Giving It All Away: Sermon on Mark 12:38-44

I am going to tell you a true story. It is about a man named Jim. That’s his real name, and I’m using it because, once upon a time, he gave me permission to tell his story.

I met Jim… I’m not exactly sure where. But at a certain time in my life—say, 15 years ago, he was sort of everywhere. When I looked out my window, there would be Jim, rolling his shopping cart down my street, and coming up on my porch to pick up a bag I had left there for him.

Jim was a small guy, perhaps in his sixties when we met, but he looked much, much older. He was wiry, and sort of bent over, and he didn’t have a lot of his original teeth left. He had a pack a day habit… these really nasty little cigars; I couldn’t stand the smell of them. I’m not sure whether it was the smoking that aged Jim or the drinking. Jim had a long career of hard drinking; but that was behind him now. When I knew him he was in recovery, a stalwart of the Thursday 8 PM AA meeting. He was so proud of his recovery. First he counted the days, then the months, and then the years. I was invited to go to the meetings in which Jim received his 10 year, his 11 year and his 12 year medallions.

When I first knew Jim, he was walking around the neighborhood, miles and miles of walking each day, to pick up cans and bottles, both those he’d pick out of the garbage or recycling, and those he’d get off the porches of friends who had saved them for him. I was in the latter category. For a long time… I’m not sure how many years… all my returnable bottles and cans went to Jim. It was convenient for me… no hauling them to the grocery store… and it was money Jim lived on. He was on disability because of his health, and he got a Social Security check every month. But the thing that allowed Jim to live in his little apartment on Main Street was collecting bottles and cans.

Jim kept track of his bottles and cans the way he kept track of his sobriety. Every once in a while, he’d give me a call, and ask me to drive him and a whole car load of returnables to the redemption center, and so I’d go, and we’d load them in the back of my car. Not everyone rinses out cans and bottles, especially the students at the frat houses who just put their stuff on the street. So inevitably my car would end up smelling like a brewery. It struck me as odd, maybe even tempting fate just a tiny bit, that Jim lived off beer bottles and cans. You know, given that beer almost killed him, and that he spent his days working very hard not to touch the stuff, to stay sober. But that smell never seemed to bother him… maybe the cigars had killed his sense of smell, I don’t know. But Jim, when we were driving to the redemption center, would say, “Well, last year I got all the way to $1800. It was a slow summer for some reason, I’m only at $1200 and it’s already Labor Day. But I think I can make it this year, if the kids have as many parties as they did last fall.”

To tell you the truth, I didn’t always look forward to Jim’s and my jaunts to the redemption center. I would get a message from Jim on my answering machine, and I’d think, Oh great, just what I need this week. I hated that smell in my car. And my kids were young, so I had to make sure someone was available to watch them, because I had a station wagon and we’d have to put the seat down. So I couldn’t bring them with me. It was kind of a pain in the neck sometimes. But then I’d be with Jim, driving to the redemption center, and, you know, he had this incredible optimism about him. I’d watch him walk, see how hard it was for him… I think his joints were painful, and he had emphysema… did I mention that? So… he’d get winded just going up a little set of three steps. So here was this guy… living alone in a tiny little apartment, living off social security and his can and bottle money, physically in pain a lot of the time… and he just was one of the most grateful people I’d ever known.

That was it. Jim was grateful. He was sober. He had that to be grateful about. He was able to not drink, one day at a time, as he often reminded me. And… in his recovery, he’d become interested in genealogy, so he spent a lot of time calling people, churches, cemeteries, trying to track down his ancestors. I think he had fully fleshed out family trees going back into the 16^th century. He was so excited about his family history, and grateful for it. Sure, he was in a lot of pain, but he could still walk. He was grateful for that. And he loved those dreadful smelly little cigars. They just pleased him to no end. Jim was grateful.

Jim was a churchgoing man. That’s the other place I saw him. I was a director of Youth Ministries and Christian Education for a local Church, and Jim was a member. So I would see Jim there. Occasionally I’d hear his shopping cart squeaking down the hallway, and I’d know Jim was in the building. Jim could talk about his faith; he was an unusual person in that respect. He believed that God, working through AA, had saved his life. And he was grateful.

One fall the youth group decided to do a fundraiser. They wanted to buy gifts for the women and children who find themselves at Local Shelter over Christmas. As you may know, Local is a place for people who have experienced domestic violence, and who need a safe place. I don’t remember who thought of this as a mission project, but the kids were pretty pumped. This seemed like a worthwhile cause to them. They really wanted to help.

One of them got the idea to do a bottle and can drive, and the others all concurred that this would be a great, and relatively easy, fundraising project. All they’d need to do would be to remind the people at church to save bottles and cans for them, and then they’d bring them in, and, voila, easy money.

When you’re a youth leader, you really want to let the kids lead when they are excited about an idea. They really were excited about this idea, so I encouraged them. Sure! Absolutely. We can do this. And so the bulletin announcements were written, the signs were made… the word went out. We were collecting bottles and cans.

And, of course, I felt a little funny about this, as far as Jim was concerned. I was worried. Would we be cutting into Jim’s income? I knew he depended on his bottle and can money. I made a mental note to hold some of our family’s returnables aside for Jim…. maybe we could even try to drink some extra diet soda over the next month. I worried about the next time I would see Jim. Would he be upset? Would he be hurt? I didn’t look forward to our next encounter.

I was in my office one grey November day. I hadn’t seen Jim since the bottle and can drive had begun, but it was going well; I had an appointment to meet a youth group member and his mom to take two carloads to the supermarket to be redeemed. I don’t remember what I was working at, but I probably was on my computer. Then, I heard it: the familiar squeak of Jim’s shopping cart wheels coming down the hallway. I took a deep breath. I dreaded this meeting.

I stood up and poked my head out of my office door. “Hi,” he said. He had a raspy voice, a real smoker’s voice. “Can we talk? In private?”

“Sure Jim,” I said. “Do you want to come into my office?” Jim nodded, and he wheeled his cart just outside my door. He ambled in sort of slowly—he always moved slowly—and he let himself down in a chair while I closed the door.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this bottle drive, Jim,” I said. That was narrowly true. I’d had a sense I should talk to him. But, in my dread about hurt feelings and so forth, I’d not really made any effort to make it happen.

