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| "Coffee and thin mints" by David Ou, on flickr |
Isaiah 53:11b-12
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Hebrews 5:7-10
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Mark 10:35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “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.”
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Whoever wishes to become great must become a servant. Whoever wishes to be first must be slave of all. The last will be first. If today's gospel reading sounds a little...familiar...it's because you've now heard Jesus say the same thing in a row...three times.
At the very beginning of the gospel, Mark boldly proclaims that he is telling the story of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Jesus has spent much of the gospel up until now doing miracles and then shushing people up about them, because he doesn't want people to think that the heart of his identity and mission is to do flashy signs of power.
Now, finally, in chapters nine and ten, which we have been reading through for the last month, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter.
He teaches his disciples that his divine purpose here on earth is not to do deeds of power, but to suffer and die. Three times in a row, Jesus predicts his death. He tells the disciples that he will be arrested, beaten, handed over to death. And three times in a row, the disciples don't quite understand what he tries to tell them. They keep arguing about greatness, they keep looking for the silver lining, the reward. But Jesus keeps turning their heads back toward the cross, because that is both his identity and purpose.
All of our readings today speak clearly about this. Christ, like the suffering servant that Isaiah speaks about, is the one who takes on the suffering of the world, who bears our burdens in his body, that the world might be redeemed through him. Christ, like the high priests in the Old Testament, is the one who offers prayers and sacrifices and tears to God on behalf of the people. Except that unlike other high priests, the prayers, the sacrifice, and the tears are his own.
Christ knew that the only way to heal a broken world is to love it back into wholeness. You can't force the world back into balance through acts of power or stores of wealth or accumulation of political or military victories. You bring the world back into balance by transforming hearts and restoring creation, and you can only do this by serving, by getting yourself out of the way, by making good for others and trusting that others will make good for you. Following Christ isn't about reward; it is about loving as we have been loved, and trusting that God will use our acts of compassion and service as subversive means to topple the world back into divine order.
Friends, I don't know that I have anything new under the sun to say about servant leadership. But I do know that the self-giving, other-loving, sacrificial model of Christ is the grand contribution of Christianity to our longing world. We walk a faith that is defined by redefining greatness. We cling to a saving faith that finds the heart of God in the deepest longings and sighs of the world.
Back in August, I read an article by reporter Nevin Martell entitled, "The Most Exclusive Little Coffee Shop in Kabul, Afghanistan." It is a real-life story of servanthood and generosity. I found it charming and poignant. I hope it makes you smile, too.
To get a cup of coffee at Gratitude Café, you’re going to need a heavily armed escort and the right paperwork. The tiny coffee shop is located in the U.S. Air Force’s Forward Operating Base Oqab...a small compound of only a few acres surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire in a corner of Kabul International Airport on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. It’s home to roughly a dozen senior-level officers and approximately 40 security personnel. Another 230 or so troops call it their home base, though they are housed nearby….I think that if Jesus were telling a parable about servanthood today, he might say that being last of all and a servant of all means serving coffee to your subordinates. And it means stuffing the pockets of your enemies with Thin Mints. And it means raising a up flag to invite the homesick into a place where they can sip a soothing taste of home.
Obviously, this is not your average Starbucks. The café is located in a revamped old connex — the military term for the corrugated metal shipping containers used for everything from living quarters to, well, coffee shops — with a deck built onto the front of it. It looks like a makeshift office on a construction site. The space inside is roughly 10 feet by 25 feet and eschews the fancy fixin’s of modern coffee shops. There are a couple of tables and a counter in the rear that holds the coffeemakers, espresso machines, electric kettles, various supplies and boxes of cookies, biscotti and other snacks. The walls are decorated with handmade thank-you cards and letters of appreciation sent to those stationed at the base.
Since this humble café opened in early 2014, it has been the home to a surprising social experiment created by now-retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General John Michel, who was the base’s commander and the Commanding General of NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan until last summer.
Gratitude Café is the exact opposite of an officers’ club. At this java joint, only senior leaders on the staff are allowed to work the counter. “We didn’t want to send a message that we built a coffee shop so the folks of a lower rank could serve us drinks when we came in,” says Michel. “We wanted to invert the concept. We wanted to say, ‘This a great opportunity to exemplify servant leadership.’”
Early every morning, a self-proclaimed den mother or den father, who volunteers to handle the overall management of the operation, walks over to tidy up the space, fire up the coffeemakers and run a custom-made Gratitude Café flag up the pole. “The concept is ‘Flag up, fuel up,’” says Michel.
This project bringing caffeination to up to 85 troops daily doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. All the equipment, snacks, beverages and attendant materials — cups, stirrers, sugar packets, etc. — are donated by Americans back home. So service personnel may find themselves sipping on all kinds of coffees, ranging from mass-market brands like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts to more artisanal roasts from M.E. Swings and Kicking Horse, depending on the latest haul. Nearly every day, packages arrive from the States after having made the two-week trip through the USPS and the Military Postal Service Agency. “Some people send boxes decorated so pretty we don’t even want to open them,” says Michel….
One unexpected benefit of the café is that it created a casual space where Americans could meet with their Afghan counterparts — who generally choose tea over coffee. Since many formal interactions include a gift exchange, Michel and his senior officers began giving out the extra boxes of packaged baked goods, which were harder to come by and more expensive for Afghans to obtain. “We might look at a cookie or a cupcake and think, ‘That looks good,’” says Michel. “But it shows your desire to do something good for them. When they walk away with three boxes of Girl Scout cookies, it becomes a psychological, tangible reminder that this is a beneficial relationship that goes beyond all our day jobs. So I would look to see how big their pockets were when they left to gauge the success of an interaction.”
A coffee shop in the middle of a military base in the desert is both unexpected and welcome. In the same way, any faithful act of compassion, generosity, or patience is both unexpected and welcome in a world that would otherwise expect us to be impatient, self-seeking, or angry.
There is nothing glamorous about all of this servant leadership stuff. But of course, there’s also nothing terribly glamorous about a dusty carpenter who touches all sorts of sick people and washes people’s feet and embarrasses religious and political leaders and who, at the end, will be executed like any other common criminal.
But it’s not about the glamor, and we know it.
It’s about the promise: The son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom. And it is in our own serving that we come face to face with Jesus, this redeemer of the world. It is in our weakness that find God’s strength. And it is in dying to ourselves that we receive back the full measure of God’s glory revealed to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our servant, and our life-giving Lord.
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