“The Problem with Pecking Orders”
Rev’d. Tanya Stormo Rasmussen
The Congregational Church of Hollis, U.C.C.
Sermon 4 in the Holy Habit of Serving series
2 May, 2021
Matthew 20:18-26
Turns out, helicopter parenting isn’t a new phenomenon. According to Matthew’s gospel, James and John’s mother, with her sons just behind her, kneeled in front of Jesus and requested that each of them should receive preferential treatment, positions of prestige and power (one at Jesus’ right hand and one at his left), in the kingdom that Jesus would rule.
In Mark’s account of the same episode, James and John do the asking themselves. So, if Matthew is correct, it’s possible that James and John put their mother up to it. Or, maybe their father Zebedee suggested that, strategically speaking, Jesus might respond more favorably to the placement of a persuasive mother kneeling before him than he would to James, John, or their father making the same appeal. In any case, the members of Zebedee’s household obviously were canny to the political ways human beings have always sought to curry favor for self-interested ends.
Mark’s and Matthew’s accounts agree, however, that the other disciples were angered by the act. Maybe in part because they hadn’t thought of it or got there first. But probably because, like most of us, they bristled at the chutzpah and bald self-promotion revealed in the act, when they were all learning to reject the typical ways of the world.
Ambition and vanity are part of human nature. Some would even argue they’re principal components of a strong ego, and they can motivate us to accomplish amazing things. But as John Calvin recognized (and he could speak with some firsthand knowledge of the issue), unchecked ambition and vanity also incline those “who follow Christ [to] have a different object in view from what they ought to have.”[1]
What’s ironic is that in both Matthew and Mark, this scene unfolds immediately after Jesus has been talking about how he would have to undergo great humiliation, suffering, and even death. Apparently, these guys were too busy daydreaming about the power they could leverage if they claimed plum positions in Jesus’ leadership circle, and they didn’t hear what he’d just finished saying. When he turned to them and responded, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” they must have thought he was referring to the wine they’d be sharing shortly. Because their answer was an overconfident, “We are able.”
If they had any inkling that the cup Jesus was referring to was the experience of complete self-sacrifice, they clearly didn’t know themselves as well as they would later, when they would reflect on this conversation in light of the fact that they’d run away as fast as they could when Jesus was arrested. And then avoided the crowds and bearing witness at his crucifixion. And then again, with the other disciples, when they locked the doors for fear of the authorities who might implicate them with Jesus. All of this was before they experienced his resurrection. James and John didn’t have any of this in sight when they assured Jesus that they were able and willing to do what it took to be his left and right wingmen.
But Jesus knew them, and human nature, better than they did. Jesus knew God’s nature and truth better than they did, too. “You will indeed drink from my cup,” he tells the men, “but it’s not for me to grant who will sit at my right hand and at my left; that’s for God alone to say.” And then he explains that the only way they’ll achieve the greatness they desire in God’s kingdom is to become a servant. And he was showing them how to do it; whoever wants to be first must lead the way by serving others, just as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and liberate others.[2]
Jesus presents a stark contrast to the disciples’ and also to today’s worldly conceptions of leadership—to the prevailing understanding of status and success present in both the ancient and modern world. Then, as now, the world loves a pecking order: a hierarchy of power that affords those who “make it to the top” privileges and preferential treatments, including material acquisitions, prestige, and political power over others that suggest they are somehow more valuable than those “lowly folk” at the “bottom.”
But, Jesus reveals, that’s not how God views or values things. The world’s preference for hierarchies does not resonate with God’s character—nor should it characterize our ways of being, as those created in the divine image.
For Jesus, the ruler is never an oppressor, but always a servant leader; the goal is to serve, not to be served. Still, no matter where we go in the world, we are met with value systems that communicate the opposite. And the world’s messaging is generally louder and more in-your-face than God’s is. Plus, the human ego tends to prefer the messaging of the world and can quite effectively drown out the still, small voice of God and the deeper desires of our spirits – if, as John Calvin warned, we’re not paying attention to the right things. If we’re not keeping the right object or aim for our life in view. Whereas the world says, “Aim for the top,” Jesus says, “It’s not about top and bottom. It’s about serving and liberating; that’s the aim.”
It’s easy to become cynical or disillusioned by how prevalent the human tendency is, even for Christ-followers, to find ourselves buying into the value systems of the world. Who among us, for example, has never compared our personal circumstances to those of our family members, or neighbors, or to the rich and famous, or to the politically well-connected—to those who might fall above or below us on society’s ladder of success or pecking order? And who hasn’t wrestled with what that comparison says about our personal self-worth, about who has the more valuable life? And how many of us have never at least entertained the possibility (if not the practice) that if we don’t claim every last thing we possibly can for ourselves, then we’re the ones to blame if we ever suffer want or need? We’re often oblivious to the cultural messaging and values that shape our daily behaviors, even when they are in direct opposition to our espoused values as disciples of Jesus Christ.
