Shane Hughes 9-14-25

Good morning, Highland. It's good to see you here today. If you're visiting with us, my name is Shane Hughes. I am one of the ministers here and we're going to take four weeks with a little break in the middle to talk about our pathway. We know that there's a lot of new people here this fall and so we want to explain to you, take a little bit of time to explain to you what does it mean to be a part of Highland.

If you consider yourself a member of Highland, what we're going to ask you to do is four things and they're all on that wall right over there. There are four different ways that you can engage in the life of Highland together. The first over there you see is worship. We want you to experience the awe of, of worshiping the living God. We want you to encounter the power of God through Jesus Christ who has saved you.

And so worship is a big part of that. It's not just what happens in this place on Sunday mornings. Worship is an expression of your whole life. We want you to experience table. That's not just the Lord's Supper which we took today.

It's also community with others. We want you to know one another. We want you to experience baptism. If that's never something, if that's not something you haven't experienced in your life yet, come and talk to me afterwards. I would be happy to tell you more about what does it mean to give your life to Christ.

But more than just that moment where you meet Christ in the water, you. It's about that ongoing renewal that happens as you learn and grow and are transformed into the person that God has called you to be. And last, we want you to know that this the joy of self emptying service. As Jesus gave his life on the cross, so we give our lives for one another and for the sake of the kingdom. These are for sacraments.

Those are places where you can encounter the power of God. It's places where God kind of breaks through the universe and speaks and transforms and changes. These are powerful moments in our lives. And it's not so much that you just hit A, B, C and D and then you're good to go. What we're going to ask you to do is spend the rest of your life practicing these graces together, experiencing the power of God together.

And our hope is as we enter into this life that we experience restoration, the restoration of Highland, the restoration of ourselves, of Abilene and the world. So if you want to know what we want you to do at this church, we want you to engage in the pathway and let your life be transformed by the power of the Spirit. But so we're going to talk about these four over the next few weeks. But today we're going to talk about the cross. We want you to know the joy of self emptying service.

And we heard the story today read by Abby, about these two brothers that want to have places of importance. But before we really understand that story, Matthew wanted to tell you a parable first. And so today we're going to look at the story that becomes before this one and the story that comes after, because they tell us how to interpret what's going on today. And so the story that Jesus tells is a parable about an owner of a vineyard. And he's got a lot of work that has to get done that day.

Maybe it's harvest time. And so he goes out and he finds some day laborers early in the morning, and he brings them in. And as he's looking at the project and how fast it's going, he realizes he needs more help. And so he goes out again about noon and gathers more workers and brings them in. And then the project manager has just fallen flat because late in the afternoon, the owner has to go out one more time and, and get even more workers.

And then right at the end of the day, he goes and gets even more. And then he lines them all up, the ones that work the least and the ones that work the most, and he's getting ready to pay them. And these places exist today. These places exist in our world. If you were in a major city and you went to Home Depot or Lowe's, you would probably see some people hanging outside hoping that someone comes by to give them work.

And research tells us that the work that these day laborers do more often than not. Excuse me, more often than not, is strenuous and dangerous. And these workers are at the mercy of a foreman who may or may not choose to pay them the amount that they offered or less than they agreed, or they just vanish when the job is done. So how much different is this employer in Jesus parable? Because he lines them all up and he pays them the same about one day's wage.

The text says one denarii. It's about enough to feed one family for one day, which means you don't really have anything for savings. What you walk home with is enough to buy a good dinner. There might be enough leftover for breakfast. If you don't work that day, then you're probably not going to work Excuse me, you're probably not going to eat.

30% of the people that lived in Jesus time in Galilee, they lived day to day. If they didn't work that day, they wouldn't eat that night. And we know that Jesus is a carpenter. That's what he's called in the Gospels. But more often than not, that's a better translation that, that is day laborer.

There were probably days where Jesus was waited to work and no one called and he went home hungry. And so this vineyard operator, he prays them, pays them all the same. And the early workers complain, he replies, are you envious because I am generous? Literally what he says is, is your eye evil because I am good?

And this has led a lot of theologians to wonder, like, who is, who is Matthew talking about? Here are the late comers, the Gentiles and the sinners being added into the church. There's the Jews that have been faithful their entire lives and done everything right the whole time. And here are these reckless sinners coming in at the last moment and finding salvation. Is that who the late comers are?

Or are there those like James and John in the story we're about to see who, who expect something special, special advantage for their great sacrifice, but discover God's grace is extended equally to all.

I think what we hear from this story is that God's generosity goes beyond our calculation to grace. I mean, we've all lived there. When I was a kid, I would get out and I would mow the front lawn and, and most of the back lawn. I had been working in the heat for an hour and a half. My brother would show up from his mat nap, grab the weed eater.

It would take him 15 minutes. And we mowed the lawn together. Not hardly, right? Like at night, my wife is brushing my kids teeth, washing their face, washing their hands, putting on their pajamas. I come in, I read a story, and we put them to bed.

Not hardly.

Another way of saying this is that God's grace reveals the unredeemed, calculating parts of our hearts. There is part of our hearts that's keeping score. There's part of our hearts that are calculating. And we come to the story of James and John and their mother. I mean, who is their mother?

