Sports fans will know that Muhammad Ali today is called the greatest. Ali himself used to tell everyone “I am the greatest,” but not everyone agreed, especially when he was younger.
He became the greatest in the eyes of the world over the last 40 years. Muhammad Ali used to “float like a butterfly” and “sting like a bee”. Ali would dodge a punch while he used a very unconventional style, with hands held low, as he bobbed and weaved.
In 1964, he was far from the Greatest. He was an underdog. Hardly anyone gave him any hope of winning the fight.
But he won and became the Heavy Weight Champion of the world.
Then he lost his title and had to win it back in the so-called “Rumble in the Jungle”, against then champion Gorge Foreman. Yes indeed. Young people might be surprised to know that Foreman was an athlete before earning his current fame as the salesman of George Forman grills.
Ali was the World’s Heavy weight champ once again.
Then he lost his title to Leon Spinks.
But he won it back from Spinks not long afterward.
Ali became the only person in history to win the Heavy Weight title three times, and even his critics agreed that he was the Greatest.
Ali would have the spotlight once more in 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Ali, with hands trembling from the Parkinson’s Disease he now suffers from, lit the cauldron to signify the start of the Summer Olympic Games. Many people shed tears as they watched “The Greatest” light the torch.
Because of his accomplishments, the world calls Ali “The Greatest”. And while Ali’s story is inspiring and should stir the emotions of our heart, what the world calls great and what the Lord calls great are often two very different things.
While Ali became great by winning the Heavy Weight title three times, God isn’t impressed by such accomplishments.
We think of people who are rich as great.
We think of people who have great jobs, and are at the top of their career as great.
We think of people who win American Idol as great.
We think of celebrities as great.
While God desires good things in our life, he is more concerned with our character than with our trophies.
While he enables us to do great things, what God really wants of us is that we do His will. What He really wants us to accomplish is not that we gather trophies that will gather dust, but that we practice Faith, Hope and Love that will never become dusty, useless trophies.
In our Scripture reading for today, Jesus and his disciples are on a journey and they pass through Galilee. As they walk along the way, Jesus becomes aware that some of his disciples are arguing among themselves.
When they reach their destination, he asks them about why they were arguing, and the disciples keep quiet. Of course they kept quiet. They were spiritually mature enough to know that what they had been talking about was inappropriate and that Jesus would not approve.
They had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.
Jesus turns their world – and ours – upside down by saying, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
1. TO BE THE GREATEST MEANS TO BECOME A SERVANT
If we want to have real greatness – not the kind the world gives, but the kind God recognizes -- we need to learn to serve.
Now that goes against the grain of what our society teaches. We always have the desire to be first. We want to have it our way, our will, our needs are most important!
Jesus said that he who seeks to be the greatest needs to become the last and must be the servant of all.
Most of us do not want to serve other people. We want to be served. We want someone to wait on us hand and foot.
We think very highly of ourselves.
I was talking with a teacher last week who was telling me that a child in her class was insisting that he be allowed to use the restroom in the office area, which was reserved for the staff. The teacher made the off-hand remark, “Do you think you are better than everyone else.”
And the child said, “Yes. I am.”
Not only that, but the child must have gone home and told his parents that he was forced to use the student restroom. Upset about this, the parents called the school and confirmed that yes, indeed, their child was in fact better than the other children.
We have been teaching the doctrine of “good self-esteem” for so long and we have found that it is beginning to backfire. We should have been teaching good social esteem. We need to think well of ourselves, and well of other people.
I have a friend who is an historian and he wrote a book about the Titanic several years ago. He told me that one of the things that struck him most among all of the stories of the night the Titanic sank were those stories of the engineers. Those men knew better than anyone else about the condition of the ship. Those men know that that ship was sinking. Those men knew they were going to die. They could have deserted their posts and tried to find room on a life boat, but they stayed below keeping the engines working so that the ship would have electrical power. They knew the longer the ship had electrical power the better the chances were that another ship would find them and come to the rescue. They knew that as long as the electrical power was working and the lights were on, the less people would panic.
Some of us would probably die for our husband or wife, or our parent or child. These people died for strangers.
That is a sense of service your rarely find in this world today.
The story is told about Mother Teresa. A visitor to her hospital in Calcutta saw her tending to the cuts and bruises of a frail and impoverished AIDS patient. The visitor admitted to her, "I’d never do that for a million dollars!"
Mother Teresa answered, "Neither would I. But I do it for Jesus for nothing."
To become great in the eyes of the world you must be successful in business, become rich, have the best house and the best car.
But in the eyes of God, greatness comes to us when we put our own needs aside and serve someone else.
