Geneva Presbyterian Church

Weekly Sermon

September 24, 2000 - "Whose Idea Was This?"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church; September 24, 2000

Psalm 100: Mark 9:30-37

Mark 9:30-37 Jesus and the disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for 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." But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "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. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." Prayer: Lord God, as we hear your words, bless us with understanding that we might take your message to heart. Amen. To understand the importance and power of this scripture, we need to know the context. Jesus and his disciples are traveling through his home territory. Except in his hometown, he was well received. In the past, he would have cared for the crowds, but this time, he doesn't want anyone to know he is there. He knows his time is short, and he must use the time left to instruct his disciples. He begins this part of his teaching by predicting his own death. This is the second time that Jesus has told the disciples that he will be betrayed, killed and risen from the dead. The first time, Peter's reaction was to argue with Jesus. This time the disciples are silent. They don't understand and as the text says they "were afraid to ask him." They didn't want to know. But Jesus knew that somehow he must make them understand. It was confusing for the disciples, just as it is confusing for us-this message of betrayal, suffering and death. We, like the disciples, would rather not hear about it. The text continues as Jesus and the disciples reach to Capernaum. Jesus asked them what they had been arguing about on the trip. He knew they were arguing about who would be the greatest. Think about that: Jesus tells them that he will be betrayed and killed and their reaction is to argue about greatness. It is heartbreaking. Jesus surely felt so alone. He is on his way to the cross and his closest followers and friends are arguing about where they rank. He is spending his final days trying to explain to them that his kingdom is not like the kingdoms of the world, but they don't get it. So Jesus says, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he punctuates his statement by using a child as a stand in for himself, just as he is a stand in for God. As I thought about this story, I kept thinking about how inept the disciples were. They just didn't get it. Then I had a startling revelation. I thought, "This story is so damning for the disciples. Why did they remember it and, what is more, why did they record it for all who followed to read. They revealed for everyone how slow they had been to understand. Who would tell such a story about themselves?" And that is when I realized that the only persons who would tell such a story were persons who finally did get it. What kind of followers remember and share such unflattering stories about themselves? Followers who finally did understand that following Jesus was not about being recognized as the greatest. Following Jesus was about being a servant, being last of all, being willing to be vulnerable and honest and humble. Jesus' message was shocking then and it is shocking now. Jesus lived and proclaimed the message that "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." He uses the child as an illustration because in those times children were recognized as the most vulnerable. A child was the classic example of someone who could do little or nothing to repay kindness. In other words, Jesus calls us to help the people who can't help themselves and especially can't help us. This is a pretty topsy-turvy idea. It certainly isn't practical. How in the world could Jesus expect such an idea to take hold? There was really only one way that could happen. The God of the Universe had to live out the idea. And, of course, that is exactly what happened. Jesus, the Christ, came into the world as a baby, totally vulnerable, fully human and fully divine. It is beyond our comprehension and yet true. Jesus came not to be served, as we would expect the God of the Universe to come, but to serve, to be servant of all. In the very simplest words, Jesus proclaims service above self. That is the call of Jesus: Service above self. It is a good time to be talking about service. We are in the midst of stewardship which is about committing our resources to the service of the church. And we are getting ready to ReVision our future as a church. How is God calling us to serve here and now? What is the unique vision that God has for us? Will we listen for God's word? How are we to use our resources for service? How can we be good stewards of all we have been given? Jesus' example of service above self raises so many questions, but they are the right questions, good questions. I think I began to understand what service meant as I parented my daughter Deborah. Most of you know that Deborah came to live with me as a foster child when she was 10 years old. The real test for me wasn't during the first year, when she was on her best behavior. The real test was later when I realized that I was not going to have a picture-perfect family with Deborah. We were going to live right in the muck with everyone else who takes on the commitment of parenting-whether you are a foster, adoptive or otherwise defined parent. The reality of service became clear to me when I realized that Deborah was going to embarrass me and sometimes make me feel like a fraud as a mother. She couldn't really pay me back for taking her in. She wouldn't make me feel good on the inside or look good on the outside. Embarrass me, she did. Hurt me, she did. Break my heart, she did. Do I love her? I do. In the process