The Upper Room: A Place of Service

Midweek of Lent I
St. John's Lutheran Church
Luke 22:14-38

“The Upper Room: A Place of Service” (Places of the Passion)

When was the last time that you experienced honor? How about glory? In our society, those concepts are usually limited to the realms of video games and movies. They’re not the stuff of everyday life. Honor and glory are BIG THINGS that you have to do something great to get; even then, they’re not accessories that you can just go out and find on your own. Honor and glory are bestowed on someone by a community, by people other than themselves. In many other parts of our world, honor and glory speak to someone’s role in the community and significantly shape a person’s life. They’re telling signs of how someone looks at you – really, looks up to you – because of what you’ve done and your relationship to the world around you. That said, though, it’s not as if we don’t have an understanding of concepts such as these.

What would you need to do to get honor or glory? They aren’t just freely given these days: honor and glory are earned. (“Earned” might sometimes even be too strong of a word, especially when infamy and celebrity often stand in for honor and glory in our popular culture.) So what might cause your community to look up to you? Scoring key points in a big game? Landing a large contract for your company? How about donating a couple million dollars to a school? They’d name a new wing of classrooms after you! Communities often recognize greatness and honor those individuals who’ve served them first.

For most of us, the only way we could see attaining to honor or getting glory would come in response to the good, or even great, things that we might do. Now, you probably haven’t thought much about “honor” or “glory” recently, but what if we substituted another, related concept: respect? You’ve probably heard and used that word a lot more frequently. Respect is what it’s all about for much of our society. Are you getting the respect – the honor and glory – that you deserve? Is someone disrespecting you by not giving you appropriate honor or glory when you think that they should? Sure, everyone should be shown respect as a fellow human being. But might you also find yourself thinking (practically speaking), that you should be shown more respect than most other folks?

Who deserves the most honor and glory, the most respect? That’s the discussion which arose among Jesus’ disciples there in the upper room at the conclusion of the Last Supper. An even more accurate description might say that it’s the argument that came up after Jesus had announced that one of them there at the table was betraying him. The Twelve dispute among themselves as to who the betrayer might be, but then they argue as to which one of them seems to be greatest. Rather than recognizing how they each had fallen short of being a perfect disciple, they instead turn to declarations of their own worth. They’re focusing on completely the wrong thing, caring about who should get the honor and the glory according to what they’ve done in their time with Jesus. They miss the most important thing: what Jesus is doing for them.

In all fairness, though, we often miss it, too. When you or I are looking for other people to recognize us for our accomplishments and our status, we’re focused on the wrong things. We’re asking with the disciples, “Am I not the great?” The devil wants us to go along with the way of the world, where the lesser serves the greater. And we buy in to it, thinking that we deserved to be served. But in the upper room, Jesus flips that understanding of greatness on its head.

Directly following his institution of the Lord’s Supper and before going out to complete his passion and death on the cross, Jesus takes the time in the upper room to again call those who would follow him to a different standard of living. He is the embodiment of loving service, giving his body and blood – his life – not to earn honor, but to bring restored life with God to people that don’t deserve it. He comes into places where people like you and me strive for glory and shows true service in making us children of God.

For God’s people in Christ, greatness isn’t found in the honor, glory, or respect that comes from the world, but in humble service that reflects our servant Savior. Whenever you are tempted to think yourself better than someone else, remember your Creator who came to die for His creatures. Instead of imagining how that person should serve you, consider how you might serve them without any possibility of payment for your serving. Live as the least in this world, those who have no claim to honor, glory, or respect.

In the upper room, our Savior refocuses our journey through Lent and through life. As his forgiven people, let us go out in humble service, in the name of the greatest among us: Jesus.

Amen.