Jesus and the twelve are on the road
through Galilee . . . and in Mark – as in Luke and Matthew – Jesus uses this
time to teach about discipleship, about what it means to follow him. And last week, we saw that the disciples
didn’t quite understand what it means to follow Christ, they thought – like many
of their Israelite brothers and sisters – that the Messiah would come to be
some kind of warrior-God/King, who’d lead a revolution against the Herods and
their Roman masters, and restore the glorious kingdom of David, renowned in
song and story and scripture. But Jesus
bursts their balloon, he spells out exactly what is going to happen to him –
he’ll be captured and killed and rise again – and when Peter takes him aside
for a good talking-to, Jesus calls him Satan,
and then he explains just what following him entails: If any want to become my followers, let them
deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose
it, and those who lose their life for
my sake – and for the sake of the gospel – will save it.
And it seems to me, anyway, that it’s pretty clear.
One. Jesus is not some glorious,
revolutionary, War-Christ, no matter how
many times he appears on the cover of Newsweek. Two. In point of fact, far from leading the
glorious armies of the revolution, he’s gonna die a horrible death. Three. To be a follower of Christ, you gotta
give up your own life, just like he’s gonna give up his. Get it?
Got it? Good.
Except that evidently his followers didn't, . . . and this time, Mark comes right out and bashes us over the head with it
. . . after Jesus tells them a second time
about his crucifixion, Mark says they still do not understand what he’s saying. And further, that they were afraid to ask! And I wonder why? Why were they were afraid to ask?
My first grade teacher used to say “There are no dumb questions, children
. . .”, so maybe that was the problem, maybe they were afraid of looking dumb .
. . or maybe they remembered the last
time, when Peter was verbally assaulted
for not understanding . . . or just maybe
they were afraid of the answer they might get, like this life they’re all
living, this tramping around Palestine, this giving up of family and livelihood
and themselves, might all come to nothing, nailed up on a cross with their
dead leader . . . and was this what
he meant by “take up your cross and follow me?”
They don’t
understand, and I’m not sure it’s much better today, either . . . the
warrior-God/King Jesus seems alive and well in modern Christianity, the Jesus
of success, the Jesus of getting ahead . . . and how about that Jesus of the
apocalypse, the Jesus of the Left Behind
series, read avidly by millions of our brothers and sisters who get some kind
of vicarious rush when Jesus melts
the faces off of sinners in the last
days . . . Call me a religious nut-case, will you . . . Take that, you Starbucks-sipping,
tassel-loafered, effete-liberal snob! There goes your face! What’s that?
Don’t like the 700-club? Don’t like
it when Pat tells the God’s-honest truth
about you Godless Muslims? Off with your
head, Jesus is gonna come again, and
the kingdom will be established with his sword! That’s what it says over in Revelation, isn’t
it? Tim and Jerry wouldn’t lie to us, would they?
Of course, that’s just the extreme end of
our modern fixation with Christ the King,
emphasis on the king part . . . every time we think God’s will coincides with
our getting ahead, every time we thank God for moving a little bit up the old
corporate ladder, every time we agree
with some politician who co-opts God for the National good, we probably
oughta’ take a good look at our assumptions about what it means to be followers
of the crucified God. Do we really understand any more than did the
twelve?
Well.
When they get to Capernaum, they enter a house – they always stayed in
homes of the faithful along the way – and when they get to the house, he asks
them “What were you arguing about on the way?”
And you kind of get the idea that he knows the answer – over in John he would, as John would oh-so-carefully explain – because they’re silent,
hanging their heads, scuffling in the dirt, they know they’re busted . . . and so Jesus sits down and calls them
around.
Now we should pause here and note that
it’s not an accident that Mark tells
us that Jesus sits down . . . and in fact, in general, whenever a Gospel writer
gives us a detail like this, it’s good to pay attention. In this case, sitting
is the position a teacher in the synagogue takes, so Mark wants his readers to
know that this is a formal teaching moment, with the disciples gathered around,
sitting on the floor at the feet of the teacher . . . can you picture it? The dim coolness of the house, suddenly
silent, for all in the house know what’s going on, that a Teacher –with a
capital T – is in the house, that he’s getting ready to impart
something of major importance, and so it is: “Whoever wants to be first must be
last of all and servant of all.”
The disciples are arguing about who is
greatest, and oh, snap! He lets them have it right between the
eyes. This sort of behavior is
unacceptable in the kingdom . . . this kind of rivalrous competition for place
does not happen in the new reality . . . and to see why, all you have to do is
look at any denomination, where squabbling over who will be first seems to be the
order of the day . . . and of course, we should look no further than our own
PCUSA . . . seems lately that the majority of our national energy is spent on
squabbling about “who will be the greatest” – whose view of sanctification, of
the Eucharist, of ordination, of the nature of Christ – the list goes on and on
– who’s views should be reified and made normal for the church – and thus
deemed most acceptable in the eyes of God – are at the basis of church battles
far and wide. And if your view of
ordination standards or the Eucharist or the nature of Christ is the one that
wins, why you win, you are the
greatest, God smiles at you, you take
home the prize . . .