“That’s what I want to talk about,” Jim said. He reached into the pocket of his big parka— it was really too big for him. He pulled out a wet, folded up, wrinkled $20 bill.

I looked at him, blankly.

“This is for the bottle drive. I want you to put this towards whatever the kids make.” Then he paused. “I don’t want them to know it’s from me.”

It took me a moment to re-orient myself from the conversation I’d been anticipating. For some reason, the first words out of my mouth were, “Jim, you don’t need to do this.”

He looked at me, hard. “Oh yes I do,” he said. He paused again. “It should be a lot more, but this is all I can manage at the moment.”

I did a quick calculation. $20.00. That’s four hundred cans. I had some vivid mental snapshots of Jim walking slowly down a street in my neighborhood, of Jim climbing three stairs somewhere to retrieve a bag, of Jim excited and adding up the numbers as we drove to the redemption center. I knew exactly what those bottles and cans cost him.

“Jim,” I began, but I never finished.

“I have not always been the person I should have been, especially when I was drinking, especially where women are concerned. Just know that…” another pause… “I need to do this.”

His voice brightened up as he rose to leave my office. “Have a nice day!” he said. When Jim said that, he said it without a hint of sarcasm. He meant it.

He took hold of his cart, and I listened as its squeaky wheels rolled down the carpeted hallway.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Do This In Remembrance, Sermon on Revelation 21:1-6

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; ⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” ⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. ~ Rev. 21:1-6

I ask you this morning to do something that might be hard for you to do. I ask you to try, for a little while, to forget everything you have ever learned about the Book of Revelation. Images of Armageddon, or Sunday School pictures of the anti-Christ… planes, trains and automobiles left suddenly driver-less… a certain publishing juggernaut, those books with the lurid flame-colored covers that claim to tell us exactly what it all means, what we can all expect. I ask you this morning to do something that might be hard: forget all that. Put it away, put it aside, and, just for a little while, entertain this possibility: the Book of Revelation is a document that describes the attempts of a community to deal with unspeakable loss.

The community that first heard John’s Revelation was living in a world that probably felt apocalyptic for them… remember the hours after 9/11, or, for those of you whose memories are longer, the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor? Remember that feeling of suddenly living in a different, frightening world, a world that caused you to ask all sorts of questions you’d never faced before. What do we do now? My family, my community, those I love… are we safe? Will my son or daughter or spouse be shipped off to war? For the early Christian community, which we must remember was also, largely, a Jewish community, there was at least a twofold trauma: first, Roman armies had destroyed both the Temple and Jerusalem in August of the year 70 CE. And second, in the aftermath of that destruction, Romans especially singled out followers of Jesus for persecution.

This was a time of tremendous loss. The loss of the Temple was a kind of death. It was the symbolic destruction of more than 500 years of sacred ritual and prayer. It was the death of a way of life, the way of the Jewish priesthood offering sacrifices on behalf of the people. It was the loss of a place that had been central to Jesus and the culmination and goal of his ministry.

And the losses continued, extended into each home, each life. Parents, children, spouses, friends… everyone was touched by death. Everyone was touched by loss. Entire communities were struggling daily with the question of how to face yet another day of persecution, yet another day of uncertainty, yet another day of loss. The early followers of Jesus were suddenly living in a different, frightening world, a world that caused them to ask all sorts of questions they’d never faced before. What do we do now? My family, my community, those I love… are we safe? Will someone I love be snatched up and shipped off to war?

We don’t have to be touched by apocalyptic events to have our own experiences of deep loss. Someone played me a song this week. In a week when my mother has been much on my mind, and on my dad’s mind, it struck a chord. It’s called "Ghost In This House."

I don't pick up the mail

I don't pick up the phone

I don't answer the door

I'd just as soon be alone

I don't keep this place up

I just keep the lights down

I don't live in these rooms

I just rattle around

I'm just a ghost in this house

I'm just a shadow upon these walls

As quietly as a mouse I haunt these halls…

I don't care if it rains

I don't care if it's clear

I don't mind staying in

There's another ghost here

He sits down in your chair

And he shines with your light

And he lays down his head

On your pillow at night

I'm just a ghost in this house…[i]

To me, that song describes so powerfully what it can feel like when someone we have loved is missing from our presence. It can be so difficult and so painful to go on in the face of that kind of loss. But it can be good to recognize that loss is in a sense a part of the DNA of our faith. It was there from the beginning. Think of Jesus’ original friends and followers, watching with horror as his life ebbed away—despite his warnings to them that his death was coming, that it was inevitable. And even after the resurrection, he disappeared again from their sight. Their losses piled up, and they yearned for consolation, and some kind of promise of reconciliation and restoration. They longed for hope.

The Revelation to John is filled with images of hope. The more war-like images have captured our attention (and that of the people who are cashing in on one rather strange interpretation of this book), but to focus on them is to lose sight of the big picture. The entire book can be seen as a glorious worship service, a service enacting the whole of salvation history—the movements from creation, through loss, and on into ultimate redemption. In the face of their own losses, enormous, unbearable, unspeakable losses, the early followers of Jesus cast all their hopes on this glorious promise of heavenly worship in which, as one writer has cautioned, “A few are charged to do judgment; [but] everyone without exception is charged to show mercy.”[ii]

When we are feeling like our losses render us mere ghosts in our own houses, Revelation invites us to a great worship service where we too may hope to get a glimpse of the big picture. When we are oppressed by a sense that our losses are too much for us, Revelation beckons us to that place where we can find that we are already part of a new heaven and a new earth. But even in view of this promise, we are still called to remember. Built into the very DNA of our faith is a command to remember… it’s been there from the beginning. When we gather around the table to break the bread and to take the cup, we are gently reminded that even painful memories, even our most devastating losses, can be gathered together and made holy in community. They are made holy because, as Revelation reminds us, the home of God is among mortals. That is what our communion is about: we do this in remembrance of the One who suffered… who we lost… but who was raised again, and who lit for us the path to new life, life even after loss, life even after death.