I don’t believe Jesus’ response to the brothers, and his blunt instruction to the disciples, was intended to embarrass, shame, or demean any of them. I agree with Dr. James Johnson, a philosophy professor at Presbyterian College in North Carolina, who suggests that, “[Jesus’ gentle] rebuke is a reminder to us that we should be cautious about expecting too much of mere humans. We should be careful, for example, not to pin our hopes for salvation on those who cannot bear the weight of our expectations.” Any human being who is a self-appointed savior is bound to be a disappointment. We need to recognize that even the best and most committed leaders among us are subject to vanity and ambition. But that doesn’t mean that we should become disillusioned, or resigned misanthropes, or give in to the ways of the world and do whatever it takes to get ahead, ourselves.
“Instead,” Johnson advises, “the appropriate response to our incurable tendency to put ourselves first is to be cautious and self-reflective about our motives. Likewise, just as Jesus shows compassion for the disciples even in their moment of weakness, leaders must do so with their followers, helping them to examine their motives as well. We should not accept the claims of anyone who sets himself or herself up to be another messiah, and we should be cautious not to develop a messianic complex of our own. But the proper response to human [failing] is not to give up on the notion of leadership or action; it is to set up checks and balances within a community or organization. We must keep each other honest. We must be a community of accountability.” These are all attributes of a spiritually healthy church, and of the individuals who comprise it.
Furthermore, we also need to work out what self-sacrifice looks like in our own life. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the ultimate paradigm of servant leadership and self-sacrificial love—and we are called to follow his example. Each of us needs to grapple with what that means for our personal life, and for the life of our community. What does self-sacrifice look like in your life, and in the collective life of our community?
We need to think about it, not only so that we are more intentional about acting on the virtue. But because self-sacrifice can be misguided, too, if self-denial becomes an end of its own; if it’s borne out of self-loathing, or its aim is self-destruction. As Dr. Johnson points out, “Self-sacrifice for a disciple of Jesus Christ must be in the service of something higher than the self. The promise of the gospel is that in the sacrifice of self for others, not only will a higher and better self emerge, but the reign of God will continue to unfold. Self-sacrifice thus does not mean self-mutilation or self-extinction; we are not called to disappear. Vanity and ambition are vices, but so are timidity and sloth.”
The problem with pecking orders, and with our tendency to buy into them because of the way the world around us structures itself and implies who and what is valuable, is that pecking orders generally don’t reflect God’s value system. Pecking orders, whether in the world’s economy or in the organizational life of the church, tend to devalue and undervalue too many beloved and gifted children of God, and overvalue a precious few by comparison. Hierarchies in this world tend to reward ambition and vanity—which can easily obscure our vision and take us off-course as those whose prayer is to follow and emulate Jesus and his commitment to humbly serve, liberate, and empower others over his own self-preserving interests.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, as well as their mother—I feel confident that all of them genuinely wanted to do what was right. They wanted to honor God and to be people who lived after Jesus’ own example. After all, they had already sacrificed significantly in a variety of ways in order to follow Jesus. But like so many of us, they found themselves acting according to the world’s script and buying into a false value system without even thinking about it or recognizing it. A system that disdains personal sacrifice, and instead promotes an ego-driven, self-serving self that pursues preferential treatment, and measures personal worth or value by the material possessions, or prestige, or political connections and power over others one can claim. One that covets a higher place on a poorly-conceived hierarchy or social pecking order.
But what Jesus wanted them and us to understand is that when we keep our daily vision and our personal purpose focused on the unfolding reign of God, then we shed the self-serving self and we gain another, higher, better self. This higher, better self responds to the call of Jesus Christ to be a disciple by practicing the Holy Habit of serving others in the world.
Despite the fact that our culture encourages an enthusiastic embrace of them, ambition and vanity are human traits that, left unchecked, can result in hover parenting and other unhealthy, even destructive behaviors. Servanthood, on the other hand, despite being at the heart of God’s design, is too often dismissed by the world as being for “the lowly”, by those at the bottom of an ill-conceived pecking order. We live with the tension of these competing value systems every day. As people of faith and disciples of Jesus Christ, may our personal focus, prayers, and practice keep us on the path that leads us to the joy, freedom, and true fulfillment of servanthood. Amen.
[1] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 2:417, as quoted in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4, Proper 24 (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p. 188.
[2] Matthew 20:27-28