Honestly, like, I have honest questions. Is this, is this woman a Karen? Is this woman a tiger mom? Like, what's happening exactly here? But what we see is she is moving into a very known space.

And there are clues in the text that tell us that because she's asking for a favor and this isn't like, hey, Jesus, can you give me a hand? I need to move some boxes. She's asking for something very specific. And she comes to him and she kneels. Everybody in the room knows exactly what's going on.

She is taking the posture of a client, and he is taking the posture of a patron. This is an agreement. This is a contract. This was well known in the first century. She is saying, if you give my sons positions of power, they will work for you for the rest of their lives.

And we know that she is probably Salome, who was with Jesus at the cross when. When nearly everyone else had fled. She has earned the right and the position to ask this of Jesus. And if it's true, that means that James and John are Jesus's cousins. Which adds a whole new level of questions, like, is this nepotism?

Not tiger mommy? I think, honestly, that might be worse. And here's the reason why, you know, the Bible is true, because the Bible does not whitewash any character that you encounter in the text. It doesn't whitewash anyone in the text. You remember that John in his gospel makes that little humble brag.

He and Peter were running to the tomb. John passed him, got there first. Yay for him, right? This is the way that Matthew says, well, yeah, John, but do you remember when your mom asked for everything?

Right, but what I have to assume, because we know the life and the story of John and, and James, we know that James is going to be martyred. We know that John is going to spend his whole life serving the church in Ephesus. He's going to write first, second, and third John. We know they have good hearts. But in this case, Jesus takes the opportunity to, like, make this flip of the script.

He says, if you want to reign with me, you have to drink the cup that I'm about to drink. And these, these boys, they think they can. And it might mean a lot of different things. In the Old Testament, you see that drinking the cup, the cup bearer was the person who tasted the wine of the king before the king. So if the wine was poisoned, it would take him instead of the king.

That's probably true. But more importantly, it was just this advisor. It was somebody important. It was somebody on the inside because he could take the wine glass to the king and sit there and hand it to him and then whisper to them, I don't think this is a good idea. Right.

He can give him advice and good ways. It puts you close to power, close to authority. But the Old Testament is also clear that when you drink someone else's cup, it means you're going to serve with them and you are going to suffer with them. Their fate is your fate. But the other 10 apostles, they're.

They're indignant about this. They're mad because they didn't have the guts to ask first. But here comes James and John's mom doing what no one else does. This text is about what it means to reign. This text is about power.

A few weeks ago, I told you my theory of Aladdin. I don't know if you've ever seen that Disney movie. My theory of Aladdin is pretty simple. The question of Aladdin the whole way through. Is Aladdin going to use an impossible amount of power to coerce Jasmine to love her at the very beginning of the story?

Jasmine, Jasmine. Aladdin is a street rat. He's on the outskirts of society. And what he wants more than anything else, when he has the ability to make a wish and to make it right, is to put himself in the center of society. He wants to be married to the princess.

And then he meets the princess, and he falls in love with the princess. And then every question after that moment, is he gonna use that power to coerce her to love him back? And it's pretty easy to see. That's God. God with infinite power, refuses to coerce you, but only invites you, entreats you, calls for you, begs for you to love God back.

But there's this other part of the story I want us to think about today, because that's not the climactic moment of the movie. The climactic moment of the movie is when Jafar, the evil sorcerer, who has a considerable amount of power already, gets his hands on the lamp, and he gets three wishes. And the last scene of the movie. I'm not spoiling this for you because it's 20 years old. It's your fault if you haven't seen it yet.

The last moment in this movie is when Aladdin tricks Jafar to say, yeah, you have power now, but you're not all powerful. Jafar says, yes, I am. He says, not as powerful as the genie. And so Jafar makes the wish. Make me a gin.

He receives all power, but with it comes a catch. It's the tiny little living space.

The story after this one. Jesus is leaving Jericho, and he heals blindness. A voice on the side of the road, Heal us. Jesus takes the time to heal blindness so someone can see. Except it's not one blind man on the edge of Jericho.

It's two. It's kind of like the two brothers James and John. It's kind of like you. It's kind of like me. And you have to wonder, as Matthew places these stories gently together, can you hear the echo of what he's trying to say?

I think what he's saying is if you want to live into the kingdom, it means that you go last after all. Jesus, who very himself is God incarnate, did not come to be served but to serve others and give his life as a ransom for many. That's the purpose of why he's here. Jesus knows the secret. There is joy when you lay down your life in self emptying service for others.

And we know this is true as well, but it's hard to do so. I want to think about one context as an example of this because I think most of us have experienced this. I want to think about how this is true in summer camp, right? Summer camp when you've been playing all day, you've been having a blast out playing basketball or ultimate Frisbee or whatever it is, and you come up back to mess hall and you're ready to take a drink. You're very thirsty, but you see somebody else is more thirsty than you.

Do you drink first or do you let someone else go in front of you? Because Jesus Christ didn't come to be served, but to serve others? Are you the first to get up so that you're ready so you can help somebody else in your space? Are you serving just for the sake of others, not just so you can be seen? And this is where it really hits the rub when it comes to camp.

