September 23, 2012
Pentecost 17
James 3:13-18
Mark 9:30-37
(prayer)
The Revised Common Lectionary cycle of readings has been walking us through the letter of James and the gospel of Mark, in recent weeks. [I like the discipline of following the lectionary, in planning church services - it all starts with the Word, not necessarily whatever might be on my mind at the time - although it is amazing how often those two processes intersect.] Last week, in church, we read the story about Jesus asking his disciples how they would describe him. There were two questions:
-Who do people say that I am? and
-Who do you say that I am?
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I am the kind of a person who has his ears pretty close to the ground. It is an occupational necessity for a pastor. Not every situation where I can be helpful to people as they move through the ups and downs of life and spirit, is always explicitly expressed.
Nothing breaks my heart more in this ‘business’ than to hear that someone was in need of a pastoral presence while they were in the hospital or going through a tough time and I only find out about it well after the fact when, someone says to me “how come no one went and visited Mr Jones or Mrs Smith.”
On the other hand, it is amazing how much private details people seem willing to share with me, simply because I am a minister.
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I think that I enjoy gossip as much as the next person, but I always try to be extremely mindful of the destructive potential of gossip. This summer’s General Council reminded the whole church of the real evils of ‘nattering behind the scenes’. When it comes to news that should be relatively confidential, I can be a vault. People can be assured that the loonie stops here. Okay, my wife is my supportive sounding board on most things, but that is the normal limit.
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So Jesus asked them: what are the rumours; what are people saying in the streets and in the whispers; who do people say that I am?
As I noted last week, when Jesus asked his second question: who do YOU say that I am?, his reaction to Peter’s messiah-based answer was to give them more to talk about. Jesus’ focus was not of the victorious king who wields power and might, but of the suffering servant.
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Today, we heard Jesus reiterating the message of the suffering servant and then he preached that servanthood would be the hallmark of discipleship not who saw themselves as the greatest.
As we move through the book of Mark, there are two significant stories that happen between last week’s “who do you say that I am” reading and today’s “the first must be last” lesson.
Firstly, Peter, James and John were on a mountain top with Jesus and experienced a vivid common vision of Jesus being seen as shining with all the glory of God, keeping company with the key figures of the history of the law and the prophets: Moses and Elijah. This experience confused and absolutely frightened these disciples: at one point, they hit the ground and hid their eyes until it was over. And to make things very hard, Jesus told them they were NOT to talk about it.
You know, sometimes you just need something to talk about.
Secondly, As Jesus, Peter, James and John meet up with the other disciples after coming down from the mountain, there was quite the commotion – apparently there was a young boy who suffered from horrific convulsions. In the culture of the day, the people interpreted this as the boy being possessed by an unclean spirit. Now, although earlier in the gospel (in Mark chapter six): 7[Jesus had] called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits, the disciples were apparently unable to help this young boy. Jesus did, and so the disciples had something new to talk about:
28 …‘Why could we not cast out [the unclean spirit]?’
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Fear and failure can encourage people to try and find some certainty in life – to shore up what they can.
It is in this context fear and failure that Jesus speaks to the disciples in today’s passage: 33 …‘What were you arguing about on the way?: 34[who is the greatest? Really?] 35 …‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’
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Whoever wants to be first, must be last.
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For all but one year of the many years that I worked at summer camp in my youth and young adult years, the meals were always served ‘family style’, each table got food on trays and in bowls for that table. In the exception year, we had a head cook, who thought it was too much work to portion out the food like that so he insisted that everyone parade by the kitchen through-window and be served ‘cafeteria style’. It was mayhem, with all of the tables competing about who would get to eat the food while it was hot. We used to play those big room, wedding, church supper games to determine which table went first. Sometimes, we tried to see who could be the quietest. Yeah, that will work with a camp full of happy kids. [The idea might have worked better had the camp kitchen been equipped with heat lamps.]
I and a few other staff members had argued for a return to ‘family style’ but we were overruled by the camp board of the day, who didn’t want to upset this cook for fear that he’d quit mid-summer.
I don’t know why we feel prone to give into the fears that we’ll upset someone when we are trying to do something we know that is right.
So myself and others, no matter where we were sitting, always waited until after everyone else had gone through the line. We often preached our unofficial motto when it came to camp activities – ‘it’s for the kids’. That summer, we ate what was left of the cold food, as we lived out that motto.
The next summer, the board instituted a ‘family style’ only dining room policy before any cooks were hired.
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When Jesus wanted his audiences to really ‘get’ his point when he had something really important to say, he was known to use meaningful metaphoric words (parables) and occasionally to point to something tangible in their midst:
The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed (the people could picture that in their heads). It starts small and becomes more than expected.
Hey, look at that bird over there (and they would turn their heads and look), do you think it worries about planting crops or making clothes? If God cares for a bird, why can’t you believe that God cares for you?
When Jesus uses parables and points to things people can easily imagine and understand – he wants them to remember the message behind what he’s saying.
Now, some of Jesus’ metaphors may not be fully part of the modern experience, but they were never intended to be; they were for an early first century audience.
But, we can see through time and ‘get’ the message too, even if we have never grown a mustard plant or spent a night on a hill with a flock of sheep.
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And then again, some of Jesus’ parables and life lessons can be universally understood in anytime. Such is the case with today’s reading.
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Jesus invites a little child into this circle of adult learners (that’s all the word ‘disciple’ means: learner) and proclaims… 37‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’
What Jesus did there was radical and shocking – he was breaking what were seen as long-standing societal expectations and norms. A child would not be welcomed into an adult learning circle, especially the sacred male circle of rabbi and disciples.
