CHS Downtown sermon | Tim Henderson+

Hey. Welcome to Church of the Holy Spirit downtown. We're so glad that you've come to spend some of your Sunday night with us to sing and to join in a meal, fellowship around the table, to hug your friends, do whatever it takes. We're super glad you're here.

If you are new here, then you may have gotten one of these on the way in. Here's how this works. We have this simple little card. We'd love you to fill it out. Tell us a little bit about you so that we can tell you more about us. And if you turn it back in, Kat has them in the back right there. Say hi to Kat. And if you turn it in, you get a wine glass as a trade. We'll do a little quid pro quo here. So feel free to grab one of these, and then we'd love to give you this wine glass with our compliments, and we're super excited that you're here.

If you are new, you may have noticed that you're not seated in rows where you might be accustomed to, but we sit at tables and we have a meal, fellowship, conversation, which I'll explain as we go through. We'll kinda walk through the night together because it is admittedly a little bit strange. But my name is Tim Henderson, and if you got any questions about what we're doing, I would love to talk to you after the service.

So if you have a bible, grab it, and we're gonna get started together taking a look at a passage in Matthew. We're gonna be in Matthew chapter 20, but not quite yet.

The Motorcycle Story

I have a son. I have four kids. My third son, Max, is he just turned 19. He just got a motorcycle. And so I am gonna learn how to ride a motorcycle because I just wanna ride with him. And so I don't know how to ride a motorcycle. And I wonder if you know how to ride a motorcycle.

So I have a question for you. Becca, you don't ride a motorcycle right now. Don't do it. Eliel, do you have a bike? No. Don't. You don't own one, but you have your license? Okay. So you might know this, so don't give this away. Okay?

I want you to imagine you're on a motorcycle, and all you want to do is turn right. Do you understand your mission? You're on a motorcycle and you want to go that way. Here's the question. If I go like this—I don't usually do weird dorky physical things, but just do this for a second. What do you think you'd do if you wanna go this way? If you're here and you wanna go this way, what do you do? Do you turn this way? Do you pull right and push left, or do you push right and pull left if you wanna go right? What's the answer?

Okay. Who says you pull right to go right? This is a stupid question, right?

So we need to watch this. I wanna go right, I push right. I wanna go left, I push left and hold.

Long straightaway. I wanna go right, I push and hold. One finger. Push left. I'll go left. Other hand. Doesn't matter. I wanna go left so I don't hit this pole in front of me. I push left. I wanna go right. Push right.

I wanna go right. I push right. I wanna go left. I push left. That's not super weird to you? That is super weird. Okay. But that's the true answer. Max, is that the true answer? That is the correct answer. Okay.

So what do we call this, Max? Countersteering. Countersteering.

So every part of you thinks, I wanna go right. I'm gonna turn right. Because what you think is gonna direct your bike is that if you change the direction of the wheel, the bike is gonna follow. But that's not how it works. If you want to go right, then you push right, which causes the wheel to turn the other direction, and then it causes the bike to tip. And the lean is what turns you, which is kinda terrifying. Do you see how super, super weird this is?

Anybody else ride? Do you know this, Elio? Is this true? Are we lying? Are we trying to get them all killed? No. Okay?

Everything is backward from your natural assumption. When you're riding a motorcycle, there's a lot of things in life that are like this, that it's like, I would be pretty sure that I wanna do this, but instead you push right to go right.

The Kingdom is Backwards

Now I just want you to bear that. Keep this concept of countersteering in your mind because you guys, I don't know if you've been a Christian long enough, some of you perhaps, but everything in the kingdom is backwards. Have you noticed this? Everything—the way up is down, and everything is super strange. And we're gonna see that in a particularly pointed way in our passage tonight in Matthew chapter 20. So watch out for the countersteering.

So in Matthew 20 verse 20 and following, here's what it says.

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came down to Jesus with her sons, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. "What is it you want?" he asked. And she said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom."

"You don't know what you're asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink?" "You can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they've been prepared by my father."

When the 10 heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said:

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

You hear the counter steer? You wanna be great, you must serve. You wanna be first, you become a slave. That is counter steering. And Jesus talks like this all the time. In fact, just kinda do a real quick Rolodex in your brain here. Where does he talk like this? What are the things did Jesus say that are like, you wanna go right? Push right. Where else does he talk like this?

At your tables, just take like thirty seconds and see if you can come up with the most number of different instances of Jesus with this inverted thing. Just take thirty seconds and go.

You coming up with some examples here? Where does Jesus flip things around? What are some of the quotes that are like this? You got anything?

To lose your life, lose life. Exactly. What else?

