FIRST READING Isaiah 50:4-10
4The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. 6I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. 7But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. 8He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. 9Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up. 10Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
PSALM Psalm 116:1-9
1I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him. 2The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me; I came to grief and sorrow. 3Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray you, save my life.” 4Gracious is the Lord and righteous; our God is full of compassion. 5The Lord watches over the innocent; I was brought very low, and he helped me. 6Turn again to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has treated you well. 7For you have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. 8I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. 9I believed, even when I said, “I have been brought very low.” In my distress I said, “No one can be trusted.”
SECOND READING James 3:1-12
1Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
GOSPEL Mark 9:14-29
14When {Jesus, Peter, James and John} came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15And immediately all the crowd, when they saw {Jesus}, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. 16And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 28And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”
THE PASSION OF A SERVENT LEADER
General Eisenhower would demonstrate the art of leadership with a piece of string. He’d put it on a table and say: “PULL it and it will follow wherever you wish. PUSH it and it will go nowhere at all. It’s just that way when it comes to leading people. They need to follow a person who is leading by example.” On another occasion Eisenhower said, “You do not lead by hitting people over the head that’s assault, not leadership.”
In our Old Testament reading for this Sunday, the ancient prophet Isaiah spoke these words in the context of his own suffering and the suffering of Israel. But like other words of prophecy in chapters 40 through 66, these words also apply to the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This passage applies to the Passion of our Lord as well and of His servant leadership. Jesus is, of course, the prime example of a leader.
A leader is one who leads by example and is a person who is willing to serve others, not themselves. A leader has gained the wisdom to say the right thing at the right time, in the right way, but they also know that listening is just as, if not more important than, speaking. A godly leader has their eyes on God, and thus rises above the circumstances that surround them. Today, we can see all of these leadership qualities in our text, especially in the opening words of chapter 50 as they were fulfilled in Jesus in the final days of His Passion.
Consider the tongue, the ears, and the eyes of Jesus, the servant leader. Listen again to the words of this passage as if you’re hearing them spoken by Jesus Himself. In speaking of the tongue: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word” (Isaiah 50:4a). The most important quality in a teacher who leads is a sense of servanthood. Teachers know more than their pupils, yes, but the true teacher doesn’t just impart information. A teacher leads their students or disciples by the example of selfless service. My father, quoting Mark Twain, would remind us boys, “Actions speak louder than words” but then he would also remind us that at times our words are important as well. And one of those times is when we sustain the weary with our words.
Jesus spoke and taught His disciples by who He was and what He said. He sustained His weary followers by example and by words. But those words of comfort didn’t end with His death and resurrection; Jesus continues to sustain His weary disciples with His words because those words came from God. As faithful followers, we continue to be moved by the words of Jesus as He taught the disciples and the crowd, as He healed the lame, as He opened the ears of the deaf, drove out evil spirits from those possessed and as He raised people from the dead. We are also sustained by His silence as He stood before His accusers. A silence that lead to His death rather than His rescue.
I find it interesting that the dictionary says that the word “passion” means “the sufferings of Christ.” Additionally, the dictionary says “passion” means “intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction … fervor, love, zeal.” Both these meanings come through clearly as we read of our Savior’s walk through the intrigue and suspense of His conspiring enemies. The secrecy and plotting by shadowy people in shadowy places add to the suffering, but they could not divert the promised Messiah from His driving sense of doing God’s will. Both conviction and zeal of purpose knife their way through as we behold the Lord listening to praises of one crowd on Palm Sunday and cries of another crowd, “Crucify Him” less than a week later. Yet despite the words of the crowd, today we still find that we continue to be sustained by the words and deeds of Jesus.
We are encouraged by the words of the Palm Sunday crowd crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” When a critic suggests that the crowd should be stilled, Jesus replies, “If they are stilled, the very stones will cry out.” The praise of the crowd on Palm Sunday is a preview of Easter. Nothing can stop the joyous song of tribute and triumph to the King, to the One sent to save humanity from its sins. Jesus, the servant King, a selfless leader working out our indebtedness of sin by suffering and dying in our place. That’s why His words strike us, wake us, move us, and sustain us the way they do. Jesus speaks with authority, the rights of Lordship. Anytime we read or hear these words from Isaiah, we recognize the voice of God. We pay attention when Jesus our teacher speaks. And as I mentioned earlier, speaking is important, but so is listening.
Someone has observed, “God gave us two ears, but only one mouth. That means that we should listen twice as much as we speak.” The second quality of a servant leader is to listen. Verses 4b-5 speaks of the gift of listening to God and the people. “Morning by morning He [God] wakens — wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.” We understand that Jesus fulfills this prophecy about listening and hearing.
He heard what God said. He also heard what the people said. In addition, He heard what people meant. Many times, He heard the inner cries of the people He met. He urges us, as faithful servants, to hear these inner cries as well. Jesus often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” In the Hebrew tradition, hearing means more than just listening. Hearing God should result in action, doing what the Lord says. Hearing people means comprehending that many are weary and crying on the inside. Hearing means doing something about the needs we perceive.