I can’t tell from the text whether Jesus went and got the child and brought him amongst the men, or if she simply un-wittingly crashed their party. If Jesus got the child, perhaps the reaction was a bit subdued, a bit ‘wait and see what Jesus is up to’; but certainly, if the child just appeared on his own, I imagine that someone took almost immediate action to remove the child from where she didn’t belong. It’s not that children were to be seen and not heard – they weren’t even supposed to be seen!
37‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’
That required a shocking, radical shift in thinking.
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I know that in my dozen years as the minister with this church that there have been many dynamic changes in how we worship and learn together.
We have used a number of different Sunday School programs over the years, including last fall investing in a Godly Play program and permanently set up children’s sanctuary down in room three.
We expanded our repertoire of hymns and worship songs, with the addition of the More Voices Hymn book (that was published in 2007). Just a few months ago, our Christian Development committee took the initiative to include a variety of rhythm instruments for anyone to use, as an expression of active worship.
Our building has transformed over this time too. In my first year, the sanctuary was gutted and re-done to allow room for the choirs and more seating at the back. We have added better sound and (just last fall) video screens to enhance our worship experiences. And this summer, as the United Churches in Leduc and Beaumont amalgamated and brought their furniture and energy together, St. David’s was able to create more flexible seating at the front and a place for young children to play and worship within the circle of this congregation.
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I know (and I appreciate) that change is always tied to loss. What is moved away from often still has value and meaning to some. Change can be hard. If I had a nickel for every time I have heard someone say, “it never used to be like that…”, I would be able to be a very generous person. When people say, it never used to be like that, sometimes that is a joyous reflection, but (often) it is a lament.
I wonder (when Jesus welcomed that child among his disciples) if any of the on-lookers said, “Well, it never used to be that way…”
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Change is loss.
Change is always loss.
And yet change is part of life.
Moreover, change sometimes is demanded because of what we hold as valuable and as we seek to hold true to what we have come to believe.
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Case in point: the place of children in church, since that is the direct context of our gospel reading today. At one time, there was an axiom in church and wider in society that children should be seen and not heard. Sunday school ran completely concurrently to sanctuary worship. There was no children’s story in church. Seldom were children even in the main worship service. And if they were, they were to adhere to adult behaviours of still quiet … and non-distracting reverence.
But, our growing sense of the value of children as children has allowed many people to begin to appreciate the gifts that a child’s experience of God and worship can be to themselves and the adults around them.
As a minister friend of mine wrote on my facebook page recently, “children should be SEEN and HEARD in church.”
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I have watched all of my four children find their place in Sunday church as they have aged and grown.
Being a PK (a preacher’s kid) has its pitfalls. You get watched and scrutinized pretty closely sometimes. My oldest was an active toddler in church.
One of the aspects of me that the congregation I served at the time appreciated about me when I was called there was that I had a young family. They saw that as a positive in a minister. Probably a totally inappropriate factor as far as hiring practices go, but I did get the sense that they imagined that my children, along with the slightly older children of one of the other ministers on staff, would be a visible parable for the congregation showing the variety and valuable diversity and wonder within the family of God.
But I am not stupid.
I know that there is still the occasional person who pines for the way it used to be: when children were barely seen and defiantly not heard.
When my oldest (at three), at the start of the service, before the children went to their Sunday School classes, used to stand beside me as I played guitar and hold a long candle snuffer and pretend it was a guitar. It was a proud moment for me as a dad, but most importantly, he was a person being moved by the spirit in a way that made sense for him at his age. It was rhythmic, it was artistic and it was cute. And it, as far as I was concerned, belonged in church.
One Sunday, after church, when I was greeting people and shaking hands, I was told by a long-time congregational member that my boy’s behaviour was “distracting, disrespectful and disgusting” - exact words from thirteen years ago.
It was the most disheartening moment in my life as a father and as a minister. But, it was just one person – surely it didn’t represent a wider approach to church?
Then I met the ‘fear of upsetting’ concept head on. I shared how much this one comment hurt me both parentally and theologically with a few trusted people in the leadership of the congregation.
Their response: “We think it would be best if he just sat quietly with his mom, from now on.” That really brought me down. I know the comments didn’t represent everyone in that church. I know that the people I talked to were trying to ‘keep the peace’. But, sometimes you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Less than a year later, I was in Leduc. The rest (as they say) is the history of the last decade, plus two.
And that history includes my children playing guitar and drums, lighting candles, pushing buttons for the slide show, and assisting their dad during baptisms and communion from time to time. [every Sunday is take your son or daughter to work day for a minister.]
You might even remember a little girl spinning circles at breakneck speeds during the hymns just in front of the pulpit. [Annie still spins at home while listening to her iPod.]
And it is not just the PKs. I have witnessed this congregation being ever more open to the involvement of children as children in this church, on Sundays and at mid week events – I have witnessed a wonderful decade-plus of children (mine and others) being accepted as valid people of God in their own right.
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What would Jesus do about the place of children in church?
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I am so proud of the leaders and people of this congregation who refuse to go back to the ‘seen and not heard’ era. So, my Matthew will likely continue hang out with his dad when that is what the spirit calls for (okay not until at least mid-October because all of the rest of his regular season football games begin at 10am on Sunday mornings).
And Sam Ritter, you keep drumming that drum – feel free to interrupt our social circles with the Spirit of God flowing through you.
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All of us (of every age and ability, of every intellect and experience, of every ... ‘whatever’) are valid people of God, who deserve to be moved by the spirit and must be welcomed, if we hope to know what it is to welcome Jesus and the ‘one who sent him’.
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I’ll leave it there. I hope I’ve given you something to talk about.
Let us pray...
God hold us close when we are unsure of the way before us. help us hold on to what we value and believe. Amen.
#560VU
“O Master, Let me Walk With Thee
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