The Greatest.

Mark 9:30-36

September 23, 2018

I.

Jesus and his disciples are circling back to their home base in Capernaum.  Along the way, he again predicts his death and resurrection, but the disciples don’t get it.  And they are afraid to ask him about it, probably because they don’t want him to know how clueless they are.  They are afraid of looking stupid and spiritually inept.  They are afraid of finding out what they must suspect Jesus really means.  I mean, Peter got chewed out last week for his misunderstanding over the same issue.  So maybe they sagely nod like they know what Jesus is talking about; but behind his back they shrug, give each other quizzical looks, and continue on the way.

These fearful and uncomprehending men proceed to argue among themselves, out of Jesus’ hearing, about which of them is the greatest, and they probably don’t mean the greatest clueless coward.  It appears, of all things, like they are angling for positions in Jesus’ royal administration when he gets to Jerusalem and takes power.  Because this is all about making him king, right?

The disciples still think that leadership is about “greatness” as the world understands it.  That is, it is about one’s skills, powers, abilities, achievements, accomplishments, successes, and personal glory.  It is about the kinds of things we put on our resume when we want to impress a new employer so they will  hire us and pay us a lot of money.  It is about things the world measures, values, and rewards.

The disciples are negotiating about such things as who gets what office in the West Wing, whose is bigger, whose is closer to the Oval, who is worthy of a credenza.  Who will be the Secretary of the Treasury?… but of course that will automatically fall to Judas, duh.  John can be High Priest, Peter will head the army, James will get State… and so on.

Actually, the text just says they were arguing about who is the greatest;  it might not even have been about them.  Maybe they were discussing other kinds of greatness.  Who is the greatest pitcher in baseball… (Jacob De Grom, of course).  Who is the greatest guitar player ever, I mean after Hendrix?  The greatest movie?  The greatest runner?  The greatest physicist?  The greatest chef?  The greatest country?  The greatest President?

We all have opinions about these matters, and we use the same criteria for greatness that the disciples are using: strength, consistency, ability, power, success measured in terms of effectiveness and profitability.  I understand that there is this thing called the “7 & 2” challenge, which is to climb the 7 highest peaks and visit both poles of the planet.  Doing all that — and several people have — surely qualifies someone as the greatest… something!  It should at least get you a slot on Colbert.

II.

Who is the greatest preacher?  Who is the greatest saint?  The greatest evangelist?  The greatest theologian?  The answer would certainly be someone famous, someone influential, someone who has published a lot of books, someone popular.

These are the people we admire and emulate; they inspire us to do better ourselves.  What’s the problem with lifting up excellence?  Why not reward special achievement?  Should we not recognize people who have had such a beneficial impact on the lives of others?

Apparently not.  When Jesus asks them what they were talking about as they were walking along on the way, the disciples have enough sense to clam up and be embarrassed about it.  They are sufficiently aware to know that Jesus probably wouldn’t approve of them discussing the relative greatness of anything, let alone of them. 

Jesus knows what they were discussing.  He knows them.  He’s not an idiot.  He knows that they are burdened by the same bias and expectations about “the Messiah” as just about everyone else in their society.  He knows they have the same understanding of a “king” and what a king is supposed to do and be as everyone else.  Messiahs and kings are powerful, wealthy, famous figures.  Jesus has shown that he can heal, control the weather, and even produce bread at will.  They are surrounded by adoring mobs of supporters all the time.  The Lord understands what they are thinking.

He also understands what we are thinking.  We should not be all that condescending towards these disciples.  I assure you we interpret success in exactly the same ways.  Churches are successful and viable if they are growing, if they have lots of members, if they bring in lots of money, if they have nice, big buildings.  Many ministers see themselves as successful according to the nice office with the credenza, the staff, the budget, the size of the organ, the height of the steeple, and so forth.  We get this greatness thing, believe me!

So the Lord sits down, motions for the twelve disciples, who also sit down with him, and he says to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  It makes no sense.  If you want to be first, you gotta be last.  If you want to win, you have to lose.  If you want to succeed, you have to fail.  If you want to live, you have to die.

And he doesn’t mean losing now to win later; he means that what we call losing is itself winning, in God’s eyes.  

III.

I imagine Jesus just looks at their blank, uncomprehending faces, men who are trying to wrap their minds around a paradoxical and nonsensical idea.  He is asking them to let go of everything they ever knew, assumed, expected, understood, and desired.  He is trying to break their minds open to a totally new and wildly, radically different way of seeing everything.  

He is looking for a way to get across to them how important it is to shift — indeed, to completely reverse — their understanding of greatness.  He wants to turn it upside down and inside out.  He wants them to think of greatness in exactly the opposite way.

So he reaches out for a little child.  Now, it is remarkable to me in the first place that when Jesus is home in his headquarters in Capernaum with his disciples, there are apparently little kids running around!  He doesn’t have to send someone out to find a child somewhere in town.  He simply reaches out for one that is already there! 

He brings this child into the center of the circle of disciples so they can see her.  Then he takes her in his arms, perhaps on his knee.  And 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,” that is, God.

In other words, “If you want to be great, go work in the nursery.  Get a career in child care, if you want to be first in my Kingdom.  If you want God in your life, get a child in your life.  Then we’ll talk.  Greatness, true greatness, is found in serving and caring for the least.  Become a servant of children; that’s the way to be great in my Kingdom.”

Child-care today is one of the least remunerated, least respected professions.  Teachers of children are so chronically under-paid that they have to buy their own supplies and have second and third jobs just to survive.  I am talking about America, now.  In Jesus’ day, children were considered property with rights on the level of domestic animals, which is to say, none at all.  They were cared for by women, who were only one notch higher, if that, in the scheme of things.

So these guys who were divvying out the plum places in the new government, are basically being told that the ones in the room who are really great are the women and the girls over there doing the child-care.  That’s the preferred administration of this Messiah.

IV.

We live in a country that allows 4 in 10 children to live in poverty, where the government wants to cut children’s food stamps, that rips children from the arms of parents who come here seeking asylum, and that underwrites the bombing of children in Yemen, and the torture of children in Palestine.  And that’s just off the top of my head.

How different would the world be if we followed Jesus’ leadership teachings, and made child-care the ultimate indication of greatness?  Imagine if the government were run by mothers, grandmothers, baby-sitters, and teachers.  This is who Jesus wants to be in charge of his church; where it is actually happening more and more.  He is not concerned about the Nobel Prizes on our resume; he wants to know if we can change a diaper and comfort a crying infant.  He wants to know if we can humble ourselves and minister to basic humanity.  Because that’s what’s really important.

Can we put ourselves last?  Can we relinquish all self-important, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing notions of ourselves?  Can we stop measuring ourselves by our wealth and power?  Can we be people who find real greatness in emptying ourselves to clean up the messes of the weak, poor, vulnerable, and powerless, just as he empties himself to come down clean up our mess?

Can we make ourselves last and nobodies, and in so doing follow him, thus realizing true greatness?  Can we access our deepest creaturely humanity, and thus see emerge within us and among us the greatness and glory of God?

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