The Unchosen Sixty

Mark 3:13-19

Almost from the time a US president is elected, there is speculation about who will be elected the next president four years later. At the beginning, when a list is made of who the potential candidates are, the man who will eventually be elected president is often not included in the list. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton started out not being on the list but they began to campaign and go around the country, talking to people, making speeches to anyone willing to listen to them, and gradually they built up a following until they became the candidate for their political party and then won the election.

At the beginning they had difficulty finding people to work with them on their campaign. They didn’t have much money. They had trouble getting people to take them seriously. By the end, they had to fight off the people who wanted to work with them on their campaign and in the White House when they were elected.

This was not the pattern for Jesus. Jesus started out his ministry with a bang and from the beginning he had a lot of people following him and a lot of people wanting to be on his team. People saw that this was a man going somewhere and they wanted to share in the power he would have.

For some people this might seem heretical, to suggest that the followers of Jesus were like the people trying to attach themselves to a political candidate so they could share in the power of that candidate. By the end of this sermon, this will not seem like such a heretical idea.

There were a lot of people following Jesus and he had to decide who would be the ones he would pick to be leaders of the church he was intending to start. So he went up on a mountain to be alone and prayed.

Luke adds a bit of detail:
One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.  13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:

Picture the scene. The disciples slept somewhere on the mountainside while Jesus climbed to be alone. In the morning one of the disciples came to see how he was doing and Jesus sent word that they should all come to him.

So they set off, climbing the mountain until they came to where Jesus had spent the night. They stood in a group in front of Jesus and then he picked twelve of them to be in his inner group.

I don’t know about you, but when I am part of a group or organization, I like to be one of the ones picked. I do not like being left behind.

I moved to New Jersey in the summer before my eighth year of school. When I was assigned to a class, I looked around at these unfamiliar faces to see if I had been put in the class with the advanced students or the regular class. When I was in high school I liked the fact that I was in the advanced math and science classes but was upset that I was not selected for the advanced English literature class.

When I became a Christian, I began to attend Park Street Church in Boston. Park Street Church had a group of 600 college and graduate age students and workers and in this group there was a leadership team. It mattered a great deal to me that I was one of those selected to be on the leadership team.

Have you ever played a sport when the kids themselves pick the teams? You stand there in a group and then two captains are chosen. The captains then take turns picking from the group and I have some painful memories of being one of the last chosen to play. I wanted to be the first or one of the first chosen to play.

Perhaps I am revealing more of myself than I should, but I suspect I am not the only one who feels this way.

So I put myself in the position of the disciples who have climbed the mountain to see what Jesus wanted and then stand there, waiting for Jesus to began to name the ones he wanted to be on his inner team.

As I stand there waiting to hear my name called I think about why Jesus might call me. I am an enthusiastic follower of Jesus. I left behind a career to follow Jesus. I listen attentively to his teaching. I try to be helpful, working hard for the group that follows Jesus. And now I listen as he calls out the names of the twelve who have been chosen. Simon. That’s not much of a surprise. Simon always takes the lead. No surprise that he is first to be chosen. James and John. When I hear this I get excited since my birth name is John and maybe Jesus was naming me, but then he makes clear that it is John, the brother of James and son of Zebedee. Jesus continues: Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew. That’s six. There are still six more to go. Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus. Only three more. Thaddaeus. Two more. Simon the Zealot. One more to go. Will it be me? I don’t mind being the last of the twelve to be named. I would have preferred to be one of the first, but last is better than not at all. And then Jesus announces the last of the twelve: Judas. That’s it. Twelve have been chosen and I am not one of them.

How many of those who were on the mountainside with Jesus were disappointed when Jesus did not call their name and invite them to be among his team of leaders? Later Jesus sent out 72 of his disciples on a mission to expand his ministry so the sermon title reflects on the unchosen 60. But there were more than 72 followers of Jesus. The sermon title could as well be the unchosen multitudes.

Do you think the followers of Jesus were so spiritual that they did not care about such silly things as who was a leader in the group and who was not?

Read with me from Mark 9:33f:
They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?”  34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

And from Mark 10
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

These were the twelve, the best of the rest, the ones Jesus chose and what did they talk about? How they could bless people more? How they could pray more effectively? How they could better support and encourage Jesus?

