“To Serve” by Rev. Dr. Jay Marshall Groat – October 20, 2024, at Mount Vernon, Ohio, based on Mark 10:35-45

The Son of Man, which was one of Jesus’ titles, came not to be served, but to serve. The drive from my house to this building is about 40 minutes, so every Sunday morning I have some time to think and wonder. One of my routines is that at 8 o’clock I’m in my car somewhere in between my house and here, and I listen to the news at the top of the hour on NPR. Every time I do that one of the things I think to myself is, “Why am I doing this?”

One of the purposes of stained-glass windows is – yes, they’re beautiful and all those obvious reasons – and the other one originally, way back when, not just this congregation but any congregation with stained glass windows, part of the purpose was to keep that world out of here, at least for a little while. Keep the outside world out. We can’t see it, so that we may go within. As I mentioned earlier this morning, I love to call worship the most important hour of the week, so I’m telling us to go in, go deep. And then go out and have everybody serve us, right? No. So that we can ground ourselves and go out and serve. The theory, the way that this is supposed to work, by the time we get up Sunday morning we’re absolutely spiritually exhausted. You just had a good night’s sleep. How are you exhausted? I’m so exhausted spending my whole week serving others that I’ve got to go and worship, so that again I can go deep.

So as I was driving out here I asked the question, and I’ve conditioned myself, I started doing it years ago – Groat, never ask a question of the congregation that you haven’t already asked yourself. So, I asked myself the question. In the coming days of this week how may I serve others? I’m thinking about that, so I’m inviting you to think about it. Part of my job is to ask the right questions, and then you find your answers for them. So I’m going to ask you. How can you serve others in the specifics of your life this coming week?

What we just heard read can probably be summed up this way, this is from one of my commentaries. Quote – “Only those willing to be slaves in the service of others have any claim to greatness.” I’m going to say that again. “Only those willing to be slaves in the service of others have any claim to greatness.” This is an extreme statement. That dangerous word, slavery. Slave in the service of others. And by the way, this is an aside, but I can’t resist it. James and John say, essentially, we want to sit at your right hand and we want to be great. And Jesus says, wait a minute, guys. You need to think about what you’re saying. Are you really willing to drink this cup? They teach us in seminary preaching class to never use air quotes – well, I’m going to use them. “Cup.” You might want to think about this, because both in the Old Testament and the New Testament whenever we mention cup, specifically in this instance when Jesus says are you willing to drink of this cup, the cup represents the passion of Christ, and the passion of Christ represents death. And then resurrection – but death. And I want you to know that in Acts, we’re not sure about John historically, but in Acts, Chapter 12, James is martyred. He got what he was asking for, and the great paradox of this passage is that he didn’t know what he was asking for. 

Only those willing to be slaves in the service of others have any claim to greatness. When I was a student at Mount Union College, which is now the University of Mount Union, we were – I’m sure it’s not that way anymore – we were on trimesters, three trimesters throughout the academic year. The whole time I was in college we had from Thanksgiving to New Year’s off. Can you imagine? It was fantastic. My dad had a church member named Don Lowe. Don Lowe owned one of the two Sohio gas stations in town. If you’re, I don’t know, if you’re 30 and younger, maybe 35, you have no idea what Sohio is, right? Well, there were two Sohio gas stations in town and Don Lowe owned one of them, and my dad talked to Don Lowe and said, Jay’s got this big, long break, how about giving him a job? So, I worked for four winters pumping gas at Lowe’s Sohio. Don was a real soft-spoken guy so the first day on the job I was a little taken aback. This real soft-spoken guy, went to church occasionally, great family. The first day on the job, real soft-spoken guy, he essentially said, “Jay, as long as you work here you’re going to be working the island.” There was one island, the island was where the gas pumps were. Essentially the translation was, we’re going to be inside doing the hard stuff, working on cars. You’re going to be out here pumping gas. And he got real assertive with me, it was a soft voice but it was firm. I’m going to date myself even more. He said, “Don’t ask if they need their oil checked. Just do it.” This was long before self-serve, right? Don’t ask them. Do it. Don’t ask them to check their radiator. Do it. Now listen to this one. Don’t ask to check the water for their battery. Remember that? Just do it. Now you may ask them if you want them to check their tires. You don’t have to do that but ask them. It made such an impression on me. He said, don’t ask, just do it. Serve, aggressively.

Only those willing to be slaves in the service of others have any claim to greatness. Let me read this. Everybody’s heard of Mother Teresa, right? Let me read this one short paragraph: “Mother Teresa founded the missionaries of charity and religious congregation that was initially dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Over the decades the congregation grew to operate in over 133 countries, and as of 2012 more than 4,500 nuns, managing homes for those dying from HIV-AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, as well as her own soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, orphanages and schools.” On and on it goes.

Many years ago, in the congregation that I was serving, one of our church members actually went, they were traveling in India and environs, and Tom and his wife actually went, they wanted to meet Mother Teresa. I’ll tell you why I’m chuckling. So, they did, and then they came back. I was really anxious to hear, I said, “Tom, what was it like? Did you get to meet Mother Teresa?” He kind of hemmed and hawed and said, “Yeah, we met her. She was kind of nasty. She didn’t want to talk to us.” I said, “How come?” “She was busy.” This guy goes halfway around the world, he wants to have a chat with Mother Teresa. She’s too busy serving others. It’s hilarious. He was sort of miffed. I said, “Tom, Tom, Tom.”

OK, I’m going to wind this up. I’m going to say this once more. Only those willing to be slaves in the service of others have any claim to greatness. How can you and I, this week, in the specifics of our lives, how can we serve others? Now I tell a lot of stories about my dad because he was a great influence on my life so therefore, I’m going to tell you another one. We lived on 733 West Fifth Street; Marysville was still a small town. On both sides of our houses were widows. I used to in my mind call them old widows, now I call them older widows. They both lived alone. The first winter that we lived in that house, the first significant snow we got, my dad pulled me and my older brother Jeff aside. And this is how we were raised. He said, “Sit down, I want to have a Bible study with you. I’m going to read to you from Mark, and I want to read to you about” – no, he didn’t do that, but here’s what he did. He handed each of us a snow shovel, and he said, “Jeff, I want you to do Mrs. So-and-So. Jay, I want you to do Mrs. So-and-So. I want you to shovel their front walks and I want you shovel their sidewalks up to their porch. I want you to shovel off an area on their front porches so that they can get in and out. And I don’t want you to ask them. Just do it.” So, we did.

The first time I did it, she had the wonderful name of Mrs. Bump. It sounds like something from a Dickens novel, doesn’t it? I was a typical kid, and I was shoveling, and I got closer to her front door. I thought, Mrs. Bump is fine, but I really don’t want to see her, I don’t want to have any conversation. She moves the curtain, and she looks out and she looks at me. No expression, one way or the other. OK. She knew my name, and I finished, and I turned to leave, and I heard the door open, and she said Jay. And I said yes. She said come here. And I said OK. She handed me five dollars, and shut the door, and I walked away. What I found out years later when I told my brother Jeff this, Jeff was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and he kept the five dollars that he got. But I’m not that smart, and I went back, and I told my dad. I said, “Dad, look! I got five dollars!” He smiled at me, and what did he say? Take it back. I took it back and I was so glad that he told me to. Later on, in high school when I wanted to go out on a date, my dad said, “I love that you play three sports a year in high school, you don’t have a job. Any time you need any money, you just come to me.” Only those willing to be slaves to other have any claim to greatness. Amen?