There is an interesting story that comes out of the Second World War. England and Germany both had state-of-the-art fighter planes. Germany had the Messerschmitt, which was considered to be the world’s fastest fighter plane. The British had the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was slower than the Messerschmitt. Nevertheless, German pilots were envious of their British counterparts.
You see, the Messerschmitt had been designed to hold the perfect German. Who was the perfect German? Who else but Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. Hitler was little more than five feet tall. However, the German pilots who guided the Messerschmitt were considerably taller than 5 feet. So the Germans had to fly in very cramped quarters. But who was going to tell Adolf Hitler that he was not the perfect German? The Messerschmitts were faster, but their pilots were not happy men. (1)
It is an amazing fact, but many leaders fail because of big egos. Big men in little planes. Big egos in little men. “Pride goeth before a fall,” says the ancient adage. And it’s true.
In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters. News of this disaster grew even grimmer when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. This tragedy was not the result of some sort of equipment malfunction or a technology glitch. The radar and other safety systems on each ship were working just fine. The collision was not caused by a blanket of thick fog or other dangerous weather condition. The cause . . . was human stubbornness. Each captain was completely aware of the other ship’s presence. Either one could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each captain was too proud to yield first. By the time they finally came to their senses, it was too late and the ships collided! (2)
Jesus and the disciples were passing through Galilee. They made a stop at Capernaum. It was there that Jesus asked his disciples what they had been arguing about while on the road. The Scripture says his disciples kept quiet. They didn’t want Christ to know that they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.
Surely men never do that . . . do they? Try to one-up one another? Boast about their accomplishments? Surely you don’t know a man with a big ego.
We read that when the disciples refused to answer Jesus’ question, he sat down. He also probably let out a loud sigh. He called his disciples to gather around and said to them, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
Interesting words from the Master. If you want to come in first, you’ve got to be willing to come in last and you must be willing to serve. Let’s begin with the very human desire of wanting to be first. I joked about men with their egos. Women have egos too. They’re just a little more subtle about it.
There was a noted priest in Florence in the 15th century. One day he saw an elderly woman worshiping at the statue of the Virgin Mary which stood in his city’s great cathedral. On the following day, he noticed the same woman again on her knees before the statue. With great interest, the priest observed that day after day, she came and did homage before the statue. “Look how she reverences the Virgin Mother,” he whispered to one of his fellow priests.
“Don’t be deceived by what you see,” the priest responded. “Many years ago an artist was commissioned to create a statue for the cathedral. As he sought a young woman to pose as the model for his sculpture, he found one who seemed to be the perfect subject. She was young, serenely lovely, and had a mystical quality in her face. The image of that young woman inspired his statue of Mary. The woman who now worships the statue is the same one who served as its model years ago. Shortly after the statue was put in place, she began to visit it and continued to worship there religiously ever since.” (3)
She had fallen in love with a likeness of herself. You don’t have to be a man to have a big ego. Many of us are so afflicted.
However, please do not misunderstand. Having a big ego is not all bad. People with big egos get things done. People who want to be first, who want to be the greatest, often are doers. Adolf Hitler had a big ego. He was a monster, but he got things done. Given a few breaks here and there, he might have realized his dream to rule the world. As a person of faith, I believe those breaks may well have been determined by God . . . but still he got things done.
It’s very rare to discover a successful person in any field who does not have a healthy degree of their own self-worth. Like any virtue, however, an overly developed ego can be detrimental. You could make the case that Mother Teresa had a strong ego. No one could deter her from her cause. She could confront powerful politicians and get what she wanted from them. The reason she was so effective, however, is that her ego was restrained by humility, the humility of understanding herself as a servant of Christ.
I have read that the home where Mother Teresa’s nuns lived had no stoves, no washing machines, no electric fans, no air conditioners. Mother Teresa explained their absence like this, “I do not want them. The poor we serve have none.”