of raising Deborah, I have had a glimpse of the great love of God for a world which can't ever sufficiently thank the Lord. True service is doing the work of the Lord knowing we will never really get paid back, at least not by the world's standards. When we hear the phrase, "service above self" we have a tendency to emphasize the word "service." That is not bad, but we need to look at each of the words. The word "above" is critical because it reminds us of the context of service. In Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard tells about visiting a church. She turns a phrase so well. She writes: "The priest, new to me, was in his sixties. He was tall; he wore his weariness loosely, standing upright and controlling his breath. When he knelt at the altar, and when he rose from kneeling, his knees cracked. It was a fine church music, this sound of his cracking knees." [Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1982) p. 46.] Cracking knees that bend in prayer speak so powerfully of our need to bend to the Lord's will. The Lord is above us. The Lord is beside us, around us, below us, too, but most importantly, the Lord is above us. We must open ourselves to God's will. Sometimes we discover where we stand when things go wrong. Dan Wakefield tells about how this happened to him in his spiritual autobiography called How Do We Know When It's God. He says, "I learned that hopelessness can open opportunity. When you feel you've messed everything up and so have nothing to lose, when you're not trying to protect your status quo, you're not afraid of taking on projects that might in happier times seem on the risky and frightening side and so less appealing. In the first flush of [success], I turned down an invitation to lead my worship on spiritual autobiography at Sing Sing prison. My first thought is 'What if something bad happens? What if I'm held hostage? What if I'm caught in the midst of a prison riot like Attica?' It would just be my luck to have something prevent me from enjoying my long-awaited life of socially approved contentment. I make excuses. I say no. "[Later, after I have failed in my fantasy marriage and life of contentment] I say yes. I look forward to going to Sing Sing. It's not that I hope to be killed in some prison melee and so be put out of my misery, but rather that I've lost the illusion that I have anything to protect…I'm free to go to Sing Sing. It feels good. Good to be free. Good not to be afraid. Fear paralyzes, dries us up. Fear kills. I think how often the message of an angel in the Bible is 'Fear not.'… " [At Sing Sing] As the men do the exercises of drawing and writing about a spiritual experience of childhood, reading their stories and sharing their lives, I feel a genuine kinship with them. There is no pretense here, no 'side,' or affectation, no attempt to alter the truth in order to 'look good,' just a plain and direct expression of experience of spirit. In their imprisonment they are on some level oddly free as far as telling the truth of their lives, for they too have nothing left to lose… "As I sit with these men at this table, the thought comes to me that there's something here I've been missing…I've found my men's group. "I say I'll return and I do…I think of a poster I have by Sister Corita that I've kept for twenty-five years, with a message by Albert Schweitzer that I sometimes forget and that always comes back to me when I live by its wisdom: 'I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know, the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.'" [Dan Wakefield, How Do We Know When It's God, (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999) p.175-177] Until we understand the we are called to service, we will be missing something. Until we understand that our call comes from God, to whom we must submit, we will be missing something. And until we understand that we ourselves have been imprinted by God with a longing to serve, we will be missing something. A little while ago, I said that we are called to service above self. We have talked about service and above. Now, we need to talk about self. After all these years, I am beginning to understand that often my body, my physical self, carries the map for what I am to do. If I will listen to my body, it will give me the directions I need. Again, as Dan Wakefield states it: "Dr. Spock's great message to mothers was simply to trust their own instincts, assuring them they know more than they think they know. The same wisdom applies to all of us as we try to understand God's will, to discern the right path. We continue to look for experts and gurus, psychiatrists and seers and ministers, even channelers who claim to bring us advice from ancient Egyptian royalty or figures from past lives. And all the time the answers are where we fear most of all to search: our own body (more than our mind), the 'still small voice' inside we forget is there or won't take the time to listen to and often disregard when we hear it." [Ibid., p. 101] The fact is that we know that God calls us to service above self. We have known that all along. It isn't something new. When he wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience, Williams James put it into words. He wrote: "We and God have business with each other; and in opening ourselves to His influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled. The universe, as those parts of it which our personal being constitutes, takes a turn genuinely for the worse or for the better in proportion as each of us fulfills or evades God's demands." Whose idea was this 'service above self?' Why it was God's idea. Only God could pull it off! Let us heed God's call, for the universe and the God of the universe are relying on us!