Mark 9:33-41
THE WAY OF TRUTH IS ALSO THE WAY OF LOVE
The way to eternal life is the way of truth. Jesus said not only “I Am the Way” but also “I Am the Truth,” and: “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6). The way to come to the Father, to eternal life, is only through Jesus. The truth is the narrow path to eternal life. Believing the truth gets you to heaven.
We’re laser-focused on the truth: listening to the truth, believing the truth, rejecting the lies of the devil. The church’s mission is to bring others onto the way of truth that leads to eternal life. But the way of truth is also the way of love. You can think you’re following Jesus on the path to eternal life, due to your faith, but suddenly find that you’re actually going the opposite way – leaving the path – by a self-serving way of not walking in love. The disciples found this out.
Sermon Text, St. Mark 9:33-41.
Then He came to Capernaum. And when He was in the house He asked them, “What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?” But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest. And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Then He took a little child and set him in the midst of them. And when He had taken him in His arms, He said to them, “Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.” Now John answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is on our side. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Lord, keep us on the way of truth. As we walk this path, lead us so we aren’t focused on being one a great one but one of Your little ones, and so that we are patient with everyone on this path of life, each of whom You’ve redeemed. Amen.
In the name of Jesus, who leads us on the narrow path to our heavenly home: Grace to you and peace, from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The disciples of Jesus were walking down the road arguing. Ironically, Jesus’ transfiguration probably started all this. He took only Peter, James and John up to the mountaintop. When they came down, the other 9 disciples had been unable to cast out a demon, giving Jesus’ enemies an opening for criticizing Jesus. Soon there is blaming, defensiveness, complaining about each other, and – what’s always lurking underneath – comparing yourself to others.
We hear that as they went down the road, “the disciples had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.” These disciples were His Church on earth, and His Church had a mission – which centered in His selfless love for every sinner – but on the road it was being abandoned.
When they arrived back in Capernaum and Jesus brought up their bickering, the disciples stayed quiet, ashamed because they knew Jesus didn’t approve – but they were also anticipating. Maybe Jesus would supply a name. “Who will be the greatest?” If it’s me, each disciple thinks, I’ll be overjoyed, and get to be first – but if not, I’ll resent the one Jesus names, bad-mouth that guy, feel entitled to despise him. Is that what Jesus’ kingdom is supposed to be like? No.
How will Jesus solve this? How can His disciples be at peace with each other? He summons “a little child” and takes it “in His arms.” Jesus puts His arms around the little child, holds him in His lap, and in so doing Jesus isn’t just loving children, He shows the squabbling disciples the true mission of His Church. In this little one Jesus shows them how they’ve abandoned His mission on the road.
That isn’t easy to see. On the road the disciples thought they were following Jesus. They were walking behind Him. But in their self-serving ways, pushing to be first, in their hearts they were really going the opposite way.
The same is true for what the disciple John mentions. He thinks of when they saw a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name. They told him to stop. Evidently they were persistent in telling him to stop, perhaps quite sternly. “Teacher,” John says to Jesus, “we were forbidding him, because he does not follow [with] us.” John asks, “Did we do wrong? Did we refuse one of Your little ones?”
Jesus says, “Do not forbid him.” So yes, they were wrong. This is a man who has a little faith in Jesus, otherwise he couldn’t cast out the demon. Jesus says they shouldn’t put a stop to the little bit that this man’s faith was leading him to do. He would not “soon afterward speak evil” of Jesus, if he was encouraged to follow Him, rather than if they demand everything of his faith right now, and discourage him.
This is about a man who’s a “little child” in his faith, who only has a little faith, and what our attitude should be toward them. Specifically, Jesus is teaching how Christians should act toward others who aren’t as far along in their faith. Jesus wants us to encourage them to walk on the path, not to push them off – and even worse, if we push them off then we’re actually leaving the path, going the opposite way from Jesus whom we think we follow.
In these two scenes – one where the disciples argue about who’s the greatest and the other where they discourage someone from serving Christ – we are seeing the devil’s back-door attack on Jesus’ church. The front-door attack is his attack on faith, how he attacks the truth. That’s what we’re laser-focused on: the way of truth. But his back-door attack – and you can see it here where Satan is busy on the rear part of the column of disciples following Jesus – is where he works to divide God’s people, as he attacks their love for one another.
Just as this started with the disciples blaming each other, getting defensive, comparing themselves to each other, the devil attacks God’s church by showing us each other’s faults, by getting us to be impatient and give up – whether it’s giving up on individuals or on the church itself – by making us see everything that’s wrong, to get offended by one another’s sins, to pressure and criticize.
Just as it ended here with the disciples considering someone beneath them, treating him as an outsider, the devil attacks God’s church by getting us to compare ourselves with others, to feel less bad about ourselves by focusing on someone we can blame or look down on for something worse, whether in the church or the world.
What is Christ doing about this? As we saw with the disciples, He sees it. He knows we abandon His mission when we withdraw our love from others. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”
Jesus did something about your failures in this. He, who is First, became Last. He, who is Lord of all, became Servant of all – the Suffering Servant, of whom the Bible says: “We have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6). Jesus, who is the Greatest, became the Least. This is what He does. He became “the Last of all and the Servant of all,” for us.
And now what He shows you is that His kingdom does not consist of all the great things we do. It consists of taking little children up in His arms. That’s it.
He does it not only for little children but all people. So we must all be little children to Him. You don’t come to Him with your great achievements, you leave behind what you’ve become, since you can’t do what He demands, you’re helpless, have no ability to get faith or keep it on your own, you’re not good at holding your tongue or letting your mouth and life show forth His praise as You should. You need Him to just pick you up by the Gospel and put you in His lap.
But He also does this through our love for one another. This is His back-door counter-attack on the devil. He uses us to pick others up and put ’em in Jesus’ lap. His lap has room for everyone.
It isn’t that Jesus doesn’t ever want more from our faith. He too sighed over people who disappointed Him. It’s not that how we confess the truth doesn’t matter; it does. It’s not OK to live with unrepented sin either. But Jesus is teaching that the way to win others is by love and patience.
Jesus wants this love and patience to define His church. We need to be faithful, but His Church ultimately isn’t characterized by how faithful it is, how many laws have been kept, how well we obey. His Church is characterized by grace – God’s forgiving love. His Church is defined by love and patience – His love and patience. It’s a love characterized the most by patience, His patience as the Lamb of God who bore everyone’s sins to the cross, His patience as the Good Shepherd who never tires of going out to find His wandering sheep.
The sins, failures, offenses, and where we fail – rather than opportunities to criticize and express disappointment – in His Church are opportunities to pray for each other. His Church looks most like itself when we come to the Lord’s Supper, sinner next to sinner, each person who’s been a disappointment in some way next to another one just like him/her, not there for how great our faith is, or because we’ve done so well, but only there needing to be forgiven, only there to be given more faith and more love, fervent love for one another.
In this way, what we really learn is how patient and loving He is with us, no matter how much more constant or farther along in the faith some might seem to be in comparison to others. Jesus’ love and patience with us make us able and give us strength to show this to others – to place each other in His arms, to help each other to stay on the path following Him, the way of truth and love. Amen!