Lectionary Preaching: "Who is the Greatest", September 6, 2026

Got a few pictures for you to start off today.

This first one, who is that?

Yeah, if you don't know, you gotta look him up.

Roger Federer.

Um, Roger Federer is my favorite tennis player of all time.

Um, he always just made the game look incredibly easy.

He played with uh an unmatched precision and elegance.

He was just the epitome of class.

And when he came along about 30 years ago now, he quickly broke basically every record in the history of tennis.

He was unstoppable.

Um, that was until this guy came along.

For a while at least, Rafael Nadal was the kryptonite to Federer Superman.

His heavy left-handed top spin was a nightmare for Federer's one-handed backhand, and eventually Rafa would break many of Federer's records, including the one for most grand slams of all time.

And then there's this guy, Novak Djokovic.

He has perhaps the best all-around tennis game the world has ever seen, and he has now become the all-time Grand Slam leader, and he's still going.

So the question is: who is the goat?

Who is the greatest of all time?

And the Sandbergs reminded me this morning we could add a whole bunch of other people to this list, like Andre Augasy or Pete Sampris or people like that.

Usually it comes down to these three for really serious tennis fans, it's this lively debate which one is the goat.

I say Federer, but the other two have incredibly strong arguments in their favor also.

And sometimes it's just fun to kind of discuss.

Maybe you have an opinion on that topic, but even if you don't, I bet you do on other things.

MJ or LeBron or Kobe, Fender or Gibson, Lamborghini or Ferrari, Washington or Lincoln, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

This summer we've been working our way through the assigned lectionary readings from the Gospel of Matthew.

We started with Matthew's call in chapter 9, and because we'll be introducing this year's theme next week at our outdoor kickoff service, today we close our summer focus with Matthew 18.

And this chapter may sound familiar to you.

Matthew 18 is often used as shorthand for Matthew 18, verses 15 through 20, where Jesus gives us instructions on how to handle conflict and sin within the church.

Matthew 18:15–20

But Matthew 18 is so much more than that, and actually verses 15 through 20 are so much more than they're often assumed to be.

And it all starts out with the question that the disciples asked Jesus way back in verse 1.

Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

Now, Jesus is quickly going to prove this question to actually be pretty nonsensical, but on the face of it, it sure makes sense.

After all, we ask this question all the time.

I'm currently listening to an audiobook where a sports writer is walking me through short biographies of those he considers to be the top 100 players in baseball history.

We eat this stuff up.

We love power rankings and top 10 lists and Mount Rushmore conversations and goat debates.

Who's the best author?

The best philosopher, the best CEO, what's the best car, the best squishy toy, the best company?

We compete and we compare.

We taxonomize based on batting average and winning percentage and quarterly earnings.

We rank and grade and order and assign worth.

Who's the smartest?

The fastest, the strongest, the richest, the best?

Who is the greatest?

This is how it works in the kingdom of this world.

But today, Jesus is teaching us that the kingdom of heaven has an entirely different economy of worth, one not measured in strength or success or even personal holiness.

As Jesus so often does here in Matthew 18, he upends our way of thinking.

He teaches us not to regard others, and least of all him, according to the flesh.

Today he renews our minds by replacing the world's system of power rankings and goat debates with the topsy-turvy way that worth is decided by our compassionate Father.

Today Jesus answers the question, Who is the greatest?

By showing us that in the kingdom of heaven, the greatest is the least.

And he uses an object lesson to teach us this.

Jesus takes a little child, places him in the midst of the disciples, and says, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

He's saying, Guys, you've got it all wrong.

This is how it is, truly.

Rather than striving to be the next Michael Jordan or Steve Jobs, you must turn and become like children.

But how?

What does he mean?

Does he mean that we should be childish, as in like immature and juvenile and petulant?

Like pretty obviously not.

Does he mean we should have childlike faith?

That we should believe without seeing?

He does lead us in this direction in some other places in the Gospels.

Well, luckily here in Matthew 18, Jesus tells us exactly what he means by turning and becoming like children, humbling ourselves.

Nowadays, it sometimes feels like children kind of run the world, like they're the dominant decision makers in the modern family, like our whole society revolves around them.

But not in Jesus' time.

In those days, children were seen as being all the things we don't want to be, the things that we are afraid to be.

They were seen as insignificant and helpless.

They were entirely dependent on others, completely at the mercy of those who could help them because they couldn't help themselves.

The general ancient sentiment was very much in line with the great modern philosopher Marv from Home Alone.

His philosophy is such he's a kid.

Kids are stupid.

Now, in Jesus' day, children were dead last in the power rankings.

They were at the very bottom of the very last page of the goat list.

And this is precisely whom Jesus says we must become like.

We must turn and become like a child by humbling ourselves and bringing ourselves down to that same level of insignificance and powerlessness.

And that word turn, by the way, is significant too, in and of itself.

It's used all over the scriptures as a way of talking about repentance, of turning from our sin and to the Lord.