No! They argued about who was the greatest of the twelve disciples. They schemed to have more power than the others. Peter took the lead most often, but others were critical of Peter for being headstrong and impulsive, thinking he would not be as good a leader as would, for example, James and John.

This was not a harmonious group of twelve men and Jesus. Just because it was Jesus and his disciples and they are in the Bible does not mean they were different than we are. Jesus was God in the flesh, without sin, but the twelve were sinners like us and behaved much like we behave.

Think about churches in which you have been involved. Have there ever been power struggles in the church? Have people ever jockeyed for position so they could control the decisions of the church? How about Christian organizations? I have friends and family at the heart of several Christian organizations and I can tell you that politics exist in Christian organizations. People scheme to get control of Christian organizations and enjoy the power their position in the organization gives them.

Secular organizations, religious organizations, charitable organizations, businesses, school clubs – it doesn’t matter; what the disciples experienced is what we all experience and so it is good for us to pay attention to the teaching Jesus gave as a way of dealing with the power struggles among his disciples.

Jesus was not unaware of the striving among his 12 disciples. When they spent the day walking to Capernaum, it seems that they did not walk with Jesus. Jesus was ahead of them and they followed from a distance. Perhaps this was a pattern and the disciples knew Jesus needed to be alone with his thoughts from time to time and walking from place to place allowed him to do that. But Jesus was not oblivious to what they were doing as they walked. When he asked them what they were arguing about as they were walking along, he knew what they were arguing about. He just wanted to bring the issue into the open.

So in Mark 9 Jesus assumed the position of teacher, sitting while his students stood around him, and began to instruct his disciples.
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

And again in Mark 10 after James and John came to Jesus and asked him to set them in the seats of power in his kingdom, Mark says the other ten heard about this.
41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.  42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.

whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

We all have people who come to mind who are not servants but seek power and delight in the exercise of power; people who are regarded as leaders and lord it over those they lead. Politicians come quickly to my mind when I think of such people. Many of the US senators and congressmen who come to this country demand to be served and are arrogant in their requests of others. I asked a man once who worked in the US embassy how a visit to Marrakech by some US senators had been. He said, “No matter how much you do for them, it is never enough,” a very discouraging observation.

Many of us have worked for people who serve their own interests and use those who work for them as if they were a hammer or screwdriver. They use you if you can be helpful to their career and discard you when you are not. People like this are in politics, the military, business and in the church.

There are also some in politics, the military, business and the church who are servants and that is very refreshing.

Have you ever met a leader who is a servant? When I talk about this does someone come to your mind? I think of Christy Wilson who worked for many years in Afghanistan sharing the gospel and then when he was expelled from that country, taught missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where I studied.

He was an amazing man. Very humble, not at all pretentious. And he was a servant. As a consequence, it was a delight to be in his presence. It was a delight to be a part of anything he was doing.

Power is not evil. It is not un-Christian to have and exercise power. Power comes with responsibility. Jesus did not tell his disciples not to want to be leaders. He said if you want to be first, if you want to be great, then first be a servant.

This leads me to four lessons about being a servant and leadership.

1. If you seek to be a servant, God will put you in the position that will allow you to use your gifts.

God created you and when he created you, he did so for a purpose. He made you to be good at some things and not so good at others. Some of what you are good at and like doing is genetic and some environmental, but in either case, God has created you to be good at certain things.

If you are a servant in wherever you find yourself, you will move to a place where you can use the gifts God has given you.

In terms of this morning’s sermon, being a servant is a pathway to leadership and power. When you work in an organization, if you operate as a servant and have gifts of leadership, you will climb to a position of responsibility in that organization.

This is not to say it will be easy. If there is someone else in that organization who is seeking after power rather than trying to be a servant, you might get pushed off to the side for a period of time. But eventually you will rise to a position of leadership and power – if not in that organization than in another.

God created me to be a leader. That is one of my gifts. I have not perfected my use of that gift and I am an imperfect leader, but leading is something that I enjoy doing.

I learned about being a servant here in Morocco from a man who was associate pastor of RPF when I came in January 2000. Marius Smith was from South Africa and I was so impressed with how he served. When I needed to go to the airport or be picked up at the airport in Casablanca, Marius volunteered to do this. I observed that he did not just do this for me, he was willing to help anyone who needed help. I spent a lot of time with him and learned the importance of being a servant.

