I was online the other day and ran across some arguments they wish they hadn’t gotten into:[1]
I once bet my buddy that he couldn’t eat 100 peeps. He won, but I had to take him to the hospital.
I once bet a friend that I could eat his sock. To make it easier, we grilled and seasoned it. It did not help.
My mom used to bet her older brother she would one day be older than him. She was 5. He still collects a dollar every visit. They are now over 60.
I bet a friend that I could start smoking cigarettes, and quit whenever I wanted…it’s now 8,031 days into the bet.
My brother and I bet on the same football game every year. The winner gets to keep the same $10 until the next year. Whoever dies with $10 wins.
A friend once bet me a $100 I couldn’t get a date with the new waitress! Twenty years later, I’m still with the waitress and never got my money!
In seventh grade, I bet my lab partner everything I had in my pocket he couldn’t eat the cow eyeball we were dissecting. It turns out a seventh-grade boy will eat an eyeball for 75 cents and a piece of gum.
I think it’s really interesting how much we want to be right, and to what lengths we are willing to prove it. In our first passage for today, Jesus’ disciples get into an argument over who is the greatest that mirrors our society—who’s the greatest? How do we know? And who’s right? Jesus offers some key questions to ask of ourselves and our leaders.
First, who is most important? The argument the disciples were having was about who was the greatest. Each of them said they were. “Who’s the greatest?” Jesus asks. “The person who sits at the table or the servant? Isn’t it really the person who sits at the table? But I’m among you as a servant.” As some of you know, my dad’s dad was a pastor—a great man with many accomplishments, but he worked so much all the time that my father didn’t get much time with him when he was growing up. So my dad, not knowing how to be a father lovingly involved in his children’s lives, set about being the dad he wished he had had. We saw how Dad put God first, for sure, but we knew by my father’s example that we were more important than his job. Healthy leaders don’t bask in their own glory—they look to make others great.
Second, whose interest is served first? Bruce Thielemann told of a conversation with a member of his church, “You preachers talk a lot about giving, but when you get right down to it, it all comes down to basin theology.” Thielemann asked, “Basin theology? What’s that?” The church member replied, “Remember what Pilate did when he had the chance to acquit Jesus? He called for a basin and washed his hands of the whole thing. But Jesus, the night before his death, called for a basin and proceeded to wash the feet of the disciples. It all comes down to basin theology. Which one will you use?”[2] If we always do what’s convenient and helps us first, then we are not living the way Jesus would want us to. Jesus washed His disciples feet, and demonstrates His love for us by being willing to go to the Cross, so that we could have a way home to God. Jesus made it clear that what He wanted, was not as important as what God wanted.
Third, is being right going to get you what you really want? When Cynthia and I were first married, I had this pride thing going on. A couple of times, when we were having a “discussion,” I pressed hard to win the argument, only to discover that I had actually won several days of frosty Cynthia. Paul talks about how being right meant thinking of how others were affected by our choices and actions. He writes, “We should all be concerned about our neighbor and the good things that will build his faith. Christ did not think only of himself.” When we approach our relationships with a bigger view to what’s the best good and best for relationships—not just that I’m right, and I have a right to this—then we are mindful of what will make for a real win for all of us.
Who is most important? Whose interest is served first? Is being right what really matters? All three of these questions suggest we need a change in how we approach our lives and our choices. What would change if instead of me trying to be important, I thought of God as most important? How would our lives and our society be different, if we put the common good ahead of our own interests? What would happen if having better lives and better communities were more important than us being right? It’s a curious thing to think about as I look at how Jesus lived. Though He was the Son of God, Jesus took off his cloak, put on a towel and washed His disciples’ feet—including the feet of Judas, who would betray Him! Though Jesus could have stopped the crucifixion at any point, still He stayed with it, not for His sake—but for ours. The promise we have is that when we live like Jesus, when we love like Jesus, when serve like Jesus, being right is not nearly as important as loving. Just as God raised Jesus from the grave, so we trust that God will bless all the living, loving, serving and sacrificing that we do. Yes, we will be redeemed, but really that’s not why we do it. We are not in it for what we get out of it, but because we know that if we are willing to give up being right then not only will we have hope, but so will our world.
[1]https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/21-people-who-deeply-regretted-starting-an-argument-517410/
[2]Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, ed. Craig Brain Larson (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), p. 220.