I ask you this morning to do something that might be hard for you to do. I ask you try, for a little while, to gather up your memories… the memories of those you have lost, in whatever way you lost them, and I ask you to commend them into the hands of God, who has made a home with us, and in us. I ask you to join me in commending them into the care of the one who has promised to dwell with us as our God, so that we might be God’s people. I ask you to trust with me in the one who will wipe every tear from our eyes, promising that, in the long run, in the big picture, death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for God is making all things new. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Alison Krauss.

[ii] Christina Rosetti, The Face of the Deep, 292.

The Way to See: Sermon on Mark 10:46-52

Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Sometimes I think I don’t give Mark enough credit. Don’t misunderstand me. I love the gospel of Mark… at times, I think it’s my favorite gospel (that’s usually when I am reading it…). I love its leanness. I love its political edge. I love its lack of a resurrection appearance, only the strange instruction that Jesus is already in Galilee, so we had better get ourselves there. I love the fragments of Aramaic, Jesus’ native tongue. Talitha cum. Eloi, eloi, lema sabachtani. I love its earliness: the gospel feels so close to the earthly life of Jesus, it's almost like being a detective on the trail before it's gone cold, as if the vague scent of nard is still in the room.

I love the so-called messianic secret, how Jesus keeps saying, “Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone who I really am.” There is a Leonardo da Vinci painting of John the Baptist, an unusual one, in that he is neither portrayed as already decapitated, nor looking like a wild man in animal skins. In this portrait he looks well, robust, and—really odd for John—he looks cheerful. He is shown pointing his right finger over his left shoulder as if to say, Not me, him. And to me, that's Jesus in the gospel of Mark. People keep wanting to label him, pin him down, box him up, and he keeps pointing his finger over his shoulder at God, and insisting, Not me, Him.

Now, having said all that, still, sometimes I think I don’t give Mark enough credit. I don’t tend to think he’s being subtly or slyly theological. But he is. I don’t think he has an overarching agenda, except for clean, clear reporting of Jesus’ comings and goings. But he has. Take today’s gospel story, the healing of blind Bartimaeus. Now, any one of us who has heard a certain hymn knows, right out front, that any time someone in the gospel goes from being blind to seeing, in a sense, they also go from being lost to being found. They are coming to faith. The gospels have numerous stories about those who are “blind” to the truth presented in the person of Jesus, and these are usually people who should know perfectly well that Jesus speaks God’s truth… people such as the scribes and Pharisees, who spend every waking moment studying or debating the Torah, or even the disciples, who spend every waking moment at Jesus’ side. These are people who should know. But, typically, they are blind to what is right there in front of them. They cannot see Jesus for who he really is. They don’t get it.

Then, along come unlikely people… really unlikely people… but after a while we realize they are the usual suspects. Sinners. Tax collectors. Women from whom seven demons have been cast out. Heck, women generally! And children. Let’s not forget them. Non-Jews. Syrophoenicians. Samaritans. These folks come along, and despite their lack of the right lineage, or the right education, or the right social status… they can see. They do not suffer from the kind of blindness that afflicts those who should know better. Blind beggars, sitting by the side of the road can see perfectly well who and what Jesus is. These unlikely characters see. They know. They get it.

So, it’s tempting to right away assign symbolic relevance to the story of the healing of Bartimaeus. The blind beggar sitting by the side of the road represents those who are most likely to be able to see the truth about Jesus: the marginalized, the nobodies. We’ve spoken of them before. Beautiful. A perfect story.

Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

But lets not be too hasty. Let’s give the story its due. Let’s look at it in context, and not simply as a wonderful little story about coming to faith (though it is still that). This story comes at the end of a section of the gospel known as the “discipleship” section. Beginning with chapter 8, verse 22, we have story after story of Jesus trying to explain to anyone who will listen exactly what it means to follow him on his way. In fact, the section begins with the healing of another blind man… a healing that is unusual in that it takes Jesus two tries to accomplish it. Between the two blind men, we have story after story of the “blindness” of the religious leaders, or the “blindness” of the disciples, who, no matter how many times Jesus spells it out for them, continue to confuse following Jesus with opportunities for power, and status, and getting some kind of prize.

Following Jesus is not about power or status or getting some kind of prize.

If we look at the whole discipleship section of the gospel of Mark, there are several things we can say following Jesus is about. First of all, it is about the business of healing and being healed, and there is a correct order to those. Following Jesus is about recognizing in ourselves the wounds and emptiness and deep need that cannot be filled by ordinary measures, that will not respond to our usual ways of making ourselves feel better, from the cookie to the drink to the impulse buy to the wrong relationship. Following Jesus is about both recognizing our deep need, and identifying the one who can offer real healing. It is about not being too proud to ask for that healing, not being too stubborn to accept it, not being so foolish as to think some other matter takes precedence over it. And then it is about turning around and being in the business of offering that same healing to others, daring to imagine that we, even we can participate in spreading it around. It is daunting.

Second of all, following Jesus is about recognizing the deficits in our own faith systems. This is where nearly everyone in the gospel—all those folks who should know better—this is where everyone stumbles, where we all stumble. Everyone thinks they have it figured out. Everyone thinks they have nothing to learn. Everyone except one man—remember him?—his child is possessed with some terrible demon, and he desperately wants the child healed, and he knows it is all riding on his ability to trust Jesus. He cries out this cry of agony, “I believe! Help my unbelief!” And that terrible admission turns out to be precisely the credo Jesus wants from him, wants from all of us. I believe! Help my unbelief! It is humbling.

Third of all, following Jesus means understanding his intentions and the direction he is taking, his way of doing things. It means not blanching when we hear him say something like, “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.” It means a complete reversal of all we thought we understood about power and glory. Power is in weakness. Glory is in humiliation. It is confusing.

And so the discipleship section of the gospel of Mark comes to a dramatic culmination with this healing of yet another blind man. So much blindness, metaphorically speaking. And please understand, I do not want to minimize the real effects of literal, physical blindness on someone in Jesus’ time. We say “Bartimaeus the blind beggar,” as if there were any other option for a blind man in the ancient near east. To be blind was to reside on that last rung on the bottom of the social ladder, to be unable to work, to be utterly dependent on others for your very life. Nor do I want to presume such devastating consequences for those who are visually impaired in our day and age. Blindness today is not the same as blindness in Jesus’ day. Thank God, and science, and modern educational theory, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And yet, for Jesus’ day, the image of blindness was a powerful one with a specific meaning and set of consequences. Blindness equaled destitution. And so we find Bartimaeus, whose name can be translated, “son of Timaeus,” sitting by the side of the road…which can also be translated “the Way.” The Way is also what the very earliest Christians called their faith. We call it Christianity. They called it “the Way.” We find the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, at the side of the Way. When he is made aware that the very large crowd passing before him is made up of Jesus and his entourage, he begins to cry out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” And the people around him attempt to hush him up, to shut him down, but that only makes the son of Timaeus call out to the son of David with all the more fervor. “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Who was this son of Timaeus? He must be significant, because of all the healings in the gospel of Mark, this is the only one in which the person is named. “Timaeus” is the title of a dialogue written by Plato. It happens to be one of the most famous plays to be performed in the ancient, Greek-speaking world—the world Jesus inhabited.

In Timaeus, Plato says that all of us are blind, and only the enlightened philosopher can see. The philosopher is the one who can see [that] this world is fallen, and imperfect… It is what the philosopher truly sees which inspires [her] understanding of the truth.[i]

The son of Timaeus is sitting by the side of the Way, and Jesus and his entourage go by, and he calls out with all his might. And when Jesus says, let him come to me, he not only rises, he not only goes forward, he throws off his cloak. He throws off what is probably his only possession. Remember the wise and wealthy but ultimately sad young man who could not leave it all behind to follow Jesus… and see the contrast. See the joy with which Bartimaeus shrugs off his cloak, and his old life, and his old lack of vision. See how the only thing he asks of Jesus is to be able to see again. See how he knows he is in need of healing. See how he addresses Jesus as “my teacher,” showing us that he knows he does not know everything. See how he is willing to follow Jesus on the Way to the cross.

Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

The way to see is to know that we are wounded, and empty and in deep need of healing in all our brokenness. The way to see is to know that we don’t know, that our pre-conceived systems of faith and belief need to be re-fashioned, reformed, even. The way to see is to see the Way: the path Jesus follows. The hard path that is not about power or status or getting some kind of prize, but about service and giving and giving up the things we long to cling to.

Sometimes I don’t think I give Jesus enough credit, we don’t give him enough credit. We think we must approach him fully formed, and fail to realize it is for us to let him re-form us. We think we must be pretty or perfect or perfectly strong, and we don’t trust him with our brokenness, our need for healing. We think we need to know absolutely everything about him, or have our fully-fleshed out faith in place, intact, and we don’t trust him to teach us what we need to know. We think we can pull him along with us on whatever track we’re going, and don’t trust him to lead us on his path. But he wants us. Just as we are, without one plea. Blind beggars every one of us. Beautiful and broken, as we were created. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Rev. James Murray, after Tom Long, Midrash lectionary discussion list, October 23, 2003.

God's Hands: A Sermon on Job 38:1-18

A subtly stewardship-ish sermon... perhaps too subtle?

"K." was baptized yesterday.

~~~

We’ve walked in to a bit of a lecture here… a scolding, really. We are hearing the voice of God as an ancient writer conceived it, and God is speaking to Job. At the beginning of the book that bears his name, Job is described as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” And Job has all the accoutrements that go along with faithfulness and uprightness in the thinking of the Ancient Near East: he is happy and he is prosperous. In Job’s world virtue equals success. He has flocks and herds and lots of property. He has ten children who actually love to spend time together, and host one another for wonderful family dinners. But all that is about to change. When a member of God’s heavenly court—a kind of devil’s advocate figure—asks permission to test Job, God says, sure. Go ahead. Test him. Let’s see what Job is really made of.

In the twinkling of an eye, Job has lost everything. By the sudden actions of enemy armies and fire from heaven and violent winds, everything he had is gone. Property, gone. Flocks and herds, gone. Even his ten children, gone. And Job spends the next thirty or so chapters of the book that bears his name trying to figure out what on earth has happened, and defending his moral character to “friends” who are sure he must have done something to deserve all this calamity. Throughout those chapters Job questions God. Job asks that classic question: why do bad things happen to good people? Why did these bad things happen to me? Why did I lose nearly everything I hold dear—property, flocks, herds, even my children? Why? Job asks God to explain.

Job is not the only one who wants answers to these kinds of questions. When the worst happens, it seems a part of our human nature to ask why. We would like to know why bad things happen to good people, why the cancer strikes or the job is lost or the company has to close its doors. We would like to know why homes burn to the ground or are flooded beyond repair, or why someone comes to feel that their only option is to commit an act of violence. We, too, would like God to explain.

The passage we have read this morning is a small part of God’s response, though I don’t think we can call it an explanation in any sense. Rather than explaining the problem of suffering, God directs Job’s attention elsewhere. The works of my hands, God says. Look at all my hands have done. Look around you at the wonders of creation. Who did you think did all this?

…who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’? ~ Job 38:8-11

God speaks of the earth as if it were a tiny child—a newborn baby—and as God does, divine love and care for that earth become apparent. Despite the occurrence of calamity, God seems to be saying, do not doubt that I love the earth and all its creatures with the tenderness of a parent for its newborn baby.

See what wonders the hands of God have performed! In the ancient language of our faith, God’s hands laid the foundations of the earth while the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy. Or, as we might say in 2009, God tipped over the first cosmic domino that led to the Big Bang, and carefully watched over the debris that was flung from our medium sized star as it whirled itself into planets. Creation. However you look at it, in whatever terms you describe it, God is responsible for it. The mind and heart and will and hands of God fashioned everything that is. God says to Job, Look at the wonders my hands have done!

This response of God—this non-explanation—silences Job’s questioning. But we are still left with the problem of evil—the problem of bad things happening to good people. This problem is not resolved in Job, though some later author gets cold feet and tacks on a happy ending to satisfy those who insist that goodness must equal happiness. The heart of the book of Job points our attention away from suffering and towards evidence of God’s goodness, evil and suffering notwithstanding. Yes, life is hard—but look at the stars. Yes, you have lost much, maybe even everything—but look at the sea. I don’t know that it is a satisfactory answer for most of us.

God’s motives and methods remain a mystery to us, unknowable, unfathomable. But there is something we can know: we can know the works of God’s hands. We can know God as the one who commanded the morning to dawn and who has walked in the recesses of the deep. We can know God as the one who taught the trees to turn themselves into pillars of fire, and who created the infinitely beautiful patterns of snowflakes.

We can know the works of God’s hands. We can warm ourselves on a chilly autumn night with the bounty from the garden and the orchard… the savory winter squash, the glorious crisp apples. We can know the works of God’s hands. We can peer into the face of K., and see the beauty God has created, the miracle that is life, and the gifts that result from human love. We can know the works of God’s hands. We can look around us in this beautiful sanctuary and see people whom God has called together into community, we who have been joined in the body of Christ. We can know the works of God’s hands.

And then perhaps our response to the problem of evil and suffering in the world can be shifted. Perhaps instead of asking, “Why did this happen?” we can respond by asking “How can we help?” or “What can we do?” I heard not too long ago that one unforeseen result of the recession we seem to be emerging from was unprecedented numbers of volunteers, people showing up at non-profit agencies to offer their help. People who had lost their jobs have been reaching out to others who are struggling in record numbers.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.[i]

Some attribute that prayer to the medieval mystic Teresa of Avila, and some attribute it to the 20th century mystic, Teresa of Calcutta. And others tell this story:

There is a church in the UK that was damaged by the Blitzkrieg, and a group of German students went to restore the church [after the war was over]. The hands on the statue of Jesus were blown off, and instead of fixing it, the German students posted "Jesus has no hands but our hands."[ii]

Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Ours are the eyes with which God looks out and sees the suffering of the world, and seeks to alleviate it. Ours are the eyes that see the loneliness of the homebound neighbor, and make a decision to stop in to bring some flowers from the sanctuary. Ours are the feet that will walk to do good, seeking to eradicate hunger in our area by participating in this afternoon’s C.H.O.W. walk. Ours are the hands with which we will dig into hearts and pockets and calendars in order to do the work of God’s church. Ours is the body from which no one is rejected, of which every member is valued for his or her unique contribution. God has no body now on earth but ours. No hands but ours. God depends on our hands to continue the work of creation and nurturing God has begun.

Now. What shall we do with these hands of ours? These miracles of design and creation in their own right? Scripture and our own experience of the world remind us of the ever-creative, ever-caring hands of God at work. Look at what God’s hands have done! What shall we do with our hands? Thanks be to God! Amen.

[i] Teresa of Avila? Or Teresa of Calcutta?
[ii] Evangelical Lutheran Church in America website.

The Welcome Table: Sermon on Mark 8:1-10

We are receiving new members here at St. Sociable Church today, and since this will be their first time as members of a Calvin-descended church, I thought it might be fun to share just a bit of Calvitrivia, a perhaps little known fact about our history.

Many of you know that John Calvin is considered the father of our denomination. He was without a doubt one of the greatest thinkers and theologians of the Reformation. Calvin has gotten a bad rap in the modern era, a reputation as being a kind of harsh, repressive curmudgeon. I am here, first of all, to stand up for the Calvin I know and love. The man was a poet, and his poet’s heart was filled with a fervent love of Christ and the church. Listen to these words, his meditation and teaching on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which we are going to celebrate today:

We shall benefit very much from the Sacrament if this thought is engraved and impressed upon our minds: that none of the brethren can be injured, despised, rejected, abused, or in any way offended by us, without at the same time, injuring, despising, and abusing Christ by the wrongs we do; that we cannot disagree with our brethren without at the same time disagreeing with Christ; that we cannot love Christ without loving him in the brethren; that we ought to take the same care of our brethren’s bodies as we take of our own; for they are members of our body; and that, as no part of our body is touched by any feeling of pain which is not spread among all the rest, so we ought not to allow a brother to be affected by any evil, without being touched with compassion for him. Accordingly, Augustine with good reason frequently calls this Sacrament “the bond of love.”[i]

How beautiful, and how perfect. These are the tangible effects we can hope for in our sharing of the Lord’s Supper: it is an expression of our deep communion with one another and with Christ, our deepest expression of the love we hold for one another and for God. Calvin has stated it so perfectly. And yet, followers of John Calvin instituted a practice that was, at the very least, startling in light of the paragraph I’ve just read to you. This was the practice of Communion Tokens.

There was a concern, in an earlier day, with “irregularities” in the Lord’s Supper, and by that I do not believe they meant the use of pita bread and tortillas. Rather, they were concerned that no one who was unworthy should receive the sacrament. And so a practice arose, by which the elders of the local church would visit all the members prior to their annual celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The purpose of the visit was to ensure that the members had been accurately instructed in the faith, and that they were leading lives worthy of their calling of the Lord. In this country, the use of communion tokens was common in Cavin-Descent Churches, especially those of Scots heritage, well into the 19^th century. (I don’t know for certain, but I imagine the tokens were used at St. Sociable at some point.)

This practice doesn’t exactly describe what I like to think of as “the Welcome Table.” Jesus told us, again and again, by word and by action, that God invites us to a banquet, and all are welcome. Calvin wrote so eloquently of how the Lord’s Supper should bind the community together, of the ways in which it should remind us so strongly that we are all members of the Body of Christ. It’s odd that his followers should have been such strong proponents of “fencing” the table. And, of course, use of the tokens ended eventually. Churches changed their thinking about who to welcome to the table and how to welcome them. I suspect stories like our passage from Mark’s gospel had something to do with that.

It’s déjà vu all over again! Yes, this is the same basic story we treated at length during the summer, as the lectionary served it up to us no fewer than six times. The story of the feeding of the multitudes is retold no fewer than six times in the New Testament… twice in Mark’s gospel alone. It is an event that is surely at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. It tells us volumes about how Jesus looked at and listened to and responded to people.

Jesus had compassion for the people. That means, Jesus looked at people and saw their need. Jesus listened to people and heard their pain. Jesus taught people and noticed their hunger. Jesus put his hands on people and responded to their injuries and illness. All these things are happening right here, as Jesus is in the presence of a large crowd of people who are in need, in pain. Jesus is seeking to feed people who are hungry, and heal people who are ill. Nowhere in this story—or in any gospel story—does Jesus look for a token, or check someone’s credentials before deciding to feed them. The only “credential” anyone must present is their rumbling stomach, their desire to take in what Jesus is serving. Jesus’ feeding them does not depend on their worthiness; it depends on his compassion.

As the years have gone by our church has relaxed many of its restrictions on who may receive the Lord’s Supper. We no longer require tokens testifying to people’s “worthiness.” We no longer require communicants’ classes, or that people be a certain age. We now regard the Lord’s Supper just as we regard Baptism: it is not our Sacrament, but God’s. God’s grace is more powerful than our understanding or lack of understanding. God’s grace is real and effective. God’s grace works best when we simply get out of the way, and let it flow into the world.

In the end, it is not our table. It is Christ’s. And Christ, by his example, shows us a grace that is all too willing to be spent lavishly on the unworthy, which, of course, includes all of us. Christ, by his example, sets a table that has room at it for you and for me and for all God’s children wherever they might be. Canada. Mexico. Peru. Indonesia. Afghanistan. China. Christ gives us a sacrament that can be beautifully summed up as “a bond of love,” and demonstrates that that bond extends beyond our expectations. Christ reminds us that when our sister in Ethiopia has no bread, we should feel her hunger. Christ reminds us that when our friend in OurTown has no home, we should feel the harshness of the elements on his skin. Christ reminds us that when our brother in Laramie is beaten, we should feel his pain.

It is not our table. It is the table of Jesus Christ, which is here in this place and in every corner of the world. It is not our table. But we are welcomed to it. We are received with open arms. It is not our table, but it is surely our responsibility to extend the welcome. Thanks be to God.

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[i] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960) ed. John T. McNeill, Translated and Indexed by Ford Lewis Battles, [VI, xvii, 38], 1415.

For Such a Time As This: Sermon on the Book of Esther

It is so simple, yet it can be so difficult: telling the truth. For a long time, I hid the truth about myself. For a long time, I lived in fear that the truth would bring with it only danger, only sorrow. But in the end, the truth brought freedom, for me and for my people.

My Hebrew name is Hadassah, meaning myrtle. But I have a Babylonian name as well: Esther, Ishtar, like the goddess worshipped by those who kidnapped my people and took them into exile, the people who brought us here, long before I was born. I have two names, and I claim them both. I am a woman of two worlds. And that is why I began to keep my secret.

My story begins as another woman’s story ends. It was all the talk of the women at the well: beautiful Queen Vashti had been commanded to appear at a royal banquet by her husband, King Xerxes. The king was merry with wine, they chuckled to one another, and he ordered Vashti to appear before his banquet guests in her royal crown—and everyone knew that the king meant, only in her royal crown. At this, eyebrows were raised, and the women clucked their tongues in disapproval as they hoisted their buckets from the well. Proud Vashti refused, and so Xerxes deposed her and began his search for another Queen. The general consensus was that any woman who agreed to be the queen of Xerxes ought to be prepared for a life of such indignities.

My uncle Mordecai approached me for a dipper of water as I returned from the well, and he listened as I shared the gossip. My dear uncle had raised me from a child, ever since my parents had died. I saw a twinkle in his eye, and I knew him so well, I knew what it meant: despite the warnings of the women, this was an opportunity, not just for me, and not just for my family, but for my people. We were Jews. We were the outsiders, one of the tiniest ethnic minorities of the vast Persian Empire. We were strangers in a strange land, and we were looked upon with suspicion, even hate. Long ago we had been taken into captivity and exile… so long ago that many of us had been reared without the prayers and traditions and history of our people being taught to us. What would happen, we wondered, if a woman who was a Jew could find her way into royal favor? With my uncle’s encouragement I went and joined the throng, one of hundreds of girls to present themselves to the king for his consideration. But heeding my uncle’s warning, I kept the truth about my heritage a secret. No one would know that I was a Jew, not even those who would become my closest friends. No one would know, not even the man who was to be my husband.

What followed was a lengthy time of preparation. I do not know whether it was the legacy of having come after Queen Vashti, but we women of the harem were clearly intended to put our appearance before all else. We were schooled in beauty and deportment, we were treated with oil of myrrh and we were clothed with rich fabrics. At the end of our time of preparation, we were taken, one at a time, before the king. I never dreamed he would actually choose me, but he did. He gave a banquet in my honor and introduced me to the court.

Now, just as I took my place as the king’s bride my uncle performed an extraordinary service to him. Two of the king’s servants were talking carelessly at the gate to the palace, and my uncle was able to overhear that a plot was underway to kill the king. They spoke openly… perhaps the sight of an elderly Jew didn’t concern them… my people are often made invisible by the contempt of others. But my uncle’s ears were sharp, and before long King Xerxes was made to know that a good subject named Mordecai had interfered with a plot to kill him, and saved his life.

What shall I say about the king? He is devoted to me… that I can tell you with certainty. And I like to hope there is more to that than the blush of my cheek. I like to hope it is as much the conversation we make as my more, shall we say, decorative aspects. Is the king a good man? The Vashti incident notwithstanding, there is a kind of goodness about him, I suppose. But it is like the seeds that cling around the blossom of the dandelion. A strong wind can carry his goodness away, never to be seen again. In the case of the king, his continuing goodness depends very much on the company he keeps. And for a time, this king kept the company of Haman.

There are those, like the servants at the gate, who see my people and simply look right through us: we do not count, we are almost invisible. Then there are those, like Haman, who harbor a hatred for us that chills the blood. Haman was the king’s prime minister. He was trusted. He was respected. But he also had that dangerous kind of ego one finds in the world of politics. Haman wished, above all else, to be feared.

My dear uncle had an encounter with him that changed the fate of every one of us. Mordecai had taken his place at the king’s gate. I do not know why he favored this location, except that, perhaps, he liked to be near me, and to see whether he could hear about my comings and goings. As he came and went to and from the castle, Haman enjoyed seeing the way all the people bowed down to him… all, that is, except one: my uncle Mordecai. I do not know why he refused… our people usually show respect to rulers in this way. Could my uncle see through to Haman’s evil and murderous soul? I do not know. But for some reason my uncle would not bow, and Haman grew to hate him. As his hatred grew, he learned that Mordecai was a Jew… for my uncle did not hide his heritage, and no one in the palace knew he was my uncle. Haman thought it beneath him to vent his rage on one man alone. So he planned to kill all the Jews, throughout Xerxes’ vast kingdom. He proposed his plan to the king, all built upon a lie—that the Jews were not obeying the king’s laws. Upon hearing this, Xerxes did not hesitate to agree with his trusted advisor. The edict went out. All the Jews were to be killed.

I remember where I was when I heard the news. I was in my chamber, with my serving women, embroidering myrtle flowers on a gown of rich fabric for myself. As the women shared the gossip my needle froze just as the tip was about to pierce the fabric, to create the fifth petal of the star-like blossom. Suddenly my hands were cold, and I knew I could sew no more that day. I rushed from the palace to the gate and fell on my knees beside my uncle.

I had never seen him like this. As I have said, I was raised without the rituals and prayers of my people. Mordecai had assumed what I have since learned to be the garments of one who is mourning, and begging God to intercede with rescue. Gone were his fine clothes, and he wore sackcloth in their place. His face and head were covered with soot, with ashes, and he wailed and prayed aloud.

Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;

give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.

²From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see the right. ~ Psalm 17:1-2

³

Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit… my uncle could pray these words, but I could not. I was the queen. I had been chosen by the king, and he did not know this basic fact about me… he did not know the truth. He did not know that I was a Jew. He did not know that, by agreeing to Haman’s plan to kill every Jew, he had signed his queen’s death warrant.

I looked into my uncle’s eyes and I could see that in his prayers he was not only asking God to intervene: he was also asking me. I explained to him what I had learned from my long months in the palace: that one did not seek an audience with the king. One waited on his royal pleasure. Anyone who approached the king without his express invitation could be killed.

My uncle narrowed his eyes. I could see that he was not convinced by my protests. He spoke to me in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, hoarse from his hours of wailing and lamenting.

“My child, you believe that you can stay in the king’s house and remain silent. But I tell you, you cannot. You believe that your silence will keep you safe, but I tell you, it will not. The Lord Almighty will never forsake his people. But that help may not arise in time to keep your neck from being broken on the gallows. Who knows the ways of the Lord? Perhaps you have been placed in the royal palace for just such a time as this. Perhaps your presence there, a Jew in the king’s own chambers, is part of God’s plan of salvation for us.”

It is so simple, but it can be so difficult. And yet, once I had made the decision, the weight of fear was lifted. I returned to my chambers and once again picked up my needle. I finished the spray of white myrtle flowers on the purple cloth of my royal gown, and I dressed myself in it. Then I went to the king. It was time to speak the truth.

You know the rest of my story—how I invited the king to a banquet, at which Haman was also present. How I told the king that Haman was planning my death, and the deaths of my people. How the king’s rage at Haman led, not to those deaths, but to Haman’s own death. And then, taking his place at the king’s side was a Jew named Mordecai, my uncle, a good man who had saved the king’s life. Now I know that the king will continue as a good man; there is a good man at his side, advising him, counseling him, and seeing that he treats all his subjects well.

Every year after the harvest my people hold a festival in which we celebrate the fruits of all God’s gifts to us. There are four sacred plants we use at that time, to symbolize the four kinds of people who make up our community. One of these plants is Hadassah, the myrtle plant. Because it has a lovely fragrance, but it does not have a pleasing taste, myrtle represents those Jews who have good deeds to their credit, despite the fact that they have never studied Torah, God’s holy law. I am Esther, Hadassah, a woman of two worlds, a woman of the exile, who never learned the holy rites or words of my people. But I learned the hard and simple discipline of telling the truth. For a long time, I hid the truth. For a long time, I lived in fear that the truth would bring with it only danger, only sorrow. But in the end, the truth was all I had to save myself and my people. In the end, it was the truth that set us free. And thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: "Esther" by Minerva Teichert (1888-1976)

One Such Child: Sermon on Mark 9:30-37

A number of years ago, when I was in seminary, my family planned a weekend visit to New York City. We had purchased tickets to “A Little Night Music,” probably my all-time favorite musical, with an all-star cast, and we were very excited. On the afternoon of the performance we went to a restaurant in the neighborhood of the theater. We went nice and early, so that we would be sure to have time to make the curtain. We walked in, and though it was busy, there were only one or two parties ahead of us. We spoke to a staff person, and settled in to wait for a table.

Suddenly, a virtual wall of people came rushing into the restaurant. There were people on top of people. I’d never seen quite so many people converge on a single location at once. And… needless to say, the restaurant staff was overwhelmed, and one thing led to another, and… our little party of four was lost in the shuffle. Almost before we realized what was happening, dozens of tables were being filled with people who had come in after us, and we could not convince anyone who worked there that we had arrived first.

I was furious. We were supposed to be first… well, third, anyway. But we were most definitely NOT supposed to be last. When I think back on my reaction to that experience—really, I find it embarrassing that I even remember it—I am struck by how powerful my emotions were. I was angry, but more than that, I was humiliated. I took it absolutely personally. I was supposed to be first, and instead I was last.

The questions of who will be first and who will be last are very much on the minds of Jesus’ disciples in this morning’s gospel story. We are on the road to Jerusalem with them, and with Jesus, of course. And to be on the road to Jerusalem means something very specific, and Jesus comes right out with it, first thing. He tells his friends, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him…” This is not the first time Jesus’ friends have been confronted with the brutal reality of his impending death, and it won’t be the last. Jesus is pretty consistent with his message. The path he is walking will lead to the cross.

It doesn’t matter how many times Jesus mentions this; the disciples never show any measure of acceptance or understanding. And, really, why should they? It’s not an acceptable, understandable reality. Jesus is their rabbi. He is their beloved, revered teacher, their Messiah, even: he is the one they believe God has anointed to save the people from all that ails them. Jesus is their leader, the alpha male of their pack. He is number one. And he is describing to them the most ignominious, the most shameful, the most humiliating end they can imagine. He is describing a death that is utterly inconsistent with everything they believe they know about him. He is not describing the death of a king, but of a criminal. Even Jesus’ assurance that he will rise again does not seem to matter. They are struck silent. They are afraid to even ask him what it all means.

