What’s In It For Me

In a sermon delivered many years ago by Martin Luther King Jr. he quoted Jesus’ words from the gospel of Mark about servanthood. Then he said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. . . . You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”

When Jesus’ disciples quarrelled about who would get the places of honour in heaven, he told them: “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43- 45).