Children of God Proper 20B

 

This week our prayer is, “Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.” And there are plenty of things about which to be anxious, and plenty of things are in danger of passing away. With the increasing ferocity of forest fires in the west there is a realistic chance that some of the oldest creatures on earth might pass away: the grand Sequoias, seemingly eternal, towering so high above the forest floor they have survived dozens of fires, but last year nearly 14% of them died from the combination of drought and larger, longer lasting fires. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, women and girls who have been going to school the past 20 years already face new restrictions in education under Taliban rule. And worldwide, the Pandemic still rages, while measures to contain it have become politicized causing more and more people to die needlessly.

 

Against all of this we read Mark 9:30-37 where we find increasingly anxious disciples, following Jesus back from gentile territory, passing through Galilee. Earlier in chapter nine, Peter, James and John accompanied Jesus to the top of a mountain where they witnessed Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah about “his departure,” in Greek, his “exodus.” And they heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved: Listen to him.” On the way down Jesus, who has already told them what will happen in Jerusalem, orders them to “tell no one about what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead could mean.” [Mark 9:9-10]

 

After witnessing Jesus healing a young boy, he tells them for the second time that in Jerusalem he will be betrayed, they will kill him, and after three days he will rise again. “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” [Mk 9:32] From our perspective, their anxiety and perplexity may strike us as odd. Are they just dense? Or, more likely, is it that they just cannot face the “killing” part of it all, let alone unable to grasp what it all means? We do well to remember that there are many amongst us who cannot or will not face the growing results of climate change despite evidence of earthly things passing away right before our very eyes, and others who deny that the coronavirus deadly. The disciples are us. We are the disciples. Anxiety has a grip on us whether or not we admit it or even recognize it.

 

Jesus asks them what they are talking about on the way. Now they are embarrassed as well as anxious. They are silent, and then admit that they were arguing who amongst them was the greatest. Seriously. In other versions of this story, they are even imagining sitting on his right hand and his left. After months of following Jesus, watching Jesus with others, and listening to what he has been saying, they really, truly do not understand at all. Yet, these are the people he has chosen to help him change the world.

 

It was just last week he laid it down: if you want to become my followers, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Does Jesus look like someone who is at all concerned about being “the greatest”? The one who says I have no home, nowhere to lie my head. The one who says wildflowers in a field are dressed in finer array than King Solomon, the all-time king of conspicuous consumption. I find myself wondering sometimes why so many Americans, the undisputed capital of greed, acquisition and consumption, worship Jesus instead of Solomon?

 

He sits them down and says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Then he picks up a child from the crowd, takes the child in his arms 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.” It helps us to know that children on the streets of Galilee in those days had zero status. They were the least and the lowest and the last on the Totem Pole of importance. They were considered “not the greatest” of all. The child cannot care for herself. She represents all those in society who cannot, for whatever reason, care for themselves.

 

I want you who are wanna-be followers of mine to get down on your hands and knees, wrap your arms around a child, wash their grubby little feet, and provide for all their needs – because that is how you will learn to care for others – all others, of all ages, of all stations of life, with whatever needs they may have. Greatness is not what this is all about.

 

Those who want to be great are too busy accumulating and consuming and building more and more barns in which to store all their stuff they will never get around to using before they die to even see a child on the street. While I will be hanging on a Roman Cross, and buried in a borrowed tomb at the end of this journey of healing, feeding, and caring for all persons, of all ages, of all stations of life, the “great” are busy counting their money. The night before I die, I will get on my hands and knees to wash your feet so you might never forget what you are called to be and to do.

 

We have been called. It was never about us or them choosing to follow Jesus. Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea! Perhaps the only thing all of us can agree upon is that this life is getting wilder and more restless every day, making us more anxious about earthly things, while things we thought could be counted upon are passing away. Who has time for heavenly things?

 

Jesus is trying to show them, with this child on his lap, how to hold onto those things that endure, those things that are heavenly: things like faithfulness, the common good, caring for all others, and love – divine love.

 

As Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters used to say, “Either you are on the bus, or off of the bus.” In Jesus’s Father’s kingdom there is no middle ground. There’s no way to delay that trouble coming every day.

 

Some Sequoias are believed to be three thousand years old, and only now are being threatened with extinction. Girls in Afghanistan fear they may never get the education they need to get ahead and become the next generation of leaders in their country. These trees, women and girls, along with many many others who are considered “last” in this world are the child on Jesus’s lap. They are the canary in the coal mine. They are the emergency broadcast system, only now this is not only a test. Or, is it? These endangered trees, women and children are calling us to understand what’s going on. They call us to engage in finding new and better ways to care for one another and care for the very earth upon which we live. To once again value some understanding of gospel values for the common good.

 

May we let go of our anxieties of earthly things, and love things heavenly. May we leave behind all that is not pleasing to God’s Son, who therefore became a child of man, so that he might help us one day understand, and become children of God. Amen.