Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from September 24, 2006

“Greatness Revisited”

Rev. Patricia L. Liberty

Scriptures:

Psalm 1

Mark 9:30-37

It’s easy to conjure up an image of Jesus surrounded by children, each one in rapt attention to his every word.  If you have ever been surrounded by that many children at the same time,  you know the chances of having all of them in rapt attention at the same moment, however, are slim to none.

And when it comes to all things God, well, children’s perspective and point of view can be completely disarming.  One of my favorite books is a little hardcover entitled “Children’s Letters to God.”  Here are a few quotes: 

o “Dear God:  If you watch me in church on Sunday, I’ll show you my new shoes.
Love, Mickey

o Dear God:  I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church.  Is that okay?  Neil.

o Dear God:  Please send me a pony.  I never asked for anything before, you can look it up.  Bruce

o Dear God:  Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?  Norma

o Dear God:  Maybe Cain and Abel would no kill each other if they had their own rooms.  It worked with me and my brother.  Love, Larry”

Using our 21^st-century understanding of children, it’s easy to think that Jesus uses a child to talk about who is greatest in the Kingdom because of their wit and wisdom, their simple astuteness, and their uncomplicated way of looking at the world.  But our romanticized notions of children were unheard of in the ancient world.  During that time, like women, children were property.

Commentators such as John Pilch tell us that in first-century Mediterranean culture children did not count for anything except as potential adults.  They were least important, almost as valueless as slaves who were, at least, more likely to provide enough labor to compensate for their food. 

It was a hardscrabble world where 50% of children did not make it to adulthood.  They were the first to fall to disease and famine, and girl children were less likely to be fed if food was scarce.

By bringing a child into their midst, Jesus continues his radical, social, political and theological statement about God’s designs and desires for the world.  If you noticed in your text, the word that is used for children is “it” not “he” or “she” because in Greek the word for children is gender-neutral.  Their language follows their priority.  Over and over again, in the Gospels, Jesus refers to women and children because, in the first-century world, they were on the bottom of the social ladder, without political or economic power, dependent on the men to whom they were related by birth or marriage. 

Children and women were the quintessential definition of vulnerability.  Most of the time, when we use the word “vulnerability” we think of it as weakness or in a psychological way to describe personal characteristic that may be attractive in some way.    The way it is used in the text, it is a relational word.  It speaks of the relationship between people or groups.  The relationship is defined by resources both economic and social.  Jesus chose children because they had few resources in relationship to adults. 

Jesus’ command to the disciples to welcome children, serve them, and care for them was a radical notion for the time and perhaps for all time.  Given as we are to competition, winning and doing things right, stepping out of the game altogether to care for those the world says are unimportant is challenging at best. 

Making the invisible visible and serving them with compassion and care, welcoming them as we would welcome Jesus is a tall order.  We scarcely treat the ones we love that way; how much harder with a stranger and not just a stranger but one to whom it is easy for us to feel superior.  Most of our models of success are built on the notion of winners and losers. 

The radical implications of Jesus’ words reach every level of our living.  In the workplace, where competition and getting ahead can be the difference between employment and unemployment, making sense of Jesus’ priorities is challenging.  In our world, where it increasingly seems that might makes right, and peace and its possibilities move further to the edges of what seems possible, such radical calls for service and abdication of privilege are very hard to imagine.  Standing with the marginalized has never been popular … even less so now.

Perhaps, it’s a little wonder why the disciples were confused.  The notion of honoring and protecting vulnerability had become foreign under first-century Roman occupation and oppression.  But it’s important that it wasn’t always that way.  What Jesus was talking about was something that was fundamental to the Judaic tradition.  The notion of caring for the most vulnerable of society has deep roots in the Deuteronomic hospitality code. But they had been eclipsed by the cultural mores of the day.  When Jesus preached this radical notion of inclusive welcome, he was not inventing a new religion her.  He was calling people back to the essence of Hebrew life and community, and reclaiming a part of ancient Jewish tradition that had long since been forgotten about.

But Jesus knew we are discovering again in our time.  In times of political and social unrest,  it is easy to co-opt religious truth into the path of least resistance which always means siding with the powerful, adopting dominant cultural norms, and setting aside risk for the sake of belonging. The path of least resistance seldom journeys close to the heart of God.  Disciples of every age grow confused about the demands of the Gospel.

Mary Hinkle, a New Testament professor at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis writes, “The disciples are confused and reluctant to ask for clarification. Perhaps, they’re afraid of looking stupid again. After all, the last time they thought they understood what Jesus was talking about, he was warning them about the Pharisees and Herod, and they were thinking about bread (Mark 8:14-21). Oops. Or maybe they are frightened into silence by the words ‘betrayed’ and ‘killed’. Whatever the cause of their fear, they do not respond to Jesus when he describes the end of their journey.”

Instead, as the walk progresses, the disciples find their way into a discussion about which of them is the greatest.  Hinkle says they are like graduate students comparing their GRE scores. They are like a bunch of ministers who get together on Monday discussing how many people come to church each Sunday, exaggerating the numbers by just a few here and there.  They are anyone who has ever written a memo containing the words "measurable outcomes."  Which of the disciples is the star pupil?  Who is the greatest?  The way of the cross for them and for us is no less confounding or frightening today.”

Jesus’ words about greatness have less to do with position than with perspective.  It’s an invitation to humility.  Greatness is about humility.  Frederick Buechner says, “True humility doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you’d be apt to think of anybody else.”

By leveling the playing field with that kind of vision, compassion becomes possible, speaking the truth in love becomes the norm, and stepping into a new way of being in the world becomes possible.  Like most of the Gospel, it’s another very serious invitation for us to do dialogue with our prejudices and fears.  It’s a reminder that the church, this church, any church, is called to be a  counter-cultural community of believers who probably wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for the demands of the Gospel.  If there is anything that will hold us together in these days, it is the demands of the Gospel.  Any other allegiance, any other priority, or any other value makes us less than the church God calls us to be and will ultimately fail to hold the church as one community in Christ.  Idolatry has a way of being exposed.

What in Jesus’ time was the argument over who was great in our time has become the argument over who is right on this issue or that.  Jesus put an end to that argument by placing a child in their midst, a non-status role model.  Jesus’ call to ministry is a call to serve those who can do nothing for us, who can accomplish nothing on our behalf, who will not help us along the way except, perhaps, to make us a bit more human.  It’s not about us.  It’s always about them, their needs, their value in God’s eyes. 

Stanley Haurwaas and William Willimon sum it up well in their book Resident Aliens.  They write, “The Gospel is weird and, if you believe the Gospel, then you will be weird.  If you believe the gospel, you will feel yourself in collision with the most widely held and deeply affirmed values of society.  If the church is not in conflict, it is because it has sold out to the dominant culture.  It has become a resident instead of alien.”

Greatness has less to do with what we know and what we have than how we are in the world.  An invitation, as Paul would write years later, to not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, to find our place beside others instead of in front of them; to use what is entrusted to us for the benefit of those who, for whatever reason, have less, know less and, because of that, are often treated as less. 

What is wise in the world's eyes is folly.  It is the joy of weirdness for the sake of the Kingdom.  As Flannery O'Connor noted, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”

Thanks be to God.  Amen.