Who's King of the Hill? -- Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 17B (Mark 9)
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 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.” 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 Then 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.”
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When I
was a kid my friends and I would occasionally play “king of the hill.” The goal
of this game is to get to the top of the pile and then keep everyone else off. The game works really well when you have a large amount of snow that can be built into the perfect hill. While it may have been a "kid's game," we seem intent on playing it throughout our lives. There seems to be a human need to jockey for the top spot. We call it being competitive, but at what cost? Consider that if that means giving an elbow to another on the way to the top, well that’s the cost of
doing business in a “dog-eat-dog” world. If you need help in getting to the
top, well there are all kinds of books and seminars that will inform you on how
to do this. The Gospels, however, cannot be counted among these “self-help”
books.
In the lectionary reading for last Sunday, we heard Jesus define what it meant for him to be the
Messiah. He then called his disciples to continue on that path of discipleship.
In that earlier conversation, Jesus revealed to his disciples that his path led
through the cross, and suggested that the same would be true for them (Mark 8:27-38). In this week's reading, Jesus again tries to let the disciples know that his path led to the cross and from the cross to
resurrection. Unfortunately, they still didn’t get it. They didn’t understand
and they were too embarrassed to ask him one more time to explain what all this
meant.
One sure sign that they didn’t get it comes in the next scene. They finally make it
back to what I’ll call their home base—the fishing village of Capernaum, which
lay on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Having been told several times that
the way of discipleship involves the cross they were still thinking in terms of
gaining secular/political power. Not only that but they, the disciples,
appeared to be jockeying for power in what they hoped would be Jesus’ new
administration. They were arguing amongst themselves as to who was the
greatest. Somehow Jesus concludes from all the noise in the background that his
disciples, his master students, the future of his church, were arguing amongst
themselves. He questions them: “What were you arguing about?” Once again, they were silent. It’s never fun to be
found out, especially when you are fighting about who sits on the top of the
hill. It’s so unbecoming of a religious leader!
There
are innocuous debates about greatness. It’s fun to argue about whose team is
the best. Even the fans of teams that never seem to get to the top will argue
the finer points of their team’s history and accomplishments. I gloated for a long time that
while the Dodgers didn't get the World Series for some thirty years, the Giants had been there five times, winning the last three visits. There are, however, less
innocuous versions of this that we participate in. None is more dangerous than
nationalism, which has become an even greater problem in the United States over the past five years.
Down through history, nations have sought
power and influence at the expense of other nations. After the fall of The Soviet Union, the United States proudly declared itself to be the “sole superpower.” No country could rival ours. “We are the champions of the world.” The
question is—has that made us safer or enhanced the quality of our lives? In
fact, has it improved our own self-image? I would argue that it hasn’t. As a
nation, we are anxious, afraid, angry, and more polarized politically than ever.
We climbed the mountain and then it seems that we have turned on each other,
fighting to climb another mountain, in pursuit of the title “The Greatest.”
Even as we raise the banner of “American Exceptionalism,” we see other nations
including the “other superpowers”—Russia and China—try to exert their influence so as to
challenge our top spot.
Of
course churches do the same. I remember a conversation as a teenager with a
pastor of a mainline Protestant church. I was part of a Pentecostal church at
the time. This pastor, who was the father of a classmate informed me that my
denomination filled a role previously filled by the Methodists. That is, he
viewed my Pentecostal church as the natural home of the less informed and lower
economic classes. He said this with an air of superiority. Of course today, today
it’s mega-church pastors who trumpet their success and invite us to replicate
their models so we can be great, even as they are great. But is that pathway
that Jesus has set out upon?
Jesus
turned the conversation about who is greatest on its head. If you want to be
first, then be last. It’s that simple—or is it? Pastors are called to lead, but
how do we lead? We hear about “servant leadership,” but the truly successful
don’t appear to be “servant leaders.” In fact, we seem to like our leaders loud
and brash. Thus, during his tenure, Trump was loud, and so he got all the attention (and seems unwilling to step out of the limelight despite his electoral defeat). When Trump was running for President, many polls suggested that Americans want a President to be more like Putin than Obama, and
Trump tried to fill that void (until people got tired of him). So, if we admire autocrats or would-be autocrats, how can anyone succeed who wishes to take the role of the
servant?
What
does this look like? Jesus invites into their midst a child, and taking the
child into his arms, Jesus says to the disciples “Whoever welcomes one such
child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the
one who sent me.” If we wish to know God, then we are to welcome the child into
our midst. In that day children were valued, but not in the same way as today.
They were valued more for their economic potential than for themselves. In
welcoming the child, he suggests that God has chosen to identify with those
whom society has deemed less valuable. They have potential, but as of yet, they
are merely a burden. In fact, children are largely invisible in that society.
As Mark Stamm puts it: “Jesus makes them visible just as he made lepers and
women visible” [Feasting on the Gospels: Mark, p. 281]. We may coddle our children today, but such was not the case
then, making this message all the more powerful. Having said that, I do need to
acknowledge that even in the United States many children face the dangers of
abuse and neglect. And churches often prefer the children be out of sight and
out of mind, except perhaps for the occasional “children’s moment,” which we
enjoy not because it informs the children about God, but makes us feel good
that we actually have children in our midst. But then, it’s best if they
disappear!
When Jesus says that it is the
children who most embody the presence of God, it’s not their behavior that he’s
talking about; it’s their personhood. Welcome the children, the least of these, and
you welcome me, and if you welcome me you welcome the one who sent me. As Paul
puts it in the letter to the Philippians: “Let the same mind be in you that was
in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of
a slave, being born in human likeness” (Philippians 2:5-6 NRSV). So, let us be like a child so that we might be like the one who calls us to
discipleship. Or, as Brian Wren puts it:
When God is a child there’s joy in our long. The last shall be first and the weak shall be strong, and none shall be afraid. [Chalice Hymnal, 132].
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