And that's how Jesus is using it here also.

It's precisely what Jesus is leading us to do as he answers his disciples' ill-founded question.

To turn and become like a child is to acknowledge and confess our helplessness, that we are utterly, utterly dependent on God, completely at his mercy, unable to offer him anything good from ourselves.

To turn and become like a child is to repent, to admit to God that you have nothing on your own, that you are a sinner fully in need of his grace.

Remember the call of Matthew toward the beginning of the summer?

There Jesus announced that it is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

He said that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

The disciples are asking a question here that presumes that they're better than the crowds, a question that wants to jockey for position and power and prestige.

But last week we heard Jesus say that whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

And of course he's right.

Whoever places himself high up on the goat list will be left off it altogether.

Jesus says, Who's the greatest?

The least.

And then Jesus embodies it.

He goes from being the undisputed greatest of all time and empties himself to become nothing.

He takes the form of a servant.

He humbles himself to the point of death on a cross.

He becomes defenseless, powerless, helpless.

Last week we saw that we can't understand Jesus at all apart from the cross.

Today he shows us that his power is made perfect in weakness.

And this alone is what has made us truly great.

The mercy of a God who would give his son for the lost.

Because, as I believe, the rest of this whole discourse is meant to emphasize, the Father loves his kids.

The rest of our reading today shows us just how much God loves those who are powerless, helpless, and unable to solve the problem of their own sin.

Jesus says that those who receive such helpless sinners are receiving him.

He speaks of the protection the Father affords such powerless ones as ourselves, that if someone were to introduce temptation to pull them away, it would be better for them if a millstone were tied around their neck and they were thrown into the depths of the sea.

This is a vivid and terrifying image.

But it's actually a picture that we've already encountered.

Remember a few weeks ago when we saw Peter the rock start to sink like a rock?

It was almost as if he had a millstone tied around his neck, one fashioned out of the fears and doubts and temptations to which he had succumbed.

But Jesus protected him and pulled him up to safety.

And he's done the same thing for you.

And today, Jesus is telling you that God has no tolerance for tempters and temptation that seeks to do eternal violence to those who would take refuge in him.

You don't even want to consider messing with the God who eternally protects his little ones.

And he does so, both with might and with tenderness.

Luke chapter 15 is famous for the stories of the lost son, the lost coin, and the lost sheep.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

But Jesus uses that same picture of the lost sheep here in Matthew 18.

Now, in Luke, paired especially with that parable of the prodigal son, the emphasis seems to be on the shepherd seeking out those who run away and chase after temptation and sin.

Now, here in Matthew, while that's probably the case too, the context here seems more to suggest that the lost sheep refers to all those who are simply lost and powerless and helpless.

In other words, all of us.

Jesus didn't come to rescue the 99, those who have it all together, because he knows that there's actually nobody who fits that bill.

Sent by the love of the Father, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, because God never gives up on his little ones.

It is not his will that a single one of us would perish.

To say that the Father loves his kids, is the same thing as saying that God loves helpless sinners, which happens to be the same thing as saying that God loves you.

And because God loves sinners, we do too.

Those verses from the end of our reading, so often seen mostly as a step-by-step guide to Christian conflict resolution, become so much more than that in this light.

To seek reconciliation with a brother or sister in Christ in this way, it's not a checklist.

It's not a way of wiping our hands of a problem we have with someone else.

It is the godly impulse to call sinners back home.

It is an act of brotherly love.

It is a profoundly beautiful extension of the grace that we ourselves have received from Christ.

So this process from Matthew 18 is not to be used as a cudgel to bash or bully or threaten someone you feel has wronged you.

It's not to be cited with malice in your heart or demands on your lips.

It is not meant to give you the upper hand.

It is meant to lead us all to turn and become like children, to humble ourselves by confessing our helplessness and rejoicing in the forever help Jesus has afforded us by his death and resurrection.

It is meant to bring us to the feet of Jesus as we recognize that we are the ones that our shepherd left the 99 to seek out and find.

And even when it leads to separation from the body, even when Jesus' instructions lead us to the point where he bids us to treat someone like a gentile or tax collector, even then we would do well to remember how Jesus himself treated Gentiles and tax collectors.

Even then, our conduct and interactions should embody humility and grace and compassion.

We are to be as full of forgiveness as he is.

Did you notice, by the way, that Jesus kind of inserts in another quick reference to the office of the keys, to the calling of his church to forgive sins on his behalf?

That's what this whole section and this whole chapter is about, the forgiveness of sins.

It is not the Father's will that any of these little ones should perish.

And so it's not our will either.

Because forgiveness for us sinners is the very thing that makes us great in the kingdom of heaven.

We were powerless when we came to the baptismal font where Christ washed us and made us alive.

We were completely helpless when he bestowed his holiness upon us.

And when we have nothing at all except the grace given us through Jesus, we have absolutely everything.

Who is the greatest?

The least?

Thanks be to God.

In Jesus' name.