When she first had the idea of starting her organization, the Missionaries of Charity, she even planned to allow the nuns to eat only the kind of food the very poorest people ate rice and salt. However, she asked advice from another nun whom she respected. This nun wisely asked her, “How do you expect your sisters to work, if their bodies receive no sustenance?” As a result of this advice, Mother Teresa allowed her nuns to eat well, but to eat only simple food. (4)
Mother Teresa had a very strong sense of servanthood. Her ego was disciplined by her commitment to Christ and to the poor whom she served.
Those who serve Christ need a healthy sense of their own self-worth. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus doesn’t need more wimps. Jesus doesn’t need more people whose eyes are always downward because they don’t feel worthy. Jesus doesn’t need wimps, he needs warriors people who understand their own value, who have a deep sense of their own self worth, not because they think there’s anything special about them, but because they understand that they are children of God.
Sometimes we put too much emphasis on the meek and mild Jesus. If he were that meek and that mild, why in the world would anybody ever crucify him? If he were that meek and that mild, would he have driven the tax collectors from the temple? Jesus came to be servant to all, but he wasn’t a wimp. I think it’s interesting that when they came to take him that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, they sent a whole brigade of soldiers. They didn’t regard him as a wimp. They regarded him as a dangerous person.
In his own way Jesus was a warrior. He was a warrior intent on storming the very gates of hell. He was a strong man in every sense and he wants his followers to be strong. For life is difficult. And he wants followers who will set an example for other people in how to live victoriously. He wants followers who are up to the rigors of facing the evils of this world and preparing this world for the coming of his kingdom. So he said to his disciples, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
In other words, he doesn’t ask us to give up our strong egos. Rather he wants us to discipline those egos to serve him and to serve all those for whom he died.
Dr. Melvin Cheatham, a medical doctor, tells about a friend of his named Barb Peters. Barb was not a person with what most of us would call a big ego, but she was the kind of strong person who could be used of God. Barb went with Dr. Cheatham and his wife to Kenya in East Africa on a mission trip one time. What she experienced there greatly impacted her life.
From childhood, Barb wanted to become a doctor so she could serve God by working with people who were underprivileged. So in her fifties, she sold her home and moved into a humble abode in order to afford to go to medical school. That’s a bold move to make when you are in your fifties. Barb says that, had her dream been realized, she would probably have been the oldest graduating doctor ever! Still, she believed that even if she was too old for medical school she might be able to get a doctorate in science and work in a mission hospital as a lab technician.
While in her first year of school, she supported herself by working a full‑time job in real estate sales. She studied hard and made it through the first year. She wrote to Dr. Cheatham to tell him of her studies and her desire to serve in the mission field. She wrote in her letter, “In about six years I will be ready to serve in a mission hospital.”
Cheatham replied, “How about now? You have two masters’ degrees already and a background in teaching. Someone like you is badly needed at a mission school in Londiani, Kenya. The teachers there need the expertise you have to train them, and they need it now.”
Now? Kenya? she gulped. Barb says that, being a person who is used to the finer things in life and who takes germs very seriously, she had visions of tribal warfare, genocide, natives on the rampage, AIDS, malaria, the Ebola virus, and all sorts of other things. Still, she managed enough courage to ask the next question: “Where is this Londiani?” She found Londiani was a small village in western Kenya. Another Christian missionary was already there and had started the school. She was now building a medical clinic and dreamed of starting a small hospital.
Barb decided this was where she needed to be. However, when she announced to her grown children, “I am going to the jungle this summer to work as a missionary,” they were not encouraging. “You know, you’re losing it, Mother,” one said. Another commented, “I’m proud of you. Mom, but can’t you do something nice and safe that is a little bit closer to home than East Africa?” Another questioned her wisdom. “I don’t want you to die,” said this offspring.
Barb finally blurted out, “I tried to teach you how to live, and now I am going to teach you how to die.” (5)
Well, of course, not everyone who goes as a missionary to Africa ends up dying there. But Barb had settled in her own mind that, if this was required of her, she was willing to pay the price.