Better to give than to receive. Okay. Great. Absolutely. Really, it's more blessed to give than to receive.

What else? Okay. What does he say in the beatitudes? It's like this. Like, blessed are... Yes. Everything he says is like he picks everything that's opposite of what you might expect, and then he says, this is where the blessed life really is. What else? There's a ton of these.

First shall be last. Any others? What is that? Okay. Yes. So Jesus always gives priority, and it's not just even in these little verbal kind of things, but in the way that he prioritizes people. He's always pursuing those on the margins, those on the outside. He loves children. He says those who humble—he doesn't say actually, but his followers say that those who humble themselves will be exalted. And those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

He doesn't just talk about it, but he lives it out at a radical level. Jesus was exalted to the absolute highest place because he took the absolute lowest place. You guys know Philippians 2?

He humbled himself, was obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.

He's basically saying, if you wanna go right, push right. And that inversion absolutely characterizes everything in the kingdom. It is a deep, deep truth. And we would do well to mark it that though it is counterintuitive, it's really not counter to reality. In fact, it's tapping into deep reality. It's kinda like if you ever studied or read about quantum physics—it's like, this doesn't make any sense, and yet it's woven into the very nature of the universe. And so when Jesus is saying this, he's not saying subvert the laws that govern the world. He's saying understand them, because they're not what you ever thought that they were.

Three Observations

So with that in your mind, we're gonna watch it unfold here as Jesus has this conversation. Three things to notice, and we're gonna clip through this briefly because I wanna leave some room for you guys to have a discussion. I want you to notice this mother's request, which is kinda weird, the disciples' resentment over it, and then Jesus' reorientation to them. Right? Mother's request, disciples' resentment, and Jesus' reorientation.

Look at the request in verse 20. It says, "Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. 'What is it you want?' he asked. And she said, 'Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.'"

Now these two sons are James and John. James and John are two thirds of Jesus' inner circle. Who's the third guy that's missing? Do you know? Peter. Peter, James, and John—kind of the 12, but these three are like the inner circle. And Mark describes the same event where Jesus has asked for them to sit at the right and left.

But in Mark's description, he doesn't mention the mom. And then even in Matthew's description, Jesus doesn't respond to the mom. Instead, he responds to the boys. All of which leads me to the conclusion that it probably is really the boys, James and John, that are asking this question. And they're like, "Mom, go ask Jesus if we can have everything."

What's the essence of her request? What does she mean when she says, "Sit at my right and left"? What's going on there?

Exalted to the same place. Yes. Exalted. It's a position of authority. To sit at his right and to sit at his left—can they be in charge of all things? That's really the fundamental request. It's a call for authority. And I wonder, do you think it's ironic that two grown men who are seeking dominion over the entire cosmos have their mommy ask the question? Isn't that so weird?

And then when the disciples hear it, they don't make fun of them as I am. Instead, their response is—what does it say in the text? What is the response of the other twelve? They're indignant. They're just so ticked. They're resentful.

Why are they indignant? Why are they resentful? Because they want it for themselves. It's the same thing. I know if you guys have ever seen there's a book that came out, I think it was the late eighteen hundreds, called The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. It's very sardonic, very sarcastic. And his definition of selfish is this:

Selfish, adjective: devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

Isn't that exactly perfect? You hate when people are selfish because you wanted to be selfish. And these guys are mad about James and John seeking power because they themselves were seeking power.

In fact, the third guy in that little triplet, Peter, had done essentially the similar thing and got a very interesting response a chapter earlier. This is in chapter 19, verse 27. Peter speaking to Jesus says:

"We've left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us?"

Do you see how insidious this is? "What am I gonna get? What's in it for me?" And listen to what Jesus' response is. This is one chapter before what James and John are gonna ask.

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first." — Matthew 19:27-30

I think that is so fascinating. A chapter earlier, Peter said, "Hey, what are we gonna get? What do we get out of the deal?" And Jesus says, "You know what you get? You get authority. You're going to rule the world with me." And James and John don't want to be merely in the top 12. They're like, "What about the top two? Can we get the left and the right?"

And then it is to this bickering, fighting, resentful, indignant crowd that Jesus steps in and he offers a reorientation. I want you to notice what he rebukes and what he doesn't rebuke, because it might be a little bit surprising. He essentially says to them, "Counter steer. If you want to go left, push left." He does not rebuke their desire to go left. He simply tells them how to do it. He does not rebuke their desire for authority, for influence, to shape, to have the ability to make things be the way they ought to be. He simply says, "Hey, listen. If you want that, if you want the highest place, then you must take the lowest place." He simply says it doesn't work the way you think it works. The way up is down.

