The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:1-3

Whenever I get together with my three best friends from high school, we play a card game called Pounce. It’s like solitaire on steroids, and with four people. It’s super intense and ridiculously fast-paced, and I—being neither of those things—never win. My friend Anne is a superstar at all things requiring a) speed and b) focus on several things at a time. So Anne wins the most; then Lora; then Erin. I’m definitely in 4th place of four.  BUT…I have played this game a lot. I’m actually probably not terrible. I’m just the worst in this group. I have a feeling if I played Pounce with a different crowd, I might be pretty good. 

But it’s all relative, right? 

How often, even beyond frantic card games, do we determine our greatness (or success, or happiness, or attractiveness, or smarts…) relative to other people? How often do we decide we’re doing OK (or not) by looking around and seeing how everyone else is doing? Some of us are more competitive than others, but I think, for most of us, it’s hard to avoid sizing ourselves up like that. 

In today’s reading, Jesus tells his disciples to stop. Stop wasting your energy comparing yourself to others. Stop worrying so much about who’s ‘greatest.’ Your standards are so different from mine. Instead, Jesus tells his disciples (and us) to put our effort into something different. He says to follow him, we need to change; we need to be like children. We are invited to establish greater trust in him, greater reliance on him, and greater humility in general. It’s not about being greater than the other guy; it’s about putting our trust in the one who truly is great.

When we size ourselves up (and size up other people) by making comparisons, our foundation will always be shifting. (After all, I’m a crummy Pounce player with my three best friends, but I’m probably pretty good against someone else—so where does that leave me?) But when we put our energy into relying on who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, and who Jesus says we are, we root ourselves in a sure and steady foundation. 

May you set aside the burden of worrying about who is greatest (or smartest, or funniest, or happiest, or prettiest, or wealthiest, or most liked, or best dressed, or most talented…) and instead put your energy into asking God to nurture in you a childlike reliance on the Great One, who has humbled himself for the sake of the world.

Today’s devotion is written by Aneel Trivedi.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Acts 2:46-47

I always held up the new converts to the Jesus tradition in Acts 2 following Pentecost as the ideal version of a Christian community. The newly baptized sold all their possessions shared everything they had, physically gathered together every day in a place of worship, and spent time breaking bread with one another in their homes. This sounds appealing at any time, but as we just moved past five months of existing primarily as a socially distanced Redeemer community, I can’t deny how much I wish to emulate the Acts 2 church. In fact, it feels like that’s what we’re supposed to do as a church. It feels like the pandemic is preventing us from existing as the church was intended.

But today I have been thinking about the way each of those new converts in the Acts 2 church was coming from something else, from something different. We don’t know exactly what their lives looked like before, but we know they were radically changed after their encounter with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. They became a new community after an encounter with Christ in Baptism, in the spoken Word, and in communion—and maybe that’s what the ideal version of a Christian community actually looks like. The community is marked not by how and where it gathers or by its similarity to the first community, but by its regular encounters with God and a willingness to be changed.

There must have been some yearning for the old ways among the converts, and even some grief and sorrow for the communities left behind. There was even personal sacrifice—how many of us would joyfully sell all our possessions? And so perhaps God’s presence alone was the driving force behind the community’s glad and sincere hearts rather than the details of how they gathered.

I know that God will show up and make Godself present wherever and however we gather. And if I can imagine the church as a body willing to be radically changed by God’s presence, perhaps I can both mourn what’s lost and live with a glad and sincere heart in the new community God is building. Perhaps the ideal community isn’t about the way we gather but the way we allow ourselves to be changed by God’s presence among us.

If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. – John 14:14

It would be easy to read today’s verse and think that all we need to do to get what we want is to end our prayer with the phrase, “in Jesus’ name.”

It would be easy to think this because Jesus is the son of God. His name is powerful. It’s the name of the one who we believe conquered sin and death. It’s the name of the one who can bring, and has brought, healing and wholeness to people all over the world.

While the name of Jesus is powerful, calling on Jesus name isn’t like rubbing a magic lamp or tossing a coin in a wishing well. If it were, we know we would have far more of our prayers answered in the way we wish they would be answered.

This verse is located in chapter 14 of the Gospel of John. In this section of John, Jesus is telling his disciples, and us today, that they will go on to do greater things than even he has done. To understand what Jesus means we need to remember what Jesus came to do.

