1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this Christian Education Sunday is taken from Matthew 18:1-20, it’s entitled, “The Greatest,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. "Greatest" according to the mind of God doesn’t come from accomplishment, advancement, or accolade. To be the greatest is to become the least. In a sermon called “The Tiger,” Frederick Buechner describes a basic human dilemma. Human beings have been crafted by God. We’ve been made in His image. Among other things, this means we’ve been designed to think, speak, and act in certain ways. But here is the dilemma: We do not... not completely, at least. More often than not, we operate by the wisdom of the world. We think, speak, and act in decidedly unhuman ways. Buechner describes his own malfunction: “I adjust myself to the world. I make its standards my standards, its wisdom my wisdom, its goals my goals. And my world adjusts me to itself—where it cannot break me in, it breaks me off and breaks me up” (printed in The Magnificent Defeat, 1966, page 94).
3. Buechner’s description reminds me of Jesus’ assessment of Peter’s thinking in last week’s Gospel reading in Matthew 16. After calling him Satan, Jesus rebuked Peter for adjusting himself to the world’s standards. “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23). Unfortunately, Peter isn’t unique. All of us (preachers included) set our minds on the things of this world more often than we would like to admit. Rather than listening to our heavenly Father, who has instilled in us a “longing for paradise”, we continually exchange the truths of God for a lie and content ourselves with unhuman being.
4. “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” (Matthew 18:1). It was not an innocent question. It revealed something wrong with their thinking. Some questions are like that. You can tell by how it is phrased that something is amiss. “Why should I have to do the dishes?” or “How can we get out of the family reunion this year?” or “When do I get to be the weaker brother?” or “Should we call down fire from Heaven to destroy them?” You only ask such questions when there is something amiss lurking beneath the surface. So, the disciples opened their mouths and revealed their minds were not set on the things of God (at least in Mark 9:33-36 and Luke 9:46-49 they were smart enough not to ask!). And this was not the only time in Matthew’s Gospel when this kind of thinking took place. A few chapters later, James, John, and their mother showed a similar lack of shame (Matthew 20:20-28).
5. Here in Matthew 18, we see that our faith in Jesus never exists in isolation from others. As much as we might seek solitude on occasion, the fact remains that we live in community and daily interact with people God puts into our lives. So, human relationships are a concern for the child of God. Because we communicate with and live among both believers and nonbelievers, our personal associations give us opportunity not only to show our Christianity but also to share our Christianity. There are some individuals within our sphere of influence who are a joy to be near. Our interaction with them is relatively easy and spiritually edifying. But., there are others, who present challenges to us and our faith. Maybe we present the same dilemma for them.
6. This section of Matthew’s Gospel describes our life with others. Sinful human nature with its character flaws persists through the centuries. One of these blemishes is our propensity for rivalry. The disciples experienced this, too. Their question to Jesus about greatness in the kingdom of heaven shows an unhealthy competitiveness and an over-eagerness to get ahead of others. They, like us, would rather be lords than servants, the VIP rather than the ordinary man or woman in the crowd.
7. Our selfish pride is difficult to contain. Genuine humility doesn’t come naturally. We want to be noticed and appreciated. This warped sense of self can also do spiritual damage, not only to our self, but to others. Scripture here warns us about the danger of being a stumbling block to someone else’s faith. When relationships are so skewed that they become broken, we are to seek reconciliation. This begins on a personal level (Matt 18:15), even if we are not the one who has caused the problem. Matthew 18:15 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”
8. “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” It wasn’t an innocent question. It revealed something wrong with their thinking. The mind of man revealed in this question is the persistent human striving after greatness, and the recognition which goes with it. So, we think up the greatest starting line-up in the history of the game. We host annual awards to name the greatest actors, singers, and writers. We call ourselves the greatest nation on earth, and we search for leaders who will keep it this way. It happens in our personal lives, too. Students strive to sit at the top of the class. Workers fight for promotions to move up the ladder.
9. To this human way of thinking, Jesus inserts a child. Do you want to be great? Then become like a child. This was no elevation of the innocence of children, and it was not a false notion of child-like trust. Children in those days had no standing, no position, and no honor. They were nobodies, and that is the point. “Greatest” according to the mind of God doesn’t come from accomplishment, advancement, or accolade. To be the greatest is to become the least. What the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:6-9 speaks of this. “Have this mind,” Paul says. Then he describes the one who emptied Himself, humbled Himself, gave Himself to death, even death on a cross. This is the mind of Jesus, whose mind “is yours in Christ Jesus.” Jesus is the one who laid aside His outer garments and His glory and washed the disciples’ dirty feet. It was a foretaste of the humility to come.
10. Our theme this school year is “Connected” from John 15:5 where Jesus says, ““I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” This reminds us that we have no life in ourselves without Jesus, we are not great without Him. Vines not connected to the plant would dry up, and it would be impossible for them to produce fruit. Disconnected and dried up vines were worthless and would be destroyed. Jesus is the life-giving vine. He is the life-giving vine because He gave His life on the cross for us. The Father, who owns the vineyard, sent His only Son Jesus into the vineyard. On the cross, Jesus became lifeless, making the sacrifice for our sins. In His resurrection, Jesus came back to life so that all might live eternally through Him.
11. This section of Matthew’s Gospel is a vivid description of the way life works when the Gospel of Christ is the operating principle. Matthew 18:20 is the key. Our Lord says, “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them.” Our Savior, who came to this world to be among us, not apart from us, brings peace between God and us through His death on the cross. A natural result of this reconciliation is that we live in peace with others.
12. The promise is that Jesus, the only proper human object of the adjective “greatest,” made Himself nothing for His disciples and for you. His strength in weakness is our salvation and our hope. It is also our call and our privilege. You have received the great gifts of God in the name of the crucified and risen Lord, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation that comes through His death on the cross. Set Your minds on His conception of greatness... and serve Your neighbor in Christian love. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard Your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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