Devotion for Friday, March 18

"You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10: 42-45)

In his 1520 treatise, Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther writes,

  A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

  A Christian is a dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

Seems contradictory huh?  In reality, it is at the heart of our Christian understanding of discipleship and faithfulness.  Jesus says today that the model of life in the Kingdom of God is different from the kingdoms of the world, where power, prestige, and domination rule.  Instead, we are called to an alternative reality, one that is as counter-cultural as it gets.

We are set free to be servants!  We are unequivocally unbound by the chains of the world so that we can chain ourselves to the needs, cares, struggles, and pains of those around us, especially those marginalized and forgotten by our world.  Jesus says that true greatness is experienced in being "weak" by the worlds standards!  And he has a cross, a symbol of death, failure, and suffering to back up this call.

Indeed, whenever Christianity gets a taste of power, prestige and rule, we often fail miserably at it. We simply couch our lust for control and domination in some niceties about Jesus and believe we are justified.  Well, not so fast my friends!

I believe that we Christians are at our best, our greatest when we are weak, struggling, and uncertainty.  Why?  Because it is only when all the other securities and powers that we sinfully cling to have abandoned us that we remember and embrace that which is our truest source of power -- the generous, gracious love of Christ Jesus, the one who served the world he loves so much and calls us to do the same!

Liberating God, you have made us free. May we use our freedom to bring liberating freedom to those who are weak, poor, and broken. Amen.