminds us that we should care for the poor and the least of these among us, the people who are unable to care for themselves, who need our help.  At home parents care for their children: they take time, slow down, and make sacrifices for them.  We care for children at risk in our society due to child abuse, kidnapping, child pornography, and academic decline in schools.

7.      Take for instance, moms and dads who work hard to raise their children.  They may sacrifice careers, hobbies, and other pleasures. Often they feel they’re getting nowhere. But a parent’s humble service frequently pays off much later, when children may care for their parents in old age, or when the children are able to endure crises, even long after the parents are around to see it. After he made it to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln said, “God bless my mother. All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to her.” In a much deeper way, the Lord will bless the efforts of those who put themselves out for the lowly, even if they don’t always see the results this side of heaven.

8.      Jesus calls us to serve our neighbor.  Turn to welcome Christ in your neighbor (v 37).  Mark 9:37 says, ³⁷“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”  It’s time to deny ourselves, all for the love of Jesus, who long ago turned away from the world’s comforts to embrace the cross.  This is true greatness in the Kingdom of God.

9.      For you Jesus walked willingly to the horrors awaiting him in Jerusalem.  Even his own disciples didn’t understand why he wanted to do it.  Jesus says in our text from Mark 9:31, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” ³²But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.”  Jesus acted out God’s gracious love and treasured us undeserving sinners.  And, He opened the door to true greatness.  Jesus became great in his Father’s sight by becoming obedient to death on the cross.  Jesus is great to us who treasure him as the only Savior and Redeemer.

10.  Now as followers of Jesus, through our baptisms and the hearing of His Holy Word, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to imitate Jesus’ style.  We seek to honor Jesus and what he values, whether we “get ahead” or not.  Jesus will use you to bless others.

11.  But, remember you’ll be tempted not to serve in Christ’s lowly way because you think nobody sees, or it makes no difference. When Noah and his loved ones were floating around during the great flood, where was their comfort? Scripture says, “But God remembered Noah and all the animals with him in the ark” (Gen 8:1). God used Noah to save his family, and the whole human race. There’s your comfort! God sees you. He knows what you’re doing. He remembers you, even when nobody else notices. So pay less attention to what the world says, and a lot more to him who remembers you. On the last day, your service of Christ will be remembered.  This is what true greatness in the Kingdom of God is all about.

12.  Life can get so busy, so stressful, and so competitive that it has us going around in circles. Jesus calls us to deny our sinful desires, turn away from the world’s mindset that eventually leads to self-destruction, and to turn toward him. Jesus calls us to value each and every person, not for what they can do for us, but for what God, working through us, can do for them. He promises to meet us in each person we serve in his name. He came among us to serve and lay down his life for us for the forgiveness of our sins. He has taken up his life again, to be with us always. May we serve our neighbor in Christian love, just as our Lord Jesus came to serve us!  Amen.

“Jesus- I Believe, Help My Unbelief” Mark 9.14–29, Sept, ‘15 Series B

1.                              Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  In our Gospel lesson today taken from Mark 9:14-29 we see that Jesus descends from the Mount of Transfiguration and meets a defiant demon, an anxious father, an astonished crowd, and despairing disciples. Even today, despair threatens to overwhelm our faith by pointing out how we fail to change or improve in our Christian lives. But, we see in the Gospel lesson today that Jesus doesn’t linger in the glory of the transfiguration, but descends to a world of despair and doubt so that He may deliver us.  Today we ask Jesus to give us faith to overcome our doubts, and help us believe that all things are possible with Him.  The message is entitled, “Jesus:  I Believe, Help My Unbelief.”  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                              Mark 9:14–29 says, “¹⁴ And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. ¹⁵ And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. ¹⁶ And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” ¹⁷ And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. ¹⁸ And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” ¹⁹ And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” ²⁰ And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. ²¹ And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” ²³ And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” ²⁴ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” ²⁵ And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” ²⁶ And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” ²⁷ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. ²⁸ And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” ²⁹ And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

3.                              The most important thing in the entire world is to learn to say, “I believe.”  Without faith in the one true God and Jesus Christ, whom He sent, there’s no salvation.  By the grace of God, a child can say it.  By the grace of God, given through Holy Baptism my daughter Eleanor has saving faith.  Without the Holy Spirit, the wisest man on earth doesn’t even know what it means to believe.  The disciples had made a fine confession of their faith earlier in Mark’s Gospel.  Now we see that their faith fails them in a crucial moment.  What could we expect from this troubled father in our text?  May the Lord teach us all to believe, to help us in the midst of our unbelief!

4.                              Here in Mark 9 Jesus, with Peter, James, and John, had been on the Mount of Transfiguration.  This amazing experience had lifted the disciples far above the distasteful things of this world.  They had a foretaste of heaven.  To a lesser degree, we too have moments when we feel the nearness of God, when in God’s Word and Sacraments Jesus reveals to us His love.  But, the return to the realities of life in this world are unavoidable.