Barb wasn’t a wimp by any stretch of the imagination. She was a woman of courage, the kind of woman, the kind of person that God is looking for. Jesus didn’t scold his disciples for having great dreams, for wanting to be the best, the greatest. Ambition can be a very useful tool for motivating us to be all we can be. Christ wanted his disciples to understand that being greatest in the kingdom of God meant a total commitment to serving all God’s children.
It is interesting that while they were still trying to digest this teaching, Jesus took a little child and placed that child before them. Taking the child into his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
Part of serving Christ is helping create the kind of world that is safe for all the world’s children making sure that children in our own community and around the world get the kind of help they need, whether it is food or medicine or education, whatever they need to thrive. If you want to be the greatest, commit your life to serving the least and the lowest.
I like the way evangelist Bill Glass puts it. Some of you who are football fans may remember Glass. He was All-Pro defensive end for the Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns for many years. Since leaving football he has been involved in Christian ministry. He talks about what he calls “The Baseball Game of Life.” He says that there are three bases which the Christian needs to touch before crossing home plate. The three bases are: First base Salvation; Second base Sanctification or growing into the likeness of Christ; and Third base Service . . . Glass says that some of us try to touch only first base, salvation, without touching second and third.
It’s like an example that pastor Gary Sanford uses. He recalls playing baseball as a boy. Sometimes his friends didn’t have enough boys to play all the positions, so they played a game that they called “Chicken-Base Baseball.” In Chicken-Base Baseball, the runner was not required to run around all the bases. He simply ran from home plate to first base and back. He skipped second and third base completely.
Gary comments that the church is saddled with lots of “Chicken-Base Christians.” These Christians care only about their personal salvation. They run to first base salvation, skip second and third bases entirely (sanctification and service), and take the short trip back to home plate. (6)
In reality, that can’t be done. Both Glass and Sanford are right. When we give our lives to Christ, when we are baptized, when we acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Lord of our lives, that is not the end of the process. It is only the beginning. By the power of the Holy Spirit we are to continue to grow into the spiritual image of Christ. That doesn’t mean that we will be perfect, but it does mean we will continue to grow in love, to grow in compassion, to grow in our ability to forgive and accept others. That is as much a part of the Christian life as salvation. You may think pretty highly of yourself as a Christian, but it is my responsibility as your pastor to tell you that if you are not a more loving, more accepting, more compassionate person than you were when you first began your Christian journey, you are still stuck on first base.
Salvation is only the beginning of the journey. Growing to be more like Jesus is the continuation of the process. And the crowning achievement, what makes you the greatest, is humbling yourself to serve those who are less fortunate, those who do not have the advantages that you and I have, those who do not know God’s amazing grace.
Big men in little planes. Why were they in those little planes? Because of a big ego in a little man. God wants us to stand tall by humbling ourselves as he humbled himself and giving our lives as he gave his life to save and to serve the world. If you want to be No. 1, if you want to be the greatest, that is the blueprint. Make this a better world for all God’s children. In the words of truly one of the greatest people of the last century, Dr. Albert Schweitzer: “I don’t know what your destiny will be,” he once said, “but one thing I do know, the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
1. Leonard & Thelma Spinrad, Speaker’s Lifetime Library (Paramus, NJ: Revised & Expanded, 1997, p. 526).
2. Pastor Dustin Bergene, http://www.trinityabita.org/home/180003585/180003585/docs/sermon%2010.4.09.pdf?sec_id=180003585.
3. Rev. Adrian Dieleman, http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/phil2v03.html.
4. Amy Ruth, Mother Teresa, pp. 55-56, 68. 250 Anecdotes About Religion (David Bruce).
5. Make a Difference: Responding to God’s Call to Love the World (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2004), pp. 37-38.
6. Richard Niell Donovan, http://www.lectionary.org/Sermons/Dono/NTOther/James_02.01-17_ChickenBase.htm.