And it does not have to be the kind of Mother Teresa type of dramatic serving.
It see it when a person volunteers time to work with Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or in schools.
We see servants going to Haiti from this church – but we also see servants who never go to Haiti, but who will help pack the drugs and medicines, or contribute the clothing we send to Haiti.
We see servants teaching in Sunday School or taking youth to this weekend’s camping trip.
We see servants giving money to the hungry and the poor.
Now, as if this concept of serving is not challenging enough, Jesus takes it one step further and tells us whom we are to serve.
It is easy to serve those who are delightful people, cheerful and grateful.
But not everyone is like that.
2. BEING THE GREATEST WILL MEAN THAT WE HAVE TO BECOME LIKE A CHILD
In our New Testament lesson, Jesus invited a noisy little kid over to where he sat with his disciples. He put his arms round the child and said something along the lines of, "You know something, If you can recognize the rights of a little child like this, if you can welcome and receive what he can teach you, then you’ll be doing the will of God, then you’ll be coming near to greatness, then you’ll be a hero. Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives me; and whoever receives Me does not just receive me, but Him who sent me".
It is difficult for us to understand what is happening here, because we have a completely different view of children in our culture.
In our society, children are loved and spoiled and fretted over. We give them tremendous protection under the law.
But at the time Jesus was speaking children had no rights,
no privileges,
no legal status,
no voice whatsoever.
They were non people.
They didn’t matter.
They didn’t count.
We have lost the element of surprise that this incident must have had on it’s first hearers. Our social conventions are so radically different to those of antiquity.
Sometimes we look upon childhood with a romantic view, as a period of simplicity and innocence. In those times no such notion existed.
And so when we read this text, we think that Jesus is talking about embracing innocence, loving little ones, or simplicity. It is easy to think that Jesus is telling us to be innocent and loving and simple.
But no – in that time a child, particularly a female child, just didn’t count for much, simply wasn’t important.
The child Jesus embraces stands for all people who are not held in high regard, all those without a place, all those without a voice.
What Jesus is telling us to do is to serve and embrace those people who do not count in our lives.
Who is it – in your heart – who is held in low esteem?
Who is it – in your heart – who is out of place?
Who is it – in your heart – who is without voice?
Who is it – in your heart – who is worthless?
Is it the poor?
The uneducated?
Is it someone who speaks a different language?
A person of a different race?
Is it someone who is gay?
Is it someone who is Muslem?
Is it someone who goes to the wrong high school, or lives in the wrong neighborhood, or -- or what?
I bet most of you know about the Marriott Corporation. Many of you have probably stayed at a Marriott while on a trip.
What you may not know, and what I did not know until I read about it this week, is that this company was started in 1927 by a young man named J. Willard Marriott. It started, not as a hotel, but as a nine-seat root beer stand, called the Hot Shoppe, in Washington, D.C. It prospered, and a few years later he opened another in Baltimore. Expanding to in-flight catering at Washington’s old Hoover Airport and cafeterias at federal government sites, the future hotel magnate focused on food service management for several more decades.
In 1957, Marriott entered the hotel industry, opening a hotel in Virginia. In 1975, they opened their first hotel in Europe. In 1981, they opened their 100th hotel. In 1995, they opened their 1,000th hotel. They now have over 2,000 hotels.
Marriot died not long ago, but in the 1980s he was asked what made his hotel’s so great. His response was, “We are great because we are here to serve.” And told the story of how the employees were losing touch with their purpose of serving. The company was discovering that the wealthy and successful business travelers were getting great service, while the average customer was not being served so well.
So to help refocus the hotel workers, they created a program called the "Phantom Shopper."
Imagine an inspector, posing as a customer, visiting a unit and rating the service he’s received. Then he pulls out his ID card. If the service has been good, he turns over the card and hands the server a $20 bill clipped to the back. If the service is bad, there’s no $20 bill. On the card it says, "Oops!" If someone gets the "Oops!", the company sends the employee to be retrained.
The concept is that you don’t just treat the wealthy business customers with great service, you treat each and every person with great service.
Jesus reached out to a worthless child who had no power, no rights, no voice, and said, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."
So fill in the blank. “Whoever welcomes one of these --- poor. Whoever welcomes one of these Muslems. Whoever welcomes one of those people who speak a different language. Whoever welcomes – who? Welcomes me.”
That’s what greatness is.
It is not how much money you make, or how your business takes you all over the world, or how many times you win the World’s Heavy Weight title, or how many golf games you win, or how highly you are regarded that makes you great.
What makes you highly regarded -- is your ability to reach down to the lowly regarded.
Can we do that?
Can we become great?
Copyright 2006, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com