And I think you all know exactly where I'm talking about. It's the last day of camp, you've been having a blast. And then the head counselor or whoever's running the thing comes up and says, guys, we've had a great week. There's only one more thing that's left to do. We've got to just clean this place up a little bit.

So I'm going to tell you where your cabin is going to work. And I begin praying every time. Even as an adult, I begin praying in this moment. Please God, please do not make my cabin clean the boys restroom more than anything else in the world. Please don't make me clean toilets.

And I ask and I beg.

And then I remember that Jesus Christ came not to be served, but to serve others, to give his life as a ransom for many.

I want to tell one more story. I've told this story before, but I think it fits and so if you've heard it, just bear with me. When I was in middle school, my mom decided that we should learn how to use the public bus system in Denver. And so she bought my brother and I like summer long bus passes. And if we wanted to go somewhere, she's like, great, just go.

And she handed us a pamphlet that told us how to use the bus. And so we spent that whole summer learning how to use use the bus and go to movie theaters or places we want to go. Just kind of checked out the whole Denver metro area. I'm not confident what she was thinking, but here we are. But there was one time during that summer when we had a dentist appointment and she's like, all right, take the bus.

And so we figured out we got to leave about 70 minutes early so we can make our connection. So we get to our dentist appointment on time. We go in there, my brother gets his teeth cleaned, everything's fine. It's my turn. I go in there and I get my teeth cleaned, everything's fine, no cavities.

But it's time to do the fluoride treatment. And the fluoride treatment now is just kind of like painting it on your teeth. Before they had these little troughs and they just kind of on your teeth. And what I didn't know at that moment is you're not supposed to drink the fluoride. They put that little sucker in your mouth, suck it out.

But I drank the fluoride and I drank the fluoride and I drank the fluoride and my stomach said I promptly threw up. Now, as you know, a dentist chair is shaped like a crescent. And so the vomit just kind of goes from here to here and then settles in a nice seat where I get to have it on the top and on the bottom. It's everywhere. The dental hygienist, bless her heart, comes in, takes one look at me and just turns right back around.

She just says, nope, you don't pay me enough for this. Another woman comes in and she does her best to clean me up and send me on my way. I have like little bits of Fruity Pebbles still stuck to my shirt and pants as we walk out of that too far. I don't know. Anyway, doesn't matter.

So my brother and I walk out of the dentist's office and we got to take the bus home. It's like 4:15 in the afternoon and we get on the 40 on Evans to go to university, the 24 to go north, and the bus at that time is packed There are people in the front of the bus, there are people in the back of the bus. There is a 10 foot radius where no one is sitting right next to me. I am completely by myself sitting on this bus. And this is the reason why I will love my brother till the day I die.

Except for my brother who sat right next to me, stinking vomit the whole way home.

Jesus Christ come to be served, but to serve others and give his life as a ransom for many.

So living in the kingdom means that you reign because the promise of God is true. We are going to reign as sons and daughters of the king. So why should you care and why should you serve? The reason, the fundamental reason, let me just skip this right off the bat, is because the alternative is, is a lie. The promise of the world and the promise of the society around us is that you can have everything you want.

You can be as valuable as you want, you can have all the friends that you want, you can drive the car you want and you can have all the power that you want. But the reality is that's a tiny little living space because ultimately you're going to find yourself alone. Why should you care and why should you serve? Because the expanse of God's love is deeper and wider than you could possibly imagine. The the truth is living out a cross formed life is embodied gratitude.

It's incarnate gratitude. Some of the most joyous moments that I've ever had in my life is when I've experienced self emptying service. It's when it was on a youth group trip and we worked all day to help someone clear out their house. It was a time where we just served together. We worked hard and we were sweaty.

And you know what I had on my face? I had a smile on my face at the end of that because it felt good.

Large scale studies consistently find that volunteering is linked to better mental health, longer life expectancy and greater happiness. Even when the tasks themselves are hard or sacrificial. You may have seen pictures or video of this, but when the Amish get together to raise a barn, do you know what they're doing while they're working on the top of that scaffolding? They're singing. They're singing because they're helping one another, they're serving one another.

They're pouring themselves out for the sake of one another. And the experience is joy. Jean Vallart founded l', Arche, which was a community for people with intellectual disability. And it became a living witness of joy through humble service. He spoke often of discovering laughter and celebration and peace in lives emptied of competition and achievement.

The promise of God is true. And you and I, we will get to reign with him. But the way we get to that door is by emptying up ourselves, emptying out ourselves for the sake of others. There's a paradox in the Christian witness that if you haven't experienced that, it's difficult to describe to you, but it's true. When you lay your life down, when you give it up, God raises you into something more than you could possibly imagine.

Would you stand for our benediction?

Hyland? I want to challenge you this week. In a week where the language around us is fermenting with violence and hatred, discord and lies. I want you to find some way to serve someone else, someone that can't serve you back, someone that can't help you back, someone that can't pay you back. I want you to do an act of service to someone that cannot affect your life in any way possible.

And just notice as you do it, notice what you feel. Notice that in that moment, God is going to bless you with joy. May you be full.