"The church is the one place on earth where the logic of the world is turned upside down" Wednesday of Reminiscere 2026

04. March 2026
Wednesday of Reminiscere
Esther 13:8b–11, 15–17 | Matthew 20:17–28

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

A man named Mordecai sits in the dust. He has learned that a decree has gone out from the king: all the Jews in the empire are to be destroyed on an appointed day. Haman, their enemy, has convinced Xerxes that the Jewish people are a threat to his kingdom, and so the machinery of a pagan empire will grind out their annihilation. It is written. It is sealed. There is no escape, no possibility of appeal, no human power that can stop it.

Mordecai is not a man of influence. He is not a counselor to the king. He has no access to power. He sits in the dust—the gesture of one who has nothing left but despair—and he cries out to God. In his prayer, Mordecai says something remarkable: "I have no helper but You, O Lord." (Esther 13:11) He says it again: "O Lord, You alone are our King." (Esther 13:10)

Here is a man with nothing. He has no position, no authority, no ability to act. The decree is already signed. The machinery is already in motion. He cannot appeal to the king. He cannot negotiate. He cannot leverage his influence because he has none. He cannot trust in his own power because he possesses none. What can he do? What can anyone do in the face of absolute, impersonal, imperial power bent on annihilation?

He can do exactly what Mordecai does. He strips away every claim to his own strength. He declares his complete helplessness. He casts himself entirely on the mercy of God. He says, "I have no helper but You, O Lord." (Esther 13:11) This is not the posture of the proud. This is not the prayer of someone who still believes he can manage things himself if only he is clever enough. This is the prayer of a man who has nothing left but God.

This is the very opposite of how the world teaches us to think about power and survival. The world teaches you to gather authority, to accumulate power, to leverage whatever advantage you possess. Build your network. Secure your position. Make sure you have access to those who matter. If you have influence, extend it. Hoard it. Guard it. Exercise it. Make yourself indispensable. Make sure everyone knows how important you are. This is the counsel of the world, and it is relentless. The world does not teach you to sit in the dust and say, "I have no helper but You, O Lord." The world teaches you to find helpers. To find leverage. To make something happen.

And yet here is Mordecai, with no helpers, no leverage, no way to make anything happen. He has cast all of that away because it is useless. The decree is signed. The king's word is law. All the power of empire stands against him. So what does he do? He does the one thing left to do: he trusts in God alone.

Then into this world comes Jesus, and He takes his disciples aside as they make their way to Jerusalem. He tells them plainly what is about to happen. “He will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. He will be condemned. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. He will be mocked and flogged and crucified. And on the third day—on the third day—he will rise.” (Matthew 20:18-19)

This is the third time Jesus tells them. He tells them plainly. And what do they do? What does anyone with the slightest bit of power do? The mother of James and John comes to Jesus with her sons, kneels before him, and asks Him for something. “Say that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom.” (Matthew 20:21)

It is not hard to understand her. Her sons have been with Jesus. They have seen him do things no one can do. They believe, perhaps, that his kingdom is coming soon, perhaps imminently. And she wants to secure their position. She wants them to sit at the places of greatest honor. She wants them—and herself, really—to be seen as the most important in this new order. She is doing what any sensible person in the world does: she is using her access and her relationship to advance herself.

Jesus says to her: “You do not know what you are asking.” (Matthew 20:22) These words should give us pause. You do not know what you are asking. There is a mercy in these words, but there is also a sternness. You do not understand what it means to ask for a place at my right hand and my left. Do you understand what I have just told your sons? “I will be mocked and flogged and crucified.” (Matthew 20:19) Do you want a place beside that? “Are you prepared to drink the cup that I am to drink?” (Matthew 20:22)

The disciples say, “We are able.” (Matthew 20:22) They are not. But Jesus does not mock them. He says something that cuts to the heart of everything. “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those whom it has been prepared by my Father.” (Matthew 20:23)

Notice that? There is something that is not his to grant. Jesus himself does not claim the authority to distribute the highest honors according to his own will. The places at his right and left have already been prepared. By the Father. Not for the most ambitious. Not for those who ask most insistently. Not for those who have worked hardest or sacrificed most or maneuvered most cleverly. But for those for whom they have been prepared. This is the will of God, and it is hidden from us.

