The Greatest
Matthew 18:1-5
May 22, 2016 • Mount Pleasant UMC
He began training when he was age 12, and at the tender age of 22, he won the world heavyweight championship. That was in 1964, and just before the championship fight against boxer Sonny Liston, Muhammed Ali (or Cassius Clay, as he was known then) made this declaration.
What does it mean to be great? For Muhammed Ali, to be great was to win the most fights, to be the best boxer in the world—and his declaration has not been forgotten, even now some 52 years later. You probably knew what he was going to say even before we played the video! It’s perhaps his most famous moment. “I am the greatest!” For some, being the greatest is getting honor or a promotion at work. For others, being the greatest means getting the highest or most academic degrees; the preacher S. D. Gordon told people, “Get every qualification you can” (qtd. in Green, Matthew for Today, pg. 170). Some people define greatness as being noticed, or doing everything perfectly, or owning your own business, or some other sort of achievement. Evolutionary theory defines “the greatest” as “survival of the fittest,” the outcome where the strongest, the fastest, the loudest, or the angriest people get to the front ahead of everyone else (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 28). I have to tell you that for the last two weeks, my heart has been heavy as I’ve followed the proceedings in Portland, Oregon at our church’s General Conference. I’m not disheartened by the outcomes; if anything, I’m encouraged by the stances and statements that were the result of the Conference. What saddened me the most, I think, were the ways we, as professing Christians, treated each other. The loudest, the angriest, and ones who believed their positions were the strongest were certainly on display, and to a world already broken, it must have seemed obvious that the church is just as broken as they are. Why turn to the church when we have no better way of dealing with our brokenness than the world does? When we define “greatness” in terms of power, which is what seemed to happen in Portland, we contribute to rather than heal the brokenness of the world. What does it mean to be great? Here’s another way of looking at that word.
What does it mean to be “the greatest”? That’s the question that preoccupies us as we move rapidly toward the cross in Matthew’s Gospel. We’ve now been in this Gospel for several weeks, studying it under the title of “Death to Selfie.” Matthew, you remember, is writing to a community that is facing persecution, and in any time like that, the danger is always in turning away from the faith, in forgetting who Jesus says we are. Matthew tells his readers about Jesus, to be sure, but more than that, he’s reminding us who we are, and how we find our identity in Jesus. In our self-obsessed culture, Matthew continues to remind us that our identity is not found in how good we look, or how many “likes” we get on social media (maybe another modern definition of “greatness”), or even whether or not we are well-known or in charge. Rather, Jesus, as Matthew tells it, has another idea about what greatness looks like in the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus and the disciples are back home, as Matthew has it, in Capernaum, staying at Peter’s house. That was the place where Jesus usually stayed when he was in what came to be known as his “own town,” and the location of Peter’s home has actually been fairly well pinpointed today. There is a church built over top of the ruins of the house, and two years ago when we were there, I finally got to go inside the church and look down through the glass floor on the ruins of Peter’s house. It’s just what we would call a couple of blocks down the street from the synagogue, so it’s likely it became a place, especially when Jesus was in town, where people gathered for conversation. We know there were times when they brought people to this house to be healed. It was well-known as the place Jesus stayed. But this particular time is the last time they will be here before they leave for Jerusalem and Jesus’ arrest. It’s sort of the calm before the storm, as once they leave these familiar surroundings, everything will, from the disciples’ standpoint, head downhill. Jesus will not return to this house, and while the disciples don’t yet know that, I imagine it made Jesus’ heart heavy as he looked around this place he loved (cf. Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 161).
But, what probably made him even sadder is the question he is asked. It’s a question that will keep popping up in these next few weeks, even all the way down to the Last Supper. Luke tells us the disciples were arguing about this question during that meal, and we think it was probably that argument which prompted Jesus to get down on his hands and knees and wash their feet on that last night (Luke 22:24; John 13:1-11). Two disciples in particular, James and John, are connected with this question as they ask Jesus directly if they can be his assistants in the kingdom (cf. Mark 10:37). The question, in many varied forms, comes back to this same one asked in the house in Capernaum: “Who…is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (18:1).
It’s an understandable question, but when I look around the landscape of the church today, I wonder who we would choose as “the greatest.” We tend to measure greatness by who sells the most books or the most CDs, who has the most-read blog or the biggest church. Who can pack the most people into their conference? Whose podcast has the most downloads? Or sometimes it just has to do with who we “like” more, which TV or radio preacher we most like to listen to. But Jesus has a different idea, and initially he doesn’t express it with words. Jesus calls a child to him; the word used there describes a very small child, and it can even be used to describe an infant. Being that they are probably in Peter’s house, it’s likely this child is one of Peter’s (Card 161). Once the child is in front of them, Jesus says, “Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:4).