And I set out from the beginning to try to model this part of Marius and to be a servant to this community of faith. Almost 4½ years later, I am grateful and a bit surprised to be in a position of leadership with the Village of Hope, l’Eglise Protestant and a couple other groups.

I enjoy being in a position of responsibility with RPF and these other organizations and what is gratifying to me about this is that I did not have to scheme or plot to get where I am. I did not seek to be in a position of leadership. I evolved into the responsibility I have.

If you want to lead, be a servant and God will allow you to use your gift of leadership.

2. If you have gifts of leadership and God puts you in a position of leadership, seeking to be a servant will protect you from abusing the power that comes with your position.

It is easy to let power go to your head. The first day at work when your secretary comes to you and asks if you would like a cup of coffee, you might say, “That’s OK, I can get it myself.” After a year on the job, it is easy to drift to having your secretary get you coffee in the morning and go to the store and do errands for you and type this and go get that and what is so terrible is that you do not even notice anymore that someone is helping you. What you appreciated the first day has become so routine the people who help you have become almost invisible.

There is a division of responsibility. This past week I have had workmen in our house putting in new windows. I sit and work on my computer or read while they pound away on the walls and cleanup the mess they have made. That is a division of responsibility. To be a servant I do not need to stand there and hand them the hammer when they need it or mix cement to be put on the wall.

Being a servant is remembering they are people. Being a servant is being aware of the service they are doing for you and so Annie and I made sure they had coffee and tea and pastry in the morning, a good lunch and a tea break with cookies or cake in the afternoon.

Being a servant in the position of leadership means that you recognize that those who are doing things for you are people, not tools to be used.

Let me interject here to say that sometimes in leadership you have to do difficult things. A leader in a company sometimes needs to fire an employee. Sometimes being a leader means you have to write an unfavorable report about someone else. This is part of being a leader, but even in this case, you can be a servant. You can be honest with the person about his or her problem and suggest some next steps. The person may not think you are a servant leader, but that will not necessarily be your fault.

If you remember that people you lead are people before they are tools to accomplish what you want to do, then being aware of their needs and seeing how you can serve them will protect you from the arrogance and pride that comes with leadership and the exercise of power.

3. The goal is to serve, not to lead and if you are not a leader of a group, you are still chosen by God for what you do.

What do you do if you are not picked for leadership in an organization? How should the ones not selected by Jesus that day on the mountainside have reacted?

The goal is to serve, not lead and all of the followers of Jesus were chosen by him. Sixty of his followers were added to the 12 and sent out in ministry. The women who followed Jesus were not among the 72 but they were also chosen by God to serve him.

Actually, the word chose is one I picked to use. The account in Mark says Jesus appointed twelve to be his inner team of disciples. We are all chosen to follow Jesus and he appoints us to various responsibilities.

Jesus loved the twelve he appointed to his inner circle but he did not love them more than those he did not appoint. Jesus loved the 12, the 72 and all those who followed him.

I realize I have been talking about my own experience in this sermon. There are some who do not want to lead and would have been delighted that Jesus did not call their name. God has not gifted us all in the same way and it is important to remember that God chose all of his disciples.

Fix your eyes on Jesus and serve him by serving his church. Make it your goal to be a servant.

4. The glory may go to those who the world, including the church, views as leaders, but the first will be last and the last will be first.

The greatest in heaven will be the servants, not necessarily the ones who were leaders.

C.S. Lewis wrote a marvelous little book titled The Great Divorce which talks of people from hell who take a bus ride to heaven and are free to stay if they wish. But the theologian holds on to his questions refusing to seek the answer, the artist refuses to give up recognition, the victim refuses to accept forgiveness and on and on.

At one point there is a parade with the saints of heaven scattering flowers and singing, all in honor of a lady. The visitor to heaven asks his Scottish guide who this is.
“Is it? … is it?” I whispered to my guide.
“Not at all,” said he. “It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.”
“She seems to be … well, a person of particular importance?”
“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”

If you want to be great, be a servant. Don’t be dismayed if you are not picked to be on the leadership team. Be a servant. Think of the needs of the people around you. Think of how you can help them. Follow the example of our Lord.

Mark wrote:
whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

This morning as we share in the supper our Lord Jesus instituted with his inner team of disciples, we remember with gratitude and wonder that he came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, including those of us gathered here at RPF this morning.

He was a servant. Let us also be servants.