What Does Following Jesus Look Like?
Mark 9:30-37
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
Mark’s gospel is constantly on the move, with Jesus and his disciples running around all over the place. In this passage we find them on the move again, with Jesus reminding the disciples of his eminent death and resurrection. You may remember that in last week’s passage Jesus was also revealing this information to the disciples, and Peter got a little freaked out. This week we get the new details that the disciples didn’t get what was going on, and they were afraid to ask Jesus about it. If the last guy who questioned this news got the “Get behind me, Satan” treatment, then that would make some sense.
As this journey goes on there is a bit of interoffice squabbling between the disciples about who is the best among them. I’m sure this is, at least in some way, reflective of what has happened to the disciples in the time since Jesus’s death. There were different teachers preaching the gospel in their own way and branding it as better than others. If you read on through chapter 9, you’ll see that this part of a larger set of points about who can preach in Jesus’s name and who else can cast out demons. In essence, for the reader of the day, this section is trying to answer the question, “Who can we trust now that you are gone?”
Jesus does not pick favorites, and instead uses this as an opportunity to teach what a person who follows him should act like. It’s here we get to what I see as the heart of Jesus’s message about how to live. To be first you must be last. You have to be a servant to all. This is a radical message for the time, as for now. Jesus calls them to serve each other and to put the needs of others before their own. This is the answer to “Who can we trust now?” You can trust the people who follow Jesus in serving others.
We see a little of what an early Christian community that served one another looked like in the beginning of the book of Acts, but we know how the story goes from there. This radical commitment to servanthood does not become the backbone of Christian faith, and we get the world we live in today. The dominant narrative of our time is that if we all work for our own self-interest we will do better, and if some people can’t cut it, that is their problem. This was the dominant narrative of their time too. Paul practically says that word for word. Jesus fights that narrative, and calls us to do the same. Put your self-interest last. Serve others first.
It is hard to know what it would even look like to live that way, because it is so far from what our society teaches us to do. But, I believe that we are called to try to figure it out. As we continue to read through the scriptures each week, we will examine what this call to servanthood asks of us, but in the mean time, take this idea of a call to serve into your day today, and see where it takes you. Then, try it again tomorrow. That is the heart of following Jesus’s teachings.
See you next week!
Please take a moment and share this where you can. It really helps to get the message out, and it might just find its way to someone who really needs it.
Also, let me know what you think. Maybe you think Paul is on the right track, and Jesus needs to read some Milton Friedman. Tell me below!