“Winners and Winners
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
October 17, 2021
Isaiah 53:4-12
Mark 10:32-45
This is the third time—the third time that Jesus has talked about what will happen to him in Jerusalem; the third time the disciples have been confused and even appalled by his teaching; the third time they have mistakenly approached Jesus with their own ideas of power and success; and the third time that Jesus has countered with a paradox—a saying that turns the world’s values upside down.
The first time Jesus tells them about his death, Peter rebukes him. “No, Lord, you’ve got it wrong. We will win! The Messiah is supposed to be victorious!” And Jesus calls him an accuser and tells him to get behind him—to follow him, not presume to lead. Because those who seek to save their lives will lose them; but those who lose their lives for the sake of the gospel will save them.
The second time Jesus tries, the disciples respond by quietly arguing about who is greater. And Jesus turns them back around by saying that the first will be last and the last will be first. And finally, today, in response to telling about his death and resurrection, James and John want places of honor beside him in his glory. They still don’t get it. Jesus’ glory isn’t in the resurrection. It isn’t in some victorious battle. It’s on the cross.
Mark will tell us only a few short chapters later that Jesus is crucified with two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Criminals, flanking Jesus in his glory. Truth be told, Jesus’ world just doesn’t make any sense to us. Glory in a death penalty. And not a matter of revenge but a matter of love. Of grace. Of self-giving service to something more powerful than Rome. A ransom offered—not to buy us back from God or from Satan but to buy us back from our own twisted sense of victory and success. A ransom meant to turn our views of the world upside down—to help us see how the first are last and the last are first; how trying to save our own lives is counter-productive; how being great means lowering ourselves in order to serve others.
I love hearing about people in various sports who defy expectations as they help an opponent do their best. I recently talked about a runner who saw his competitor misjudge the finish line, and instead of passing him by to claim first place, he urged him on, allowing his opponent to win as he should have. Just this past week, a sophomore cross country runner from Omaha collapsed on the course with only 75 meters to go. A senior from Bellevue, “running his last high school cross country race, gave up 3 spots in the final results to stop,” help him up, and get him to the finish line.
My sister and brother-in-law teach in Charles City, IA where a senior player who had experienced painful muscle cramps in the past saw an opponent go down on the field with a cramp in his leg. While waiting for trainers to come and help, the senior went over and helped the other player stretch out and relieve the cramp. The player stayed by his opponent’s side through the rest of the game and let his coach replace him on the field.
These aren’t astronomical events. They aren’t life-changing, necessarily. But they are moments of service—moments in which the goal before them shifts. It is no longer about a win. It is no longer about glory. It is about helping, serving, compassion. When a whole team on the court or on the ice make way for a player with a disability to make a basket or shoot a goal. When the world, for a moment, is less about fighting against each other and more about working together for something even better.
These little glimpses into the Kin-dom of Heaven are great reminders that the world isn’t all doom and gloom—regardless what you hear me talking about week in and week out. That we have the capacity for such great good. That we can and do shift our goals to serve others, often without even thinking about it. It’s a measure of our freedom that we are not bound to look at the world through a lens of winners and losers but through the lens of the cross. The lens of abundant life for all.
David Lose, a former seminary professor and current parish pastor, suggests that service is a matter of freedom. We tend to push against each other, insisting on our own freedom, autonomy, and self-determination. And yet, the expression of true freedom—freedom from the expectations of others, freedom from the fight for more, freedom from comparing ourselves with others—comes when we willingly choose to be bound to one another. To serve one another. To help one another.
I’m reminded of the Indigo Girls song, The Power of Two. In it, they sing,
“The steel bars between me and a promise
Suddenly bend with ease
The closer I'm bound in love to you
The closer I am to free”
The closer I’m bound in love to you, the closer I am to free. I can think of no better way to express what Jesus is saying to the disciples here and in the previous passages. He’s trying to get them to see that being free means being bound to another; that being great means bending down; that being first means coming in last for the sake of someone else. This is so counter to the way our world today—and the world back then—works that when we see examples of this, we are astounded. Those sports stories go viral within days—because we need to hear the stories, because we are surprised by them, because they are the exception and not the rule.
Sometimes, we’re scandalized by such stories. I had read somewhere that a Sister of Mercy serving with Mother Teresa in Calcutta was once tending to the festering, oozing sores of a destitute patient when a tourist came to see the famous hospital. The tourist commented, “I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world.” The sister looked up and replied, “Neither would I.”
We long for these stories. We long to hear about people shifting their goals in order to lift others up. We long to be those famed individuals who, without a thought, turn around. Make room. Stand beside. Walk alongside. Wait for.
And sometimes, we long for someone else to stop their own frantic running and look at us, broken along the road, needing a hand, praying for a look or a shoulder to lean on or an ear to listen. Friends, this is why we are a community. Being a Christian is never about getting ourselves into a place of glory. It, instead, is about glorifying another. Lifting up another. There are no winners until all cross the finish line. And this isn’t some ‘everyone gets a participation ribbon’ kind of theology. Because Christianity isn’t a competition. It isn’t a race.
At this week’s council meeting Jeff read a devotion for us before we began. It was a story about a woman who, during the pandemic, was able to devote more time and energy to her garden. And she was so proud of the produce she raised. She had beautiful tomatoes—and so many. And she felt so good about it until she saw her neighbor’s garden. Her neighbor had more tomatoes—as well as kale and squash and peppers and so many vegetables she couldn’t even name. And all of a sudden, she was a little ashamed of her little garden that did so well. And she was jealous of the fruits of her neighbor. As if it was a competition.
But in all of this comparison, we miss the real point. It’s not about who produces the most. It’s about what we do with what we have. We aren’t created so that we can get ahead and be better than our neighbors. We are created to partner with our neighbors in service to others. We are created to serve—just as Christ has served us. We are created to be in community—so that when we are in need, we know there is someone to turn to. Someone who can lift us up. Someone who will pat our backs and let us cry.
Life isn’t a competition. Faith isn’t a competition. We have already won, thanks to the God who went down in order to lift us up.
Pastor Tobi White
Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church
Lincoln, NE
