"True Greatness"

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September 23, 2012

Gospel Reading: Mark 9:30-37

³⁰Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know it; ³¹for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." ³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

³³Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" ³⁴But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." ³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

Sermon: True Greatness

There are certain perks to being Jesus’ disciple.  You no longer have to deal with smelly fish all day or have people slam their door in your face as you collect taxes.  Your popularity precedes you and people are constantly gathering to hear what your posse has to say.  And you get to witness some phenomenal things:

Jesus calming the storm that you were certain none of you would live through.

The healing of a demon-possessed man by sending those evil spirits into nearby pigs (don’t eat that bacon, y’all).

A little girl raised from the dead and a bleeding woman healed.

An entire crowd fed through the generosity of shared bread and fish.

A (short-lived) stroll atop the sea of Galilee.

The blind given eyes to see, the deaf given ears to hear.

But in the middle of all of those extraordinary things, Jesus keeps mentioning something really odd: "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands,” he says. “And they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again."

Talk about a downer!  Why does Jesus, in these mountaintop moments of joy, speak about something so depressing?  And now he’s at it again: foretelling that terrible death while promising to rise from the dead. 

You don’t even know how to respond to such a statement.  It doesn’t make sense that, just when things are going so well and Jesus is really making a name for himself, he would allow people to kill him.  It just doesn’t compute.

But everyone is afraid to ask him to explain what he means.  Some have said that you disciples were afraid because you thought you would get it wrong (again) and embarrass yourselves.  But they have it all wrong.

Your fear comes from the deepest place any person can fear: the fear of losing someone you love.  You are afraid that this extraordinary time with Jesus is coming to an end, and believe that, by avoiding it, you can somehow postpone the inevitable.  You are afraid of losing your friend, your Rabbi, your Savior and do not want the shadow of those future events to darken the present you have with him.  And so, once again, you ignore his words, assuming they must just be the product of exhaustion after so many crowds.

Your denial takes the form of a debate: who is the greatest of us?

You argue all the way to Capernaum, and when you arrive there, Jesus asks you a pointed question (to which of course he already knows the answer):

“What were you arguing about on the way?"

Everyone fidgets nervously and avoids Jesus’ gaze, knowing that, as distracting as it was, Jesus would not approve of such a debate.

But of course he knows about your greatness grumbling.  And he also knows that this debate grows out of needing something else to focus on other than his death and resurrection.  That behind the prideful words and insecurity is the need for a sense of certainty in uncertain times, the longing for hope that he wouldn’t abandon you.

What Jesus does and says next addresses both situations:  He confronts your anxiety-fueled debate about greatness by saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 

What he really said was this: “You have greatness all sorts of confused, y’all.  Haven’t I already shown you what it means to be great?  Remember feeding the hungry, remember healing the sick, remember helping the deaf to hear and the blind to see?  That’s the greatness I am about.”

With that, Jesus settles your superficial debate.  But then he takes it one step further:  He knows that y’all are trying to avoid the reality of the cross as you’ve done each time he brings up that depressing doom, and so he speaks also to the fear you haven’t been able to put into words: the fear of losing him. 

Taking a child in his arms, knowing that children were at the very bottom of the social ladder of your day, he says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”   He’s promises you that each time you welcome the child and outcast, each time you embrace the overlooked and ignored, he will dwell with you.  And the One who sent him will dwell with you.  He will not abandon you, but you must not abandon those who are vulnerable or in need.

Somehow, you begin to see that your mission has always been greater than a few years of healing and teaching together.  Jesus reminds you that what is happening, and what will happen, is even greater than his time on earth.  This is only the beginning.  This greatness is about the one who sent him, about the God who always planned to redeem humanity all the way to a cross and a tomb and beyond it. 

“This is bigger than y’all, fellas,” he says.  “You want to talk about greatness?  Let’s do that: something greater than you can even imagine is going to happen and I want you to be prepared.  But you don’t need to be afraid – and I know you are – because I will always be with you.  See this child?  This invisible one?  If you welcome her, you welcome me, and if you welcome me, you welcome a love greater than any other.  Do you really want to be great?  Become like her.  Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions.  Don’t let your worry turn into argument.  Don’t forget the importance of joy and laughter and of relying on others.  THAT is true greatness.”

Being a disciple is not an easy calling to follow, especially on those days when the shadows of worry and fear blot out the light of resurrection.  Especially when it’s so much easier to focus on what we know: competition, argument, rank, instead of on what will always in some ways elude our understanding: the mystery of God’s self-giving grace towards us. 

We each of us long for greatness.  It is naïve to say we don’t.  We want to be remembered for something, we want to leave the mark on this world that only we can.  We deeply desire to matter to other people and to God.  There is nothing wrong with that longing.  But, like those first disciples, if we ask the question about greatness, we have to be prepared for the reality that God’s answer might startle us.

It might turn everything we thought we knew upside down.  It might reveal the ways we have used argument to avoid dealing with our real fears.  It might call us to believe the impossible, to embrace the invisible and to become the indestructible love of God in a world of great fear.  It might call us to hold fast to the hope of resurrection even when that hope seems foolish. 

God’s answer might make the status-driven ways we’ve lived our lives seem childish, and at the same time restore in us the potential to be childlike, held in the loving arms of a truly great God, who will never let us go.  Amen.