When the other ten hear what has happened, they are furious at James and John. But Jesus calls all twelve of them to Him and says something that should sound familiar to us by now, because it echoes back through all of Scripture, from the moment when God made Adam and Eve, through all the fallen kingdoms of the world. He says: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” (Matthew 20:25)

This is simply how the world works. The powerful rule. The strong dominate. Authority flows downward from the top. Position matters. Your place in the hierarchy determines your worth. This is not controversial. This is not even considered wicked. This is just how things are organized. This is civilization itself. And Jesus acknowledges it. Yes, you know how this works.

“But,” he says, “it shall not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:26) Now we need to hear these words in their full force. Not, “it should not be so.” Not, “I wish it were not so.” But, “it shall not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:26) This is a command. This is the shape of the kingdom of God made visible in how His people live together. It is not negotiable. It is not an aspiration. It is the way things are in the church, in the body of Christ.

“But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.” (Matthew 20:26-27) There are not many loopholes in this sentence. If you want to be great, you serve. If you want to be first, you become a slave. This is the exact reversal of every human ambition, every human calculation of worth and status and advancement. The church is the one place on earth where the logic of the world is turned upside down, where the last become first, where losing your life is the only way to save it, where dying is the way to live.

And why? Jesus gives us the reason. He gives us Himself. “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

This is the hinge. This is where everything turns. Jesus is the Son of God. He is the King. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. When His disciples wanted Him to hurl His enemies down from a cliff, when Peter tried to defend Him with a sword, when the devil himself offered Him all the kingdoms of the world if He would only fall down and worship—when all these things happened, Jesus could have exercised His power. He could have lorded it over everyone and everything. No one would have been able to stop Him.

But He did not. He came not to be served but to serve. And His service took Him all the way to the cross, where He suffered and died under the mockery and scorn of men, where He drank a cup so bitter that He sweated drops of blood in the garden, where He poured out His life itself as a ransom for many.

This is what it means to be first in the kingdom of God. This is the kind of greatness He is talking about.

Now, Mordecai was a man with nothing. But there is another figure in that story who had everything—Esther, the queen. She alone had access to the king. She alone could speak to him. She had position, beauty, eloquence, and the ear of power itself. And yet when Mordecai sends word to her that the Jews are to be destroyed, what does Esther do? Does she stride into the king's presence, confident in her influence? Does she rely on her position and her cleverness? No. She, like Mordecai, strips away every claim to her own authority. She fasts. She prays. She, too, comes to the place where she has nothing but God. "If I perish, I perish," (Esther 4:16) she says. She will go before the king unbidden, knowing this means death if he does not hold out his scepter. She does not trust in her position. She trusts in God alone.

Both Mordecai and Esther, in their different circumstances—one powerless, one powerful—come to the same place: complete helplessness before God, complete reliance on His will, complete willingness to die. This is the pattern of the kingdom of God. We who follow Christ are to be willing to serve, to put ourselves last, to embrace our own little deaths so that others might live. We are not promised that it will work out well in the eyes of the world. We are promised that we follow a Lord who has already died and been raised, a Lord who sees and knows what we cannot see, a Lord who has prepared things for us that we do not understand.

Listen: I know you are ambitious. I am, too. I know you want to matter, want to be seen, want your voice to be heard. I do, too. I know you want security and position and the assurance that comes from being important. There is nothing novel in this. James and John wanted the same thing. Their mother wanted it for them. The other disciples were angry because they all wanted it too.

But hear what Jesus says us: “It shall not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:26) This is not because ambition is somehow noble in disguise. This is not because your striving is secretly virtuous. It is not because you should feel bad about wanting to be taken seriously. It is because there is a better way. There is a way that Jesus has already walked. There is a way that leads from the servant's basin and the cross to resurrection and life.

And here is what else you must remember: you have already drunk His cup. You have already been served by Him. In your baptism, you were claimed. In confession and absolution, you are forgiven. In the Supper, you are fed with His own body and blood. He serves you. He has already given His life for you. He has already paid the ransom. For you.

So now you are free. You are free because He has served you and freed you. You are free to serve others in the same way. You are free to put yourself last. You are free to lose your life for His sake and for the sake of others. You are free because you already have everything that matters. You have Him.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin