Faith: Self-denial required to follow in footsteps of Jesus

Have you ever been caught “red-handed?”

The expression harkens back at least to the Middle Ages. If a peasant were caught killing a deer in the forest of his lord or king, he was said to have been caught “red-handed” with the blood of the deer probably literally still on his hands. The penalty was severe.

Jesus and his apostles had just arrived in Capernaum when he surprised them with a question that caught them “red-handed.”

“What were you arguing about on the road?”

“Huh, Lord? What? You mean, us? Argue?”

They stood stone-silent, red-handed, guilty as charged. Mark says they kept quiet “because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest” (9:34).

It’s a game we’ve all played to our shame.

The Lord has promised that where two or three are gathered together in his name, there he will be. That’s the good news. The bad news is that in this fallen world where two or three are gathered together for almost any reason, there will be class distinctions and power struggles. In business. At the office. In school. Even in prison. And, yes, in the church. Chickens aren’t the only ones with a serious pecking order.

As the Apostle Paul is closing his beautiful letter to his dear friends at Philippi, he includes a few words to two women there who have truly helped him in spreading the Gospel in the past. Pretty cool to get your name in the Bible, right?

Not like this.

Euodia and Syntyche were caught red-handed, locked tooth and nail in an early church squabble so disruptive that word of it had come to the great apostle who was imprisoned under “house arrest” in Rome, and he is forced to “plead” with them to get along.

We do well to note that nobody remembers what they fussed about. We just remember that they did.

They must have thought the issue terribly important, but I’d bet the farm that at the heart of their fuss was the same old issue that’s been dividing apostles and churches across the ages, stirring up all manner of strife: Who’s the greatest?

I’m sure they “baptized” the presenting issue.

Nobody ever says, “I’m fussing because I’m small and mean, jealous and vengeful, and have never gotten along with anybody for long.” No, it’s because “this issue is crucial to this church and maybe even the Christian faith and, were you as spiritually minded as am I, you’d agree with me.”

Likely Euodia and Syntyche even fooled themselves into believing such as they justified their fight. And they got their names in the Bible for all ages, caught red-handed and petty in the teapot tempest they’d fussed up into a storm.

When Jesus sits down his 12 squabbling soon-to-be leaders of the Christian faith, he’s looking us squarely in the eyes as well. Before he washes their feet, and before he hangs on a cross for us all, he says this: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Fussing? Not allowed. Self-denial? Required. If we would follow our crucified Lord.   

Curtis Shelburne writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at:

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