September 23, 2012
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be
always acceptable in your sight, oh Lord our strength and our
Redeemer.”…Amen
From the Gospel according to Mark….. “What were you arguing about
on the way?" ……."Whoever welcomes one such child in my name
welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the
one who sent me."
Jesus and his disciples have been travelling through Galilee to
Capernaum and the disciples have been arguing or as we would say
these days… they have been bickering….. bickering about which of
them, which of the disciples, is the greatest follower of Jesus.
Jesus and his disciples have been travelling many miles for an
extended period of time…I am sure they were tired and I am certain
that Jesus continually reminding them that he will be taken from
them, tortured and killed has put the disciples’ nerves on edge.
Also I am certain they were becoming a little confused about
their master, their Lord. The disciples have witnessed Jesus perform
great miracles and healing, but in spite of that our Lord insists over
and over again that he will be killed by human hand….. come on...
enough already.
This past week I was in the one place which puts my nerves
totally on edge and where I always hate to be…in my dentist’s office.
I was also worried…I am not sure what worried me the
most...the amount of dental work I was facing due to my neglect over
the past number of years….or the cost of it……or was there
something else…
Thus I began searching in my mind for a place where I would
most like to be rather than having that darn light shining at me and
the hammer and chisel beating down on my jaw bones... I was not
bickering with myself...I was arguing as to where I would rather be,
while knowing that it was vitally important to keep my teeth in good
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health. Also it took so long…that I had plenty of time to consider the
real meaning behind today’s Gospel.
"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
Through these few, but powerful words Jesus equates greatness
with servanthood, a startling notion both then and now….but a
statement that surely clamped down on the disciples bickering.
I don’t think it is presumptive to say that we all spend a lot of
time in our lives bickering…. arguing with ourselves or with others
about issues and opinions that really have no moral compass and
thus have no value in the plan of preparing for God’s kingdom.
By moral compass I mean a personal sense of positive
direction; work that produces benefit for our fellow human
beings…and which acts as a force for good in this world.
Our readings today have a lot to say about work—what work is
good and what work we should be doing….as opposed to bickering or
doing busy work… that is work just for the sake of it.
These passages point to the fact that we Americans need to
learn perhaps more than anyone else….. although from a personal
perspective Western Europe seems to be catching up pretty fast…we
need to learn that frantic work, work just for work’s sake…. does not
equal good work.
Constantly being busy does not necessarily mean we are
investing our time well. And constant busyness with little lasting
consequence . . . well, that kind of use of our time is futile...it
is...fruitless.
While I was sitting in that dentist’s chair, I was contemplating on
the time that I waste. The term couch potato sprang to mind….a
wonderfully expressive term that denotes time being lazy…sitting on
the couch munching away on potato chips, when so many other
things could be accomplished.
By the way, as an example of how close we are getting to our
European neighbors the French language even has a word for couch
potato….. “mollasson” or “télespectateur passif”. Watching television
with a vacant mind.
There are so many ways to idle one’s time away; to fritter away
the time and talents that the Lord has bestowed on us for use to
further his earthly kingdom.
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Futility is not just sitting on the couch drinking beer, simply
because we are bored...or watching the innumerable bobble heads
on television giving their opinions on issues of the day…opinions that
might change an hour later depending on which way the political or
social winds are blowing...
Futility is also working our fingers to the bone . . . for things that
really don't matter at all.
It’s clear that Jesus had a word or two to say to his disciples,
who were busy doing what they thought was important, but, had no
real value whatsoever.
Witness what was going on in the gospel passage we read
today: the disciples were in a heated disagreement. They were
arguing about which one of them was the greatest . . . which one of
them would amass enough so called “work” to give him the highest
status in the kingdom of God.
The significance of Jesus’ action at that point showed the
disciples that what they were seeking and comparing was just an
enormous waste of their God given time.
In a profound action, our Lord placed a child in his lap. He then
said that it was time spent with children that mattered—not affairs of
state or high-level meetings. The care of a child is so much more
important.
It is hard for us to understand but two thousand years ago in
that Jewish society, children were considered the lowest of the low. .
only slightly above gentiles in the social strata.
In fact we are told in those days it was common to abandon a
child after birth, as a method of birth control, because a family could
not feed another mouth.
In the translation from the Greek, Mark’s Gospel doesn’t even
tell us if the child that Jesus embraced was male or female.
Just like a modern day political convention….we can imagine all
those gathered around Jesus were either trying to hear his words, or
they were trying to make themselves visible so they had a prominent
spot in the leadership of whatever organization Jesus would certainly
start up.
Whatever their motive for being there with Jesus… all of them
knew the significance of our Lord ignoring their concerns about power
and status and, instead, bending over to pick up a wandering child.
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When we live our lives in pursuit of fruitless actions, bickering
and wasting time…..paying attention to the things that don’t matter in
this life, then we may very well end up at the finishing line with
nothing of value to show for our years of work.
As I sat or should I say lay in that dentists chair….I decided that
in spite of my many activities, I spend far too much time in efforts that
have no useful purpose.
No matter what the "couches of our lives" might be, if we're
serious about following Jesus then it's time to get up, use our moral
compass…and participate in work right alongside him.
To love children, to challenge evil and oppression and live lives
that actively and doggedly usher in God's grace for everyone.
There's no time for us to engage in futility; we have much work
to do.
Amen.