I’m Not Great But My Daughter Is

I consider myself a faithful Christian, a creative person, and a well-adjusted lesbian.

  
In school I was above average.  But I’ve never been great.  Now at 48, I’ve long given up all aspirations of being great.  

I’ll tell you who is great though.  My daughter Firefly is great.  She’s in the 99th percentile for her height and weight.  I can go down a list of developmental milestones and proudly check off everyone of them for her age group and the next age group, and even into the 5-year category. 

The other morning I overheard an indignant Firefly say to Beth,  Mommy, you are not cooperating as a big girl!  
Co-o-per-a-ting – that’s 5 syllables and she’s only 3.  She knows the names of all the planets in their proper order. And she’s funny. She asked me, Mama Jac, do you know what my favorite planet is?   No, what is it?  Uranus, because it’s the embarrassing planet.

Now, I may not think I’m great, but I’ve taken the very unattractive human desire to be the best and plopped it right onto my daughter.
I imagine this is fairly common parental behavior – our smart, well-dressed, popular child reflects upon us.  When my child stands apart from her peers, my desire for greatness is satisfied by proxy. And that makes me no different than the disciples battling it out over who was the greatest as they walked to Capernaum.

The disciples fell silent when Jesus asked what they were arguing about because they were ashamed – and rightly so, they were posturing over who would succeed Jesus when he came into his glory.  In this scene, I imagine Jesus is frustrated, but still gentle.  He sits down and calls his disciples to draw near for an object lesson.  Mark let us know in this morning’s gospel reading that the disciples were dense.  

When Jesus foretold his death and resurrection, the disciples did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask. It was imperative the disciples understand the appalling nature of their one-upmanship on the way to Capernaum, so Jesus tweaks his pedagogics. First he explains, 

"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 

Then he gathers into his arms a child and continues his teaching, 

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.  

Jesus is saying – do you see this child?  I am this child.  What you do to this child you do to me. And not only that, what you do to this child you do to the one who sent me  - God, the creator of all.  He apparently liked the child analogy - In his teachings, Jesus pairs children with servanthood over and over again to illustrate the values of the kingdom of God.

Check out the stained glass window. It’s nice to look over at Jesus holding that sweet little baby, especially during a really long sermon. Peaceful and comforting, the image offers a pleasant distraction. However, I need you to know that the loveliness of our window is misleading. 

In our culture it’s not at all difficult to open our arms to receive a beautiful infant. It’s easy to love well-groomed little children like those depicted in our stained glass.  But today’s gospel has nothing to do with the way we as a congregation minister to children. In this story, the little child represents those who are powerless and of a lowly status.  

Ours isn’t a sentimental window at all, those children represent the poor, vulnerable and marginalized members of society.   By arguing who among them was the greatest, the disciples were demonstrating their attachment to the dominant values of the Roman Empire – values that Jesus despised – the desire for power, wealth and prestige.  The same self-aggrandizing values we see in the world today.

Look at the window again. Now imagine that instead of a baby, Jesus is holding a downtrodden adult.  Close your eyes for a moment and see the dirty face of the homeless woman you passed on your way to church this morning.  You know, the woman with the long dark matted hair and the torn black blouse.  She covers herself with a dingy blanket, even on scorching hot days.  She has a name, but we’ve never asked what it is.  She sleeps in the alley behind our church. Can you picture her?  

Imagine it is this woman that Jesus has his arms around in the window. And as he is holding her he says to us, his followers, Whoever welcomes one such person in my name welcomes me.  Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  

There’s a man who looks like he’s 100 years old, who sometimes sleeps next to the woman.  He’s only 29 but his teeth have rotted because he’s addicted to meth.  Jesus knows his name, Mike, it’s good to see you, come sit with me.  Now Mike and the woman are leaning in, huddled close to Jesus.  And Jesus says,

Let the homeless and drug addicted come to me; do not stop them; 
for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 
Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God 
as an outcast will never enter it.

Jesus takes them in his arms, and blesses them.

When Jesus says, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all," he is talking about servant leadership. Robert Greenleaf coined the phrase Servant Leadership in 1970.  Greenleaf said,

The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.  That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

Greenleaf explains, “the difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.” Greenleaf suggests that both individuals and organizations ask these questions when evaluating the services they provide:

• Do those served grow as persons?
• Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?
• And, what is the effect of the service on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?”

The servant-leader that Greenleaf describes sounds a lot like those called to the permanent 

diaconate. Deacons are charged with interpreting the needs, concerns and hopes of the world. But when Jesus said, Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all, he wasn’t talking about deacons, he was talking about every single one of us – As followers of Jesus, we all must take to heart the charge of interpreting (and acting to restore), the needs, concerns and hopes of the world. When the church decided that the servant nature of Christ was important enough to hold before God’s people, deacons were ordained to model it; but we are all called to live into servant leadership. And it’s the deacon’s job to poke you until you do.

I have a deacon friend who was recently assigned to a parish. He is preparing to ask the vestry to buy him a dalmatic and stoles for every season. They should he said, the church buys all the priest’s vestments. Every Sunday the priest wears a chasuble and if the priest wears a chasuble, I should wear a dalmatic, it’s a sign of the office and deacons need to be seen. And the parish should provide it. He continued on for some time, and finally asked me, Don’t you want to wear a dalmatic? I said, No, they’re hot. 

Now, I love this friend to bits, I think he's an excellent deacon. I also think that what we value as a church can sometimes distract us from doing true service in the world. The values of our culture have seeped into the marrow of the most well-meaning Christians, lay and ordained. 

We get confused sometimes and strive for greatness instead of goodness. 

We can hold up one another in goodness, and nobody need be stepped on or excluded. But greatness, greatness demands we rank one person above another, and inevitably that means stepping on someone else’s back.

              
There was no place for greatness on the road to Capernaum.  Jesus knew that communities are torn apart by competition and arrogance.  And that compassion and cooperation have the power to bring forth the kingdom of God.  The church Jesus intended to bring into being was one where every single person on this earth is drawn together as nothing less than a child of God – loved and respected just as they are.

Are you getting bored?  Go ahead, gaze at the window, I won’t be offended.  Jesus is holding the woman with matted hair, she’s the one who sleeps in the ally behind our church. It’s okay, take a good look.  Please. 


Proper 20 Year B Mark 9:30 – 37