And then as he always does, he points to himself. Because Jesus is the exemplar. He has received total dominion, absolute authority, and there's no problem with being in charge. He's just telling them how to do it. And not just how do you accomplish it, how do you achieve it, but how do you enact the authority that is given to you.

Jesus the Slain Lamb

One of my favorite pictures of this is in Revelation. Jesus is pictured enthroned as king. He reigns over all things. In fact, John hears—do you guys remember this?—where John hears:

"Behold, the Lion of Judah."

And he looks to see the Lion of Judah on his throne. But do you guys remember what he sees? It's not what he heard, but what he actually sees with his eyes. Do you remember who's on the throne? Even in the midst of the throne of his exaltation, even still, he is a slain lamb.

That he comes to power and he exercises his power through meekness and through humility. He doesn't just get to the highest place by going to the lowest place, but he enacts the highest place by remaining in the lowest place. He's so bizarre. He's so absolutely extraordinary. And that's all he's telling these guys is that's what we have to do.

Look at what he says in verse 22:

You don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink? — Matthew 20:22

And they answered, we can. I don't know honestly what's going on here. Do you guys think that they knew what that cup involved when they gave that answer? It's not clear if they did. It might be that the cup was a cup of blessing. Sometimes the scriptures uses a cup in description of a blessing. But it also sometimes uses it in terms of a cup of wrath. Isaiah 51 or 52, I forget which. Certainly, in the Garden Of Gethsemane where Jesus says:

Let this cup pass from me — Matthew 26:39

He's speaking of the cup of the wrath of God that he's gonna drink. Now whether they know it or not at this particular moment, whether it's clear what that cup involves, they will come to know it. For the cup that Jesus was going to drink and that they would therefore also have to drink if they're gonna join him was a cup of wrath. And to drink this cup is to die.

I don't know if maybe you guys have heard this before, but of the 12 disciples, Judas ends up hanging himself. John, who was one of these guys, is boiled in oil, survives and gets exiled, and John gets beheaded. So they really do—it's in fact true that they were called to drink this cup. But if they were to drink it themselves, as they glibly perhaps said that they could, they're gonna have to choose the way of the cross because the only way to go up is to go down.

In Christianity, and it's different from the rest of the world, the rules of the Gentiles, they do what they do, but not so with us. There's a different way to be. Jesus says, you wanna be great in the kingdom? The way up is down.

The Shadow of the Cross

And then there's this little interesting echo. Take a look at the exact words of their request. Look at how it's phrased in verse 21:

One at your right and the other at your left — Matthew 20:21

Matthew uses the exact same Greek phrase one other time in his gospel:

One on his right and the other on his left — Matthew 27:38

Do you know where it is? On the cross. That's the exact Greek phrase how the thieves that are crucified with Jesus are described. One on his right and one on his left. And you guys, if Jesus' throne is a cross, and it is, and if you want to be at his right and at his left, then where must you be? It's crosses all the way down.

You guys, if we are gonna change the world, if we are gonna be a people that make our enemies into our friends, people that cause his kingdom to come on this earth, then we will need to become far more comfortable with discomfort, far more embracing of rejection, far more cheerful in our very suffering.

Jesus does not rebuke their desire to lead. It's a fine thing to aspire to that. He told them one chapter earlier, they would be seated on 12 thrones. But here in chapter 20, he simply shows them the way. He will, they will, we will influence, shape, and direct. These are good things. Christians are to lead, but the way up is down because his throne, and necessarily therefore also our thrones, are crosses. The synonym of Christian leadership is service.

Jesus goes on to say:

The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. — Matthew 20:28

Called to Servant Leadership

And so I wanna invite you guys in just a minute. We're gonna celebrate this meal, and then you guys can talk about this. But I want you to talk about applying this. What does it look like for you, Jacob? What in your world and the environment that you're living in? Randy, what does it look like for you as you lead at Mass General? Like, what does it look like to be a servant leader there in that context? What does it look like, Andy? I know you're retired, but you still get opportunities to lead. Like, what does it look like to actually do this?

Why don't you guys have a chance to talk about it? Think about where have you been invited into leadership. And if it seems like the way up is up, then just pause on that and consider what would it look like if the way up is down, if the essence of your leadership is others-centered service.

I'll give you guys a chance to talk about that. And as we go to this meal that commemorates the ultimate seeking of the lowest place, Jesus going to the cross, that's what this meal is about. Let's consider that what would he have to do in our lives?

What would he have to do for me to make me equal to this task of seeking the lowest place as a pursuit of having the greatest influence that we can possibly have? Make sense?