Who Should Serve Whom?
5th Sunday of Great Lent
Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 10:32-45
The Lord Jesus Christ, going to Jerusalem with His disciples, told them that He
“will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death... and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”
(Mark 10: 32-34)
Thus, Jesus consciously went to His suffering, humiliation, and crucifixion. As God, He was aware of all the events that were coming, but as a human being, it was hard and terrible for Him to consciously go through the suffering. However, His disciples did not seem to pay attention to the prophetic predictions made by Jesus.
The disciples believed in Jesus as the Messiah (Christ), as the Son of God, who, in their conviction, was to be the king of Israel and therefore would defeat all their enemies. But Christ's prediction that in Jerusalem He would be handed over to be mocked and killed -- Christ's disciples, if they heard it, did not accept it, or accepted it as some kind of figurative statement. They were in an extraordinary state of exaltation and realized that Jesus was coming to the kingdom... And the kingdom, as usual, meant the human kingdom, in this case, the kingdom of Israel. That's why the brothers of Zebedee, James and John, address Jesus with such a strange request:
“Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.” (Mark 10:37)
They imagined that Jesus, as an earthly king, would sit on his throne, reign as David or Solomon did, and they, the two brothers, would be his closest assistants, his most trusted confidants.
It is clear from the request of James and John that they were not perfect, that they had a sinful desire for exaltation among their fellow apostles, and that they did not understand that the kingdom of Christ is “a kingdom not of this world”. (John 18:36)
The desire for exaltation among one's neighbours is a human weakness of vanity, leading to pride.
But John and James did not comprehend what they were asking for, for they asked for places at Jesus' side. They, and probably the other disciples, imagined an ordinary royal throne on which their Divine Teacher would sit. Obviously, if they had realized then that the royal throne of Jesus was the cross of crucifixion, no one would have asked to be on His side.
Seeing the misunderstanding of His kingdom and the sinful aspirations of glory, of exaltation among His disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ gave His disciples a definition of dignity in the New Testament, in His Church, and their duties as future apostles in relation to their neighbours, to their flock.
“You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.” (Mark 10:42-44).
In those times, almost all rulers, and these were mostly emperors, tsars, or kings, believed that they were destined to rule over people, over nations, and that all subjects were to serve and please them. Christ, however, presents the opposite understanding of the role of leaders in the Church of Christ and generally gives a new definition of the role of rulers.
And the leaders of the Church of Christ, like rulers or sovereigns who accept the Gospel, must consider themselves servants for the good of the people under their authority.
Christianity was accepted in many countries long ago, but rulers, "human princes," often only formally, ritually embraced Christianity. Just as in paganism, Byzantine emperors, Russian tsars, French or English kings, or rulers of other states, considered themselves to be people of superior origin, "blue blood", to whom all subjects must be servants.
When Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky negotiated an alliance with Moscow, Ukrainian representatives demanded that the tsar swear "on the cross" that he would abide by the terms, but the Russian tsarist ambassadors told them that the tsar does not swear to his subjects; they only swear to him. It was asserted that in the system of tsarist rule, the tsar was not obliged to serve the people: the people, the nation, were his possession.
Consequently, such and similar rulers were not essentially Christian rulers; they did not act according to Christ's will, but acted as heathen autocrats, as those who did not accept Christ's Gospel. Therefore, it is not surprising that all those rulers later caused the anger and hatred of the nation or nations, and their ruling courts disappeared.
Those kings who accept that they are the servants of the people and carry out the will of the people in the management of the state and the country have remained rulers. That is why there are English, Swedish, and Dutch kings in our time, where not only the rulers themselves, but also their governments and ministers are considered servants of the people. The dependence of governments on voters, the right of voters to consider ministers of state as servants of the people, the right to criticize them -- this is all in essence, according to Christ's definition that whoever “desires to become great…shall be your servant."
Sometimes it is upsetting how, in democratic countries, prime ministers and ministers are despised, humiliated; sometimes it appears mean-spirited. Sometimes those people do not deserve contempt, but the right of criticism by every voter, every political opponent, does not allow leaders and rulers to become arrogant and does not allow them to create dictatorial despotic regimes.
But every Christian must be aware that not only rulers but all followers of Christ must imitate their Lord and strive to serve the good of their neighbors, and not just hope that someone should be their servant.
Christ, for example, washed the feet of His disciples (John 13:5) so that all His followers would not be tempted by pride, because in dedicating oneself to serving one's neighbours, there is the highest ideal in fulfilling God’s will.
It is necessary for us to also remember that Christ gave Himself to be crucified on the cross out of love for the human race, so that all who believe in Him could be saved (John 12:46-47). When we all also try to serve one another, rather than to spite one another, then there will be no enmity between us, but peace and joy in the Lord. Then, as our great Taras Shevchenko wrote:
“There will be no enemy, no adversary,
And there will be a son, And there will be a mother,
And there will be people on earth.”
(And Archimedes and Galileo...)
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