And as Jesus knows, these rivalries
corrode the soul of communities, religious or otherwise. They cripple them, render
them ineffective and laughable, and so he gives us the answer, he tells us how to do it. The basis of stable, non-rivalrous, non-violent community is – if you think of
yourselves as last of all, if you behave
as if you are last of all, as in you are a servant of all, then destructive,
rivalrous behavior will not happen . . . and of course, it makes sense, doesn’t
it? If you think of yourself as last of
all, if you believe it, then there is
no need for competition, for rivalry, for in-fighting. Humility – from the Latin “humus” as in soil
as in close to – humility prevents contention, it thwarts conflict precisely
because if you are humble – if you know yourself to be low to the ground, as
Jesus put it last of all, then you won’t feel the need to prove you’re better
than everybody else all the time.
This is such an important principle that
Benedict of Nursia – Saint Benedict – made it the heart of his Rule for monastic
life. It’s the longest chapter of the
rule, and it’s the seventh, and thus the “perfect” chapter. He describes the path to humility as a ladder
with 12 rungs; listen to this description on the seventh – and thus the perfect
– rung: “The seventh degree of humility is that one considers oneself lower and
of less account than anyone and this not only in verbal protestation but also
with the most heartfelt inner conviction . . .”
Or as Jesus put it 600 years earlier, whoever would be first must be
last of all, and servant to all . . . for who is lower than a servant, who is
lower indeed? And the model for all of
this is the Son of Man himself, who will be betrayed into human hands and
murdered on a tree, the ultimate servant of all . . . how much more “last of
all” can you get?
But his followers refuse to understand
this, so he gives them another
example—he's already given them one—taking a little child to give them an
object lesson. And it’s important to
remember that they are still in the physical arrangement of teacher and
disciples, and it’s important as well to understand that in ancient Judaism,
women and children and gentiles and other outsiders – the ones Jesus calls “the
least of these” – were not allowed to sit at a teachers feet, to be disciples
of a master like Jesus. And so what does
he do? He takes a child, one of the
least of these, low on social-location totem pole, even lower than women and slaves
were in those days, and he brings her into the circle, into the company of his
disciples, admitting the child into their adult male, ritually-pure Jewish
circle.
And he amplifies the effect, he emphasizes it by drawing the child up
and taking the child into his arms, in the attitude of a loving parent . . .
and in being so close to him, the child becomes a part of him, is merged into
his identity. And this interpretation is
confirmed by the very next words out of Jesus’ mouth: Whoever welcomes one such child in my name
welcomes me – the child is identified with Jesus! Jesus is identified
with the child . . . whoever welcomes this child, welcomes me . . .
And of course over in Matthew, this
identification is seen as well . . . the King, who represents Jesus, tells his
followers whatever you do to the least of these, those at the bottom of the
heap, the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder, whatever you do to the
least of these, you do to me . . . and Jesus, the Lord and master of them all,
the first of all, becomes the last of
all, becomes the least of these, becomes a little child.
And so, by taking up a little child, by
taking into his circle one of the least of the least of these, he is revealing
a stunningly radical view of community and indeed God – the outsider, the marginal not only comes inside, not only becomes equal to them, but when he is taken up
into Christ’s arms, when he is merged with Christ, he becomes in a sense Christ himself . . . a child, the
ultimate “last of all” in their society, does indeed become first of all. And the final words of Jesus are icing on the
cake, they confirm what has been shown in that silent scene – whoever welcomes one
such as this child, welcomes me.
And today in our middle-class world,
children aren’t considered the least of these—although having no vote, their
education and children’s services are always the first things cut—but no matter
– the child in Jesus’ arms is a metaphor
for the least of these, those on the lowest societal rung, in any society, ours
no less than theirs . . . and so this passage – like its counterpart over in
Matthew – should set us to thinking about the identity of “ones such as these”
are around here, in Hamilton County .
. . it should set us thinking and wondering, are they here in Greenhills, in
Forest Park, in the Greater Cincinnati area?
Have we, like Christ, brought them here into the center of our life as a
congregation? Why are they not here in
the circle at Jesus’ feet with us? The
answer of course is complex, not at all conducive to a simple slogan or saying
. . . and yet, welcoming the un-welcomed, absorbing the unabsorbed, taking into
the center the marginal is at the center of the Christian life itself . . .
You know, evangelical Christians have a
phrase they often use for the conversion experience . . . they say that to
experience salvation we must “invite Christ into our lives.” Here in our passage, we see that at work, I
think, but it’s on an anthropological level as well as a spiritual one. What Jesus implies in this passage, what he
demonstrates in that circle of discipleship, in the circle that is his
congregation, is that whenever we welcome one such as this little child,
whenever we go out of our way to gather
of the least of these in our arms--whomever they are, whatever they look like--we
not only invite them in, but we
invite Christ in as well. Amen.
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