Small Group Discussion Questions – October 23

1) Read Mark 9:30-34. What was Jesus’ disciple’s idea of greatness?

But I suspect there is also another reason. They were dealing with what seemed to them to be more important. Jesus is talking to them about his death and what are the disciples talking about as they walk along? They are preoccupied with who is the greatest among them!

Mark 9:33____ and they say “Oh nothing – the weather!” V. 34____. Do you get the picture? Jesus is talking about his suffering and death and the whole meaning of life hangs in the balance. And what do people do? “Who is going to be the greatest among us? Will I be greater than you? Will you be greater than me?” The mind of sinful man is on a completely different frequency. Here is a microcosm of our problem isn’t it? It is the problem of a self-centered heart. “I wonder which one of us will be the greatest.”

Now the disciples were men of their time. They were part of their 1 st C. society in which there was a great emphasis on rank, and honor, and wealth, and privilege, power, and protocol. We don’t pay much attention to protocol today unless a president dies or some national leader. In 1 st C. society there was much more protocol in normal daily life. For them it would be very important who was sitting where at a meal. Where you sat indicated your status however that status was calculated. So questions were always arising as to who was most deserving of respect and recognition.

Sometime later two of Jesus’ disciples ask: “Will you promise us that you’ll put one of us at your right hand and one at your left hand when you sit on your throne?” This notion of greatness was very much that of the world – power, status, authority – and they were right in there climbing. And when Jesus comes in his power, they are sure that he will make them celebrities in front of everyone.

2) How would our society define greatness?

But I think we see a very similar kind of thing today. There is this quest for greatness in terms of success over people, this highly competitive environment around us. One of the things that give you competitive success today is getting something that someone else will envy you for. If they do it somehow counts because it sets you above them and makes you admired and others jealous of you. I feel today that people have a gnawing anxiety, “Will I get what I want out of life? Will I get what I want out of this church? – the job? – this relationship? Will I be served by these events? - by this course of action? – by these people? The Apostle Paul in Corinthians said, For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. I think we could rewrite that today in terms of a modern secular creed to say, “To live is self, to die is unthinkable, and to suffer is to be avoided at all costs.”

3) Read Mark 10:42-45. What is Jesus’ idea of greatness?

But you see, greatness in the 1 st C. context or our modern context is so much how can I get things to serve me and others to serve me. And Jesus’ notion of greatness is just the opposite. Let me read Mark 10:42-44___. Look at what this does to our notion of greatness. It doesn’t abolish the notion of human greatness. Jesus hangs on very strongly to the idea of human greatness. He says there is such a thing as human greatness. Human beings can be great – really great! Jesus is not saying men are nothing – scum. Jesus is saying there is human greatness but it on a completely different basis and on a basis that just torpedoes this whole competitiveness of setting ourselves over people. True human greatness, says Jesus, is the person who is the servant of others. Here is how people are to relate to people.

4) Should we have a goal in life to be great?

So Jesus virtually asks the question, “Do you want to be great?” And you see the disciples saying, “Yes, yes, we want to be great!” And he says, “All right, this is what it is to be great. This is what real greatness is about. Serve one another. For he who is the slave of all is the one who is the greatest of all!”

5) What ought to fuel our desire to be great?

Jesus just reverses all these ideas of rank and status and power and turns them completely upside down and removes competitiveness from human greatness. He just removes this idea of greatness being that of setting yourself up over someone else. He changes the idea of greatness completely. The goal is still the same – the goal to be great. And the zeal and desire and striving to be great is affirmed. But now it is a stirring and zeal toward a goal minus the competition of exalting yourself over other being the thing that fuels the desire. Now the thing that fuels our desire for greatness is gratitude for what we have received from Christ.

6) Discuss how our relationship with Christ is to transform our relationships with our spouse, children, neighbors, and co-workers.

You see our relationship with Christ is to transform all other relationships of life. It is to transform how we relate to others – our wives, our children, our neighbors, our co-workers, our enemies. Jesus exalts the idea of human greatness and says “strive towards it” but his vision for his followers is that they really be great! He want us to be big people, large people. He want there to be an enlargement of our whole personality in terms of who we are. Rather that a Christ follower being a person who sort of shrinks and shrivels up, a Christ follower is one who should be a giant of a person.

The small person is the person who is concerned with being served. And these people are very unhappy most of the time because they are usually upset because they are not being served enough. Their rights are always being violated. They think they are being short-changed. And when events do not serve them, there is great suffering and unhappiness. When people do not serve them there is great resentment. When people are not attentive to their wishes there is great frustration.

But friends, let’s understand two things here. The world is not a world geared to serve us. The world rather is filled with frustration – the whole creation groans and travails – it is filled with suffering, persecution, and misunderstanding. This world is not going to serve us. If we think it will, we are in trouble. But secondly, the central thing is not to be served but to serve and give.

7) In his book The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis portrays people who come closer to God as big people and those who are into themselves as little people. Is this good imagery? Why or why not?

I love what C.S. Lewis does with people in his book The Great Divorce. He portrays people who come closer to God and who are giving as becoming larger and larger people. And people who become more selfish, more self-pitying, more self-justifying, more geared toward themselves and their own needs and what they can get out of it all, become smaller and smaller. And finally the bus that goes back to hell – and its not that they are forced to go back but they want to go back, all these people get in the bus and they drive off down to hell but they go down through a crack in the dry ground. That whole way of living for self has shrivel them so much, that the whole busload of them drives down through a crack in the earth. Little people. The closer we get to God and serving the larger we become. The farther away we get from God by living for ourselves the smaller be become.