And, so they walk on, back to their old familiar stomping grounds of Capernaum, where Jesus likes to relax at Simon Peter’s home. Once they are comfortably settled in, Jesus asks a pointed question. ‘“What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.’ [Mark 9:33b-34] On first glance, this feels odd and somewhat disconnected from what has just happened. It’s a non sequitur. It’s almost as if the disciples have played the child’s game of sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting “La la la la!” They don’t want to hear Jesus’ bad news (at least, according to them), and so they take an entirely different tack, a new topic, something that’s fun to talk about! Who among us is the greatest?

At least, that’s how I read this moment in the text until someone pointed out to me what probably should have been obvious: Jesus has predicted his own death. He is the leader. After his death, who will be the leader in his place? A discussion ensues, and then an argument, over who is “the greatest.”[i] No wonder they were struck silent.

Notice what Jesus does next. He sits down. This is a signal to his disciples—and to us—to pay very, very close attention to the word he is about to share with them. To sit down before speaking is, in the ancient world, to take the classic teaching position of the rabbi. Jesus is claiming his authority as he prepares to deliver a teaching—what may in fact be the central teaching of his ministry.

He 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.” ~ Mark 9:35-37

This is a delicate moment in the gospel, because it’s a moment we can very easily misunderstand. There are two parts to the teaching, the part about the last being first and the part about welcoming children. Let’s start with the children.

A few weeks ago I was wishing the lectionary had appointed this text for the 13^th instead of the 20^th. What could be more perfect than this gospel for Rally Day, the day we welcome our children back to Sunday School? But in the end I’m glad it was not the reading for last Sunday, because that would play into a pretty common misunderstanding about what Jesus means when he speaks of welcoming children. The misunderstanding stems from the difference between how we—westerners, in a developed country, in the 21^st century—view children and how people in the ancient world saw them. So let’s talk about what Jesus, most likely, did not mean when he spoke of welcoming children.

When Jesus spoke of welcoming children, he was not praising their innocence, or their sweetness, or their beauty. He was not talking about the way the sight of a newborn baby, swaddled in its mother’s arms, tugs at our heartstrings. He was not talking about the sometimes uncanny wisdom children display—the moments when they can cut to the heart of the matter, speak the truth in all its beauty and simplicity. He was not speaking of their playful spirit—the way they can spend happy hours in imaginary worlds of their own creation. He was not speaking of their trusting natures, or their inborn sense of fair play, or their eager willingness to believe, to have faith. All these things may be true about children, as we experience them. But these modern day notions of childhood were not the reason Jesus commanded his disciples to welcome children into their midst.

Here is how one writer describes childhood in the ancient world:

Here’s the thing about kids in first-century Roman Palestine: Children were nobodies, the bottom of the social food chain. Children had no power whatsoever, they weren’t given choices or negotiated with, they weren’t allowed privileges or given allowances. Children could be and were left on garbage heaps to die of exposure. Some of them were collected from the garbage to be kept as slaves. Depending on the hierarchy of the household, any number of people could decide that it was no longer expedient to keep a child alive. And although Jewish parents did not engage in infant exposure, their children had no more position or social standing.[ii]

Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God. Other understandings of “the kingdom” come later. “This comes first: a kingdom of children is a kingdom of nobodies.” It’s hard for us to understand how shocking this was to Jesus’ friends and disciples. Children were expendable. Children were nobodies.

I’ve tried to think of a modern day parallel to help us understand, and the closest I can come to it are these statistics, from a recent story in the New York Times Magazine on the status of women around the world.

39,000 baby girls die annually in China in the first year of life because parents don’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys receive.

In India, a “bride burning” takes place approximately once every two hours, to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry.

Between 60 million and 107 million women are missing from around the globe because baby boys are considered more desirable offspring than baby girls.

In other words, in many parts of the world, women are the nobodies.

More girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century. The number of victims of this routine “gendercide” far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.[iii]

I know that statistics like these, while they can shock us, can also numb us. The point is this: In Jesus’ day the nobodies, the expendable, those who could as easily die as they could live, were children. In our day, in some parts of the world, the nobodies are still children, and in some parts, they women and girls, while in other parts of the world they may be those who belong to the “wrong” religious or ethnic group. In this country we have a shameful history of the “nobodies” being the African Americans who were forcibly enslaved. And there are other nobodies, of course. Throughout our long history, we human beings have managed to find ways to marginalize one another, to make one another outcast, to point the finger and say, “They are not us. They are not even human. They are nobody.”

And Jesus is saying, No. No. No. The one you think you can’t welcome, or don’t have to welcome? That is the one you must welcome. You must welcome the nobodies, the ones without power, the ones without status. Not only must you welcome them, he says, even with his body language… you must embrace them. Not only must you welcome them, he says, you must be willing to be their servant. You must be willing to let them be first, and you must be willing to be last.

Oh my. Nobody wants to be last. Nobody wants to lose status. I certainly don’t. I don’t mind telling you… I care about whether I am first or last, I care about my status. I care what people think of me. Even my foolish and embarrassing little story about not being seated in order in a restaurant tells you… the ways I care about this run deep, they are visceral, they are instinctive, they are not entirely in my control. And what Jesus is telling his disciples, what he is telling you and me, is that we have to fight this urge to want to be first. We have to fight it with all that is in us, and we have to be willing to yield our status to those we consider the absolutely last and least. Our ability to bear witness to the enormous, overpowering love of God requires it.

There is a story of a little child who walked up to the preacher, and said, “If God is so big, and God is inside of us, why doesn’t God just… break out?” Why doesn’t God break out, in a glorious kind of contagion of love and mutual forgiveness and kindness and civility? Probably because every one of us—from Joe Wilson to Kanye West to you and to me—really, really has a hard time not being first, not being in charge, and so we keep all the potential of God’s love and goodness locked down, bottle up and hidden away. But it is time. It is time for us to let it loose. It is time for us to let go, and to let God do what God wants to do with our lives and our world. It is time for us to welcome one such child in our midst, whether we mean a child, or today’s nobodies: you know who they are. It is time for us to step back, to be willing to put our status and privilege aside so that the glorious contagion of God’s love can break free and renew the face of the earth. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Brian P. Stoffregen Exegetical Notes at CrossMarks, Mark 9:30-37, Proper 20- Year B. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark9x30.htm.

[ii] Rev. Miller Jen Hoffman, after John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 269.

[iii] Nicholas D. Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn, “The Women’s Crusade,” New York Times Magazine August 23, 2009.