Now, we have to understand something about children in the first century. They were not valued in that culture, in those days. Parents didn’t spend their lives running them to this event or that activity. If in an earlier age of our history the advice was that children were to be seen and not heard, the advice in the first century would have been that children were to be neither seen nor heard. In fact, the word for “child” in first-century Greek was neither masculine nor feminine; children were “its.” And that’s not a commentary on the quandary with gender we find ourselves in these days; it’s a statement about just how little the world of Jesus valued children. That was true especially of girls; newborn girls were often just thrown away, left outside to die of exposure. Sometimes those babies were picked up, but not so that they could be adopted and cared for. They were sold into prostitution. Families valued boys, and girls were sometimes seen as just another expense (Wright 27). Of course, we’re not told, but wouldn’t it have been cool if the child Jesus called over was a daughter of Peter’s? Jesus gives value to those whom society overlooks.
But this moment is not just about affirming children. Jesus uses the child as a moment to teach about true greatness. He says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (18:3). That little word “change” is very important. It can be translated as “to twist or turn, to convert or to change one’s direction.” In other words, it has the sense of walking one way and then all of a sudden, you’re going a different direction. It could be a slight course adjustment or a 180, but there is a definite and discernible difference between where you were headed and where you are now going. It also carries the meaning of undergoing a chance of substance—becoming something different than you once were. Changing what you essentially are. This is not a tomato becoming ketchup; the essential “tomato-ness” remains even in ketchup. It’s not water becoming steam; both are H20 regardless of the form. This would be more like gravel becoming gold; it’s a chance of substance, of essence. Or, we might say, it’s like an ordinary person becoming a Christian, a Jesus-follower. There will be a change of substance, of who we are, when we open our lives and our hearts fully to Jesus. We will be changed, as one worship song says, from the inside out.
So to this group of adults, this group of ambitious men who expect honor and promotion (cf. Kalas, Immersion Bible Studies: Matthew, pg. 58), the ones who look for status and self-esteem, the ones who today would be checking constantly to see how many “likes” their picture or their tweet got—to those people, Jesus says, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (18:3). Unless you change and become like those society has no value for, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless you give up your pretension, your achievements and your pride, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Are you beginning to get a sense of how radical a statement this is for these disciples to hear? Are you beginning to get a sense of how radical a statement this is for us to hear still today in our “selfie” culture? “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” As the late Dr. Ellsworth Kalas put it, “Jesus wasn’t looking for go-getters who would scramble for top positions, but for disciples who were willing to become like children—scuffed-knee, smudged-face, unpretentious children” (58). In other words, to be part of my kingdom, Jesus says, you need to learn to be dependent and humble.
Those really are two defining characteristics of a child. First of all, children are dependent. They are the most vulnerable among us, for when they are little they cannot take care of themselves. They are dependent on their parents or their caregivers for food, clothing, shelter—everything. That’s why the pictures of hungry children that play on television break our hearts so much. Deep down inside, we sense those children did nothing to deserve the life they have been given except be born in the wrong place and at the wrong time. They are dependent, their very identity comes from their connection with a parent, and in that regard they have much to teach us about our relationship with our heavenly Father. Now, I don’t like to feel dependent. Raised in that “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” culture, I’m reluctant to ask for help on most anything. Even calling tech support seems like a failure on my part! Most of us were probably raised like that—learning to be independent. And that’s at least part of why the Christian life is so hard for us. Yet that prayer Jesus taught us earlier in this Gospel—the one we call the “Lord’s Prayer” but would probably better be labeled the “disciple’s prayer”—teaches us about dependence. We pray in dependence “Give us today our daily bread,” we say when we pray that (6:11). Is there anything more basic than bread? I believe Jesus taught us that prayer because if we can truly, honestly trust God for bread, we can trust him for anything.
Instead, we hurry through our meal-time prayers so that we can get to eating, and I have to ask myself if I’m really grateful to God for the provision of something so basic as food, or if, deep down, I really believe that it was me and me alone who provided it? I’ve been challenged to think more deeply about dependence by my friend Jim. Jim and I used to have coffee together every week, even though neither of us drink coffee. I had my chai tea latte and he would have hot tea. It started out as a book discussion group that never grew beyond the two of us, and eventually it ended up as a chance for us to share life and faith together. Jim has been a pastor, a Youth for Christ worker, and now directs a ministry to troubled youth where he meets with kids in Juvenile Detention once or twice a week. He meets with kids most of us don’t want anything to do with. But at least for the years I have known Jim, he has literally lived from check to check. His ministry has never really taken off in terms of fundraising; he jokingly said only he would have started a ministry during the worst recession we had seen in some time. And in our coffee times, there were so many instances when Jim would tell me he honestly didn’t know where the next dollar was coming from. There were a couple of times he was without a home and he didn’t know where he was moving next. And though I’m sure there are days when he worries, every time I have been with Jim, he has this radical dependence upon his heavenly Father. And every time there has been a need, God has come through with just what is needed. Never much more and never less, but just enough. I always come away from the times I talk with Jim wanting that kind of a heart, but I’ll be honest: that kind of dependence also scares me. What I see in Jim that I long to have in myself is the attitude of trust and dependence, knowing that the Father will always come through. Jim’s life is evidence that God does, and Jim is learning to live like a little child.