5.                              As the little group came down from the mountain, they saw that the other disciples were in the midst of an agitated crowd.  In the front were the scribes, who were questioning the disciples and taking advantage of their inability to heal a demon possessed boy.  In the absence of Jesus, the disciples had tried to drive out the demon that was harassing the child.  Before the scribes could answer Jesus about why they were arguing with the disciples, the father of the boy poured out his story.  His son had from early childhood been troubled by a demon who would cast him to the ground, trying to destroy him by throwing him into fire and water.  The father hoped Jesus would do what the disciples couldn’t.  Heal this child.

6.                              Faith that takes God at His Word and lays hold of His almighty power can never fail.  It can truly move mountains.  Deeply moved the father cries out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”  This man detests the weakness of his faith, but he goes straight the Jesus, the only One who can make up for his lack of faith.  When we go to Jesus where He promises to be found in His Word and Sacraments, we find that our own weak faith is strengthened in our hour of need.  Here in Mark 9 we see how soon the time of need and sorrow was over for the troubled soul of that father!  Before the crowd could grow larger, Jesus rebuked the demon, commanding it to leave the child forever.  As always, the voice of Jesus, the Son of God, demands obedience.  Although the demon cried out in anger and gave the boy a blow so vicious that he appeared to be dead, Jesus took him by the hand and restored him to life and health.      

7.                              In this passage from Mark 9 we learn of what to do with our doubt, despair, and unbelief.  We take them to our Lord Jesus who alone can give us saving faith to believe in Him, which He’s done through the hearing of His Holy Word and the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  There was a pastor who once encountered a young man who was a devout Christian, but he suffered from cerebral palsy.  He told the pastor that some of his friends had come to him and said, “We’re going to heal you of your cerebral palsy.”  So, they had laid hands on him and pronounced him whole, but Harvey still had cerebral palsy.  Then they told him, “The problem is that you don’t have enough faith, and if you don’t have enough faith, you will never be healed.  If you really want to be healed, you have to claim your healing in Jesus’ name.  You have to believe that you are healed before you can be healed.”  When he remained unhealed, they eventually had concluded that he must be guilty of a heinous sin that was blocking the healing.  Finally, they had declared he must be under demonic possession, so they had planned an exorcism and tried to drive the demon out of him, but still he wasn’t healed.  Finally he came to the pastor in tears and said, “Pastor do you think that I’m possessed by a demon?”  The pastor told him that he didn’t think so, then he prayed that Harvey would have peace and that he would trust the Lord with His body and his life, because sometimes God says “no” even to the most passionate prayers.

8.                              This kind of thing goes on ever day in America and around the world.  Blind people are told to believe they can see and they try their best to do so, but they open their eyes and can’t see a thing.  The lame are told to believe they can walk, but they can’t get out of their wheelchairs and walk.  So, some people say the problem is with them, they have a poor faith.  But, no one asks the obvious question, “If faith is all that is needed, why doesn’t he healer himself have enough faith to cause the healing to take place?” 

9.                              We can’t make a decision to believe something that we don’t actually believe.  We can repent of our sins by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We can learn about Jesus and study His Holy Word.  We can make decisions to do all kinds of things that will affect our future behavior, but what we can’t do is create saving faith in Jesus as our Savior by our own willpower.  This is what’s wrong with modern evangelism techniques that suggest that all a person has to do is make a decision and faith will well up in his soul.  It doesn’t work like that.  Paul tells us in Romans that faith comes by hearing, it comes by the Word of God that points us to Jesus as our Savior from sin, death and the power of the devil.  It’s the Holy Spirit who creates saving faith, as we recognize today with the baptism of my daughter Eleanor.  Mark 16:16 says, “16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

10.              The father of this young boy who was demon possessed was in the presence of Jesus, the Author of Faith.  Hebrews 12:2 says, “^2[look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Jesus called him to trust Him.  He had every reason to believe that Jesus had the power to do something for his son, but he wasn’t completely sure that he believed enough.  So, he cried out in tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).  Every Christian has some level of saving faith in their heart.  But, the intensity of that faith isn’t constant.  It increases and diminishes.  No matter how strong your faith is, there are moments in this life when it’s assaulted by the devil.  Sometimes it can seem as if your faith is barely hanging on, and you make a prayer much like this man made to Jesus, “I believe, but my belief isn’t perfect, it isn’t strong.  I need help.  Help me with my unbelief.”  When you’re assaulted with doubts and your faith is weak, go to the source of faith, the Word of God that points you to Jesus as your Savior.  Trust in your baptism, that you were washed and cleansed of all of your sin and made a child of God through water and the Word.  Trust in His body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins in the Lord’s Supper.  There’s no time in your life when your faith is stronger than when you are immersed in God’s Word and His Sacraments.  Staying close to God’s Word, listening to the promises of our Lord Jesus are the things that kill unbelief and build a powerful faith that doesn’t let you down in the midst of doubt, despair, and unbelief.  Amen.

11.              Please pray with me:  Dear Jesus, we pray that You have patience with us.  Help us not to wait until the trouble that surrounds us is so great that we can hardly see Your presence for our tears.  May we rather come and learn of Your grace and power to help and to save, so that when Satan assails us and our loved ones, we may not doubt but believe, so that the mountains of difficulties and the depth of despair may not rob us of the certainty that You are mightier than Satan and sorrow.  We, too, pray, “I believe; help my unbelief!”  Amen.