A boy with a record of juvenile delinquency spelled out clearly what he really needed in a letter, just before he ran away from home. He wrote; Dear Folks, You asked me why I did those things and why I gave you so much trouble, and the answer is easy for me to give you, but I wonder if you will understand. Remember when I was about six or seven and I used to want you to just listen to me?
I remember all the nice things you gave me for Christmas and my birthday. I was really happy with the things — for about a week — at the time I got those things, but the rest of the time during the year I really didn’t want presents. I just wanted for you to listen to me like I was a somebody who felt things, too, because even when I was young, I felt things. But you said you were busy.
Mom, you are a wonderful cook, and you had everything so clean and you were tired so much from doing all those things that made you so busy, but, you know something, Mom? I would have liked crackers and peanut butter just as well if you had only sat down with me a while during the day and said to me: “Tell me all about it so I can maybe help you understand.”
If Donna [my sister] ever has children, I hope you will tell her to just pay some attention to the one who doesn’t smile very much, because that one will really be crying inside. And when she’s about to bake six dozen cookies, tell her to make sure first that the kids don’t want to tell her about a dream or a hope or something. Thoughts are important to small kids, even though they don’t have so many words to use when they tell about what they have inside them.
I think that all the kids who are doing so many things that grown-ups are tearing out their hair worrying about, are really looking for somebody who really and truly will treat them as they would a grown-up who might be useful to them, you know — polite-like. If you folks had ever said to me: “Pardon me” when you interrupted me, I’d have dropped dead! He signed it, Your son
Someone with time, someone who will listen and hear — that’s what young people want today. That’s what all of us want. Jesus heard the cries of the weary and He calls for us to do the same. Jesus wants us to hear what He says and what people are really saying. That’s why He came, why He died on the cross — to open our ears and our minds to what’s really happening instead of what seems to be happening.
A young woman describes the difference between what seems to be and what is, she wrote: “Please Hear What I Am Not Saying, don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me, but don’t be fooled, for God’s sake, don’t be fooled. I give the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game, that the water is calm and I’m in command and that I need no one, but don’t believe me.
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness, but I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it. That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It’s the only thing that will assure me, of what I can’t assure myself, that I’m really worth something. But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare to, I’m afraid to. I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing, and that you will see this and reject me … Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you’re kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings… These are the words of so many sad and confused people. People we need to listen closely to hear, hear them as Jesus hears them.
Jesus, the servant leader, heard what people were really saying. That’s why He could say, “Love your enemies.” That’s why He could say from the cross, “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” Jesus had ears that heard, and we need to do the same. He also has eyes that sees the way things really are.
When we look into the eyes of Jesus, the servant leader, we see someone who knows who we are, but we also see something else: we see compassion. Jesus comes with passion — both suffering and fervor. He seeks to know what’s behind the eyes of everyone He meets. Jesus is a man of vision who sees beyond what He beholds.
In verse 69 of this same chapter we read; “I gave my back to those who struck me, the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?”
Jesus could see that His persecutors would stumble and not prevail. He could see that His apparent shame would be their personal shame. The most important quality of a real leader is that they are willing to suffer for those they serve. Jesus could see into the hearts of people and was still willing to die for all, even His enemies. As we study and hear the words and works of Jesus this Pentecost season we not only see who Christ is and what He does, but we can catch a glimpse of what we’re called to be.
In Paul’s letter to the Philippians we read; “Let each of you look not to your own interest, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:4-11.)
It’s no wonder we cry out with the Palm Sunday crowd, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mark 11:9-10). When we see the servant king we see our own destiny. We see what we ought to be. We have hints of eternity. We see our Leader and our Teacher.
Anytime we see what our Leader and Teacher has done for us, our response should be, a desire to serve Him. Our desire should be to be like Him. Our desire should be to follow Him and to be a faithful disciple. I read a story the other day that spoke to this desire. It was about a teenage virtuoso pianist, who played his heart out to a large audience. At the end, as he walked off the stage, the audience stood and applauded. The man behind the curtain told the boy to go out and take a bow.
“No,” the boy replied, “I can’t.” “Why not?” asked the man. “They are all standing and applauding.” “Not all of them,” the young pianist replied. The man in the back row in the balcony is still sitting.” “That’s only one,” the man said. “What’s so important about him?” “He’s my teacher,” the boy meekly replied as he watched from behind the curtain. “I was playing for him.” Just then the man in the back row stood up and joined in the standing ovation.
Isn’t that what the Christian life is all about? Not living to please everyone, but to keep our eyes on the One we call our Lord, our leader, our teacher? Maybe this is something we need to consider. Think of the end of your life and imagine the Lord’s reaction. Will He be sitting in the back row with a sad look on His face or will He be giving you a standing ovation and saying, “Enter into the joy of your master.” Of all the things that we think are important in this life, isn’t that the most important thing of all? Amen
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