Jesus came with the message that the Kingdom of God was at hand. This meant that God’s desire for creation to be set right was within reach. Time and time again, we see that Jesus’ primary message for his followers was to lead with love as they sought to follow God. 

When Jesus tells us that whatever we ask for in his name will be given, he is saying that whatever we ask for that falls in line with his message, and God’s desire for the world to operate with God’s kingdom ethic, will be done.

So then, our call today…tomorrow…and every remaining tomorrow we have, is to align our desires with God’s desires for us and the world. When we do that, all that we ask for will be given to us.

The Lord will again comfort Zion — Zechariah 1:17

He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope. — 2 Corinthians 1:10

2020 has been a hard year defined by illness, loss, insecurity, violence, and injustice, in both ongoing and unforeseen ways. Whether you’re experiencing it personally or hearing it from someone else, there is a weariness and a fear that have infused our consciousness. Many of us are feeling discouraged and disappointed, disoriented and uncertain. Many wonder where God is in the midst of it. We wonder how to make sense of suffering that seems senseless.

Today’s passages, together, remind us of God’s character and action in the midst of human suffering. They show us that when people suffer, God does respond. In the Zechariah passage, we’re reminded of God’s comfort, of God’s nearness to us when we are in pain. We’re reminded that, like a loving parent, God hurts with us and holds us close. In the 2 Corinthians passage, we’re reminded of God’s deliverance, of God’s power to intervene and save us from suffering. We’re reminded of the ultimate and eternal rescue, from sin and death, on which we can rely. As we experience or witness suffering, sometimes we see deliverance and are released from suffering; at other times, suffering is endured, and God sits with his children, offering comfort and healing. God’s responses may feel mysterious, but we can be confident in the certainty of his active and attentive presence.

Both of today’s passages also remind us that God doesn’t comfort and rescue us just once or twice; the words “again” (from Zechariah) and “continue” (from 2 Corinthians) emphasize that these are God’s habitual responses. God is consistently, reliably present.

God’s active presence in our lives is transformative. Scott J. Haefmann writes this about Paul’s understanding of his own suffering: “suffering is a page in the textbook used in God’s school of faith. It is not suffering itself that teaches us faith, but God who uses it as a platform to display his resurrection power in our lives, either through deliverance from suffering or by comfort within it.”

Even as suffering will draw us to places of confusion and uncertainty, may we seek and see God’s comforting and freeing presence in it.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” —Philippians 2:3-4

At Redeemer, we often talk about our belief that following Jesus is a better way to live. Following Jesus is more than following a set of rules or living by a set of principles. Jesus is alive, right now, so to follow him is a relationship with a living person.

But that doesn’t mean that words and principles don’t matter. As with all healthy and thriving relationships, following Jesus wholeheartedly means living a certain way. It’s this way of living that we believe is better than any non-Jesus way of life.

In Paul’s letters to Christian believers in Philippi, he laid out what this life looks like. Paul said that followers of Jesus are to have the same mindset that Jesus had when he gave his divine life for our sake. In one of the Daily Text verses for today, Paul laid out one way to think about this. To live the Jesus way means to act as if other people are more important to you than you are to yourself.

Paul did not mean that people are not all equal in value in God’s eyes. It’s clear that we are. But what he said is that, paradoxically, the way to a good life lies not in trying to thrive as an individual but rather in concerning yourself with the well-being of other people. What Paul was talking about is the path of mutual submission. The way life works best is when I put your good ahead of my own and you put my good ahead of your own.

The mutuality is critical. I can only really live freely and generously, paying attention to other people’s good while ignoring my own, if I know that other people are looking out for me. The breakdown of this arrangement is usually what we’re talking about when we talk about “sin.” And the fulfillment and realization of this arrangement is what we’re talking about when we talk about “heaven.” This is how God designed human life to be.

This is such a world-changing concept. Can you imagine if we actually did this? Can you imagine voting without giving a second thought to your own interests but instead concerning yourself only with the welfare of others? Can you imagine budgeting based on an others-first principle? Can you picture what your calendar would look like if we could really live like this?

The Jesus way in this broken world is to keep taking steps toward this reality. Sometimes there will be a breakdown. Sometimes we’ll get self-centered. Sometimes we’ll be taken advantage of because no one was watching our backs. Sometimes we’ll be tempted to give up because this whole system just seems hopelessly naive.

But other ways of living don’t work. This way, this way of the beloved community, of the kingdom of heaven, this Jesus way, works.