The other attribute Jesus is pointing to in this passage is humility. Children are, by and large, humble. They have no one to impress, no achievements to trumpet, nothing to give and nothing about themselves to promote. So often we have the wrong idea about humility. We think of it as deflecting a compliment. You know, when someone tells us we did a good job, we say, “Oh, it really wasn’t me…” Sometimes that’s just as prideful as anything else we could have said. No, “humility is not a matter of suppressing your drive and hiding your gifts.” Humility is about using our gifts and our abilities without the intention of drawing notice to ourselves. It’s about living without trying to promote ourselves or do what we call “grandstanding.” “The humble person is quite unselfconscious about it all…He claims no right from others, or from his Master. He follows where Jesus calls and he stays where Jesus puts him” (Green, Matthew for Today, pg. 170). The humble person does what he or she knows they can do without expecting attention. As I’ve heard some say around here, they do good and disappear.
What I wouldn’t give for a dose of humility in our world today. I saw little of it in the proceedings at our General Conference these past two weeks; there was lots of grandstanding and protesting and loud, angry voices, but very little humility. But then we learned that from the world. Look at the election cycle this year, and you’ll see little humility but lots of grandstanding and loud, angry voices that carry very little substance. Where are the humble? Where are those who are willing to do what is right regardless of how it plays in the media? Where are those who are willing to lay down their pride and serve others? After all, as Tom Wright has said, “pride and arrogance are the things which, more than anything else in God’s world, distort and ultimately destroy human lives—their own, and those of people they affect” (Wright 28). Jesus knew this to be true, and that’s why, when asked this question about greatness from men who understood greatness to be power and prestige, he called a child over and gave them an object lesson, something they would never forget. In fact, he let them know that “child-like humility is a make-or-break affair in terms of entering the kingdom” (Card 162).
This, Jesus says, pointing at the child in front of him, is what true greatness is like. Go and learn about it, he says. Actually, go and imitate it (cf. Wright 28). Live dependent. Serve humbly. Because greatness in the kingdom is living like a child. So that leads us to our “selfie” question for the week: in what way are you becoming “like a child”? Now, I don’t mean child-like, in that you start acting like a child. I’ve had people accuse me of that, believe it or not! It means, rather, having the spirit and attitude of a child: dependent, humble, connected to our heavenly Father. Somewhere along the way in our growing up, we forget the joy of childhood, so I find one of the best ways to become like a child, as Jesus instructs, is to spend time with children. Get down on their level, see the world from their perspective. Now, I know when I say that, some of us are thinking, if I get down on the floor with a child, I’ll never get back up! I’m not talking getting down physically, necessarily, although that never hurts, but learning to slow down, see the world through their eyes. Take our eyes off our calendar and our smartphones and see the world differently. You can do that by talking time to play with a child. I remember when our kids were little, so many evenings we would spend playing game after game. Sometimes it was a board game, and other times it was “hide and seek” (the version where they would tell me where they were going to go hide, then I had to pretend I didn’t know). But we only played until they were no longer interested. Especially when that came to board games, they would quit before the game was over, and I would try to get them to finish the game. But a child’s pace is different than ours; it’s about the journey, the play, not the destination. Play with a child, gain a different perspective.
If you need some easy ways into a child’s life, or if there just aren’t children around in your daily life anymore, then take advantage of the opportunities we have around here. Sign up to help with CaveQuest, our Vacation Bible School in June. Sign up to spend a Sunday morning in Small Wonders or in the nursery. Volunteer to help in a Sunday School class. Sit and talk with a child, and listen to them. See the world through their eyes. Jesus says that is the path to greatness in the kingdom; only those who become like a child, who have a heart that is dependent, open and humble, will enter the kingdom of heaven. So in what way are you becoming like a child?
One of my favorite stories, and it’s an old one, comes from the author Leo Buscaglia, who was tasked with finding the “most caring child.” Of all the entries that came in, the one that was chosen as the winner was of a child who lived next door to a widower. One day, his mother noticed him coming back from the neighbor’s house, and so she asked what he had been doing. “Mr. Smith was crying because his wife died,” the child replied, so the mother asked what he had done. “Nothing,” the child said, “I just helped him cry.”
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (18:3). This is evidence of the reign of God breaking in. It is who you are. Let’s pray.
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