What were you arguing about on the way? - Rev Allister Lane
READINGS: PSALM 1 AND MARK 9:33-37
Today’s Gospel reading is a short but profound episode where Jesus teaches his followers.
There’s arguing, embarrassment, humiliation, role-modelling and an invitation. And all of this speaks to our own experiences, and what happens if we take seriously the teaching of Jesus.
(I am grateful to Padraig O’Tauma who reflected on this text in relation to the work of the Correymeela Community. And I’ll incorporate some of his insights this morning.)
Paraphrase:
Jesus and his disciples are out walking.
They arrive at ‘the house’.
Jesus asks them a question.
They are silent.
Jesus teaches them in words, and by giving them an example (a small child).
When they get to the house, Jesus asks them a question:
What were you arguing about on the way?
How might we apply that question to ourselves? What are you arguing about? What is happening between you along the way?
Jesus invites us to pay attention to our community dynamics. What would we say about what is happening? What are our community dynamics?
The disciples were ashamed of their arguing. They admired and trusted Jesus, and because of Jesus’ question, they recognised something about their conversation that they weren’t fully aware of, up until that moment.
When Jesus speaks to us, what do we become aware of about what is happening between us?
Next Sunday we have our AGM, and there we have ways of acting together. We have ‘rules’ for how we engage about important matters in our life together. These ‘rules of engagement’ are a big part of what gives the Presbyterian denomination its characteristic ‘look’ – it’s a model of governance which is committed to the insight that comes from listening to one another.
The expectation is that together we can discern God’s will for us.
It’s worth noting in Mark’s Gospel the Greek word for argue is διελογίζεσθε (dielogizesthe) – which is obviously where we get the word ‘dialogue’ from in English.
When Jesus asks ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’, the disciples are silent in their embarrassment. For the disciples were arguing about who of them was the greatest.
It’s interesting to wonder, how would they have assessed ‘greatness’? What would be their measure of ‘greatness’? Would it have been who spent the most time with Jesus? Who go the most praise from Jesus?
For us, …how would we measure ‘greatness’? Wealth? Academic qualifications? Career accomplishments? Instagram followers? Happy children…?
However we measure ‘greatness’, it opens up the truth about our relationship to power. Reading the Gospels, we see that Jesus takes power dynamics very seriously.
How might we reflect on what we consider ‘greatness’ to be? Are we open to re-calibrate our understanding of ‘greatness’? If we DID do this, what changes would we see?
Jesus wants to show us what true ‘greatness’ is. And in this Gospel moment, he teaches it in two ways: word and example.
1. Jesus explains paradoxically that greatness is humiliation:
Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.
Following the trajectory of Jesus incarnation, we recognise Jesus humbled himself to come among us as one of us. And Jesus willingly submitted to extreme humiliation, by dying on the cross.
Philippians 2:8, says:
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
The greatest One who ever lived gives a new picture of greatness. Jesus gave up his life, that we can live. Jesus asks us to join him in this kind of giving.
True greatness is humiliation.
2. To give his followers an example of this ‘being first by being last’, Jesus
took a little child and put it among them
We don’t know where the child came from, whose the child was. Jesus simply plucks a child from the shelf of children!
This little child is the role model for greatness. An unexpected figure, who inverts our categories and familiar power-dynamics. Jesus embraces the little child, and says:
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.
WOW!
Jesus (the Son of God) identifies with this little child. In his embrace true greatness is found in humility.
What I love about this teaching by an example, is that we are given an insight into what matters to God. And we can see that God values real tangible connection.
This live demonstration by Jesus with the little child is an action in favour of an embodied, incarnational response to things that are abstract.
This is a strength of the Church (local). In the face of BIG political, social, global issues…
we act through real relationships,
small but meaningful actions –
with our bodies, as households,
with our money, our time –
Real tangible human encounters are essential expressions of our existence and discipleship.
One current example is our Mentoring Programme. This embodies the principle of encouraging faith formation through good relationships. It’s a commitment to real, tangible human encounters.
As a diverse congregation we are blessed, not just by our ‘togetherness’ in all ages, but our togetherness with our diversity of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, politics, education, wealth, and the different neighbourhoods we live in.
We’ve got it all! (almost)
If we pay attention to each other, what more will we discover? If we humble ourselves, how might we serve as Jesus shows? If we talk about what is happening with the other person and what is happening between us, what will we notice? Would we be okay to say this out loud to Jesus, or would we remain silent in embarrassment?
In a moment of stillness now, I’d like you take a moment and picture in your mind the child that Jesus placed in the midst of his self-important disciples.
See Jesus pick that child up and maybe sit the little one on his knee. (pause)
Will you do something with me this morning? Once again (or maybe for the first time) become that little child and sit on Christ’s knee.
Become the least, and you will become the first. (Silence)