Sunday 20 September
Wisdom of Solomon 1.16 – 2.1, 12–22
Psalm 54
James 3.13 – 4.3, 7–8a
Mark 9.30–37
A Franciscan brother once made a surprise visit to our vicarage. He was visiting New Zealand from Australia. He was still classified as “youth” by the World Council of Churches, being just 33 years of age at the time. He was just completing 10 years of training to become a medical doctor. Although that period of 10 years was extended by various stops and starts in the programme of study, nevertheless we all know that to practice medicine takes many years of intense study and long hours of working alongside other doctors in a kind of apprenticeship role. It is the same when it comes to learning what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
Today we see Jesus moving away from Galilee and beginning the journey to Jerusalem. Part of the purpose of this journey is to take the twelve aside in order to give them personal instruction about how to be faithful followers. The crux of his teaching is that God’s purposes will be fulfilled in Jesus’ death on the cross, and that to be a disciple we too must be ready to take up our cross and follow in the same footsteps. As we know, the disciples thought this teaching was a scandal. Even now, many preachers avoid this aspect of Jesus’ teaching in their rush to fill their pews with a gospel packaged for consumers in an age of materialistic consumption. But the message of the cross is so central to Jesus’ self understanding and his teaching that we have to grapple with this message Jesus is trying to impart to his disciples.
One reason Jesus was so misunderstood was that he came with a completely new understanding of what it meant to be the Messiah. Most people imagined that the Messiah would be an even greater King David. King David was a shepherd king par excellence who expanded the physical boundaries of Israel and drove out their enemies. This was just what Jesus’ audience hoped for. Wouldn’t it be great to get rid of the Roman army and their cruel taxation system and go back to self determination? But Jesus was the first person to suggest the radical idea that the Messiah would instead be the embodiment of the suffering servant of Isaiah 52 & 53. Instead of a warrior king, the Messiah would embody Isaiah’s vision of the cruelly disfigured, powerless suffering servant who would be exalted by God. Never before had anyone suggested a vision of the messiah that looked like this. Jesus’ enemies label him a blasphemer and the disciples fail completely to get with the programme.
It could take many of us a while to click onto Jesus’ wavelength as well. This is not an easy part of the gospel. The text before us shows the confusion that reigned within the group of Jesus’ followers. Here is the scenario. Jesus tells the disciples once again, that he will handed over and killed, and on the third day he will rise again. Whereas before Peter had rebuked Jesus, this time the scandalised disciples give Jesus the silent treatment. Perhaps they hoped that by ignoring Jesus for long enough he’d give up speaking like this. Or maybe they thought it would be better to stay quiet than to open their mouths and demonstrate their ignorance.
The point of Jesus’ teaching is that the life in abundance being offered by God is accessible when we are able to embrace our dying. Jesus may well have thought of this in terms of a physical death, but he meant it on other levels as well. It’s a bit like being Tarzan for a moment, if you can forgive the metaphor. Imagine swinging through the bush from one vine to another, there comes a point where one has to let go of one vine to grab the next. The kind of dying Jesus is talking about is the letting go of the security of the vine we know and finding ourselves suspended in mid-air reaching out in trust for the next vine. Picture for a moment that point of ‘unknowing suspension’ in mid-air. Jesus is daring us to sit in that kind of space. From Jesus’ perspective, the next vine, as it were, is God. But to embrace God we have to let go of our existing securities. Jesus is saying to the disciples, “Let go of the known, the things that make you popular, powerful, central, in control, or loveable. Let go of the things that enable you to wow the voting public or to be the media star.” In that moment of suspension, when we have to let go and find ourselves hanging in mid-air, at that point we find our true identity in being held and loved by God. The problem is: that’s a very scary spiritual journey and if God leads us there we likely to feel he has betrayed us. In that moment of suspension we are likely to feel fear, loneliness, isolation, irrelevance, all the things we expect God to save us from. This is what Jesus experienced on the cross and he challenges us to make the same journey. Jesus is saying that leaving all these attachments behind and embracing God alone is the pathway that will enable us to discover who God has created us to be, and it will enable us to be free to be fully known and to give and receive love in depth. This is the essence of Jesus’ message, but the journey is risky. Who will do it? Are you willing to let go of everything and let God be God like this?
If you think this looks too scary, so did the disciples. So they went into deflection and avoidance by fantasising about their naked ambition for the top job in the kingdom. Perhaps some of the disciples needed to be in the centre, close to the pivot person around whom everything was revolving. Maybe some needed power, some needed to be special, some needed to be loved, and some just needed to be the boss and the ones in control.
So Jesus addresses them with teaching about greatness in the Kingdom. Not only is true greatness found in the humble service of others, the disciples have to accept that they cannot keep Jesus to themselves and hoard his power to their own small group. To illustrate, Jesus takes a small child and places that child in the centre of their group. A child symbolises trust and innocence. But the child is also the ultimate outsider, a social non-entity. A child in Jesus’ society was a “non-person”, someone no one took notice of and who could not return any favours. The point is that such a child is equally worthy of the same respect and care that would be offered to an important world leader. All of this means that disciples of Jesus should not aspire to high office but be willing to empty themselves to the point of being a social non-entity. The child is a symbol of the kind of disciple Jesus wants his followers to be.
A child calls to mind a family, a household. In proclaiming the kingdom, Jesus is establishing a household of faith, a spiritual home for us to dwell in. The question becomes, “What kind of spiritual home is Jesus building?” Mark is suggesting that our attitude to children becomes the touchstone of true discipleship. Are children treated as full members of our church, or are they to be seen and not heard? How do we treat those who are powerless, the least important in our society? Jesus wrapping his arms around the child is illustrative of the kind of nurturing household of faith we are called to be; a place where even the least important and the most vulnerable have equal status with the great.
Jesus put his disciples on a steep learning curve. He challenged their assumptions about God, and he challenged the values they were living by. For three years, they learned, they trained so that they would be equipped to become fearless apostles. The gospel calls us to go through the same drills, to examine our values and our assumptions about God and to practice a disciplined life of self examination and prayer. Today, we are asked to look at God through the eyes of a child, to see Christ present in this holy meal, and to wonder with delight and fascination at the God who comes to us in Jesus of Nazareth.
