September 19, 2021

Today we are at Jesus’ second Passion prediction, smack dab in the heart of the Gospel of Mark.  Last week was Jesus’ first prediction of his death.  Today is the second and in a couple of weeks we’ll have the third.  They are bookended by stories of Jesus healing someone from blindness.  The Gospel of Mark is like a pool in which someone has dropped a stone and the ripples are going out in concentric circles from the center.  As we read along in the Gospel we encounter stories that are like ripples and somewhere down the line we can expect to encounter a parallel story on the other side.  But today we’re right in the center where the stone has dropped and the stone is Jesus’ prediction of his death and resurrection and a little bit of an example of what it means to be Jesus’ disciple and to be healed from spiritual and moral blindness which keep us from seeing Jesus and keep us from truly seeing each other.

Jesus’ prediction of his death really was like a rock dropped in a pond or a boulder might be a better image.  It was a huge splash, a big disturbance in the ministry of the disciples.  There had been some winds and waves and fears, some difficulties and struggles.  The disciples had trouble healing people.  They couldn’t understand who Jesus is.  But they are learning and following and trying to do the ministry that Jesus is giving them.  And then Jesus predicts his death.  Remember last week, Peter starts arguing with Jesus and Jesus rebukes him and says to set his mind on divine things, to take up his cross. 

This week, Jesus again predicts his death and this time he also says he will rise.  His disciples are afraid to ask him anything about it.  Maybe they feel silly that they don’t know what he means by this.  Maybe they are so uncomfortable about the idea that Jesus will suffer and die that they don’t want to know more.  What we do know is that they don’t know and they don’t ask.  Jesus is pouring out his heart to them and they don’t know what to do or say.

Instead they move into a discussion amongst themselves about who is the greatest.  This might have been a childish game of one-upsmanship, trying to outdo each other or be better than each other. Who knows what criteria they would have used to decide—who knew Jesus the longest or who healed the most people?  And maybe they were just trying to get things clear between them who would take over when Jesus died.  This could have been a very practical conversation about leadership and organization. 

In any case, Jesus takes them in a house.  Any time in the Gospel of Mark when they go into a house, that signifies a church, because all their churches were house-churches.  They may be measuring their importance and worth as his disciples out in the world, but in the church Jesus has another example of what leadership looks like.

Jesus says, “If you want to be the greatest or the first, be last of all and a servant.”  And this is what that looks like—Jesus takes a small child and puts that child in the center—holds that child up as an example.  Not one of those disciples looked at that child and saw someone sweet and innocent and lovable.  What they saw was a nobody, shown to them as an example of greatness in God’s Kingdom.  I picture a kid with a dirty face, messy hair, maybe a skinned knee.  Become like this child, Jesus says. 

Children are needy.  They constantly are in need of food and assistance buckling their sandals.  They need to be bathed, clothed, and shown the way.  They need to be protected and comforted, put to bed and woken up in the morning.  Be like a child.  Be needy. 

We are supposed to be self-assured and independent, right?  Not in God’s house.  We come to God because we are poor sinners, unable to provide for ourselves and looking to God our provider.  We come to God because we can’t make food grow—only God can do that.  We don’t know the way—we’re constantly getting lost.  Only God can find us and bring us home.  We are needy children, who are helpless and vulnerable and we look to God our Father to help us.  How can we admit that we need help to God and to each other, like the little child?

Children are ready to learn.  Children go through life curious about the world.  They are looking around and asking why.  They are soaking up stories and languages and skills and songs.  They pay attention to details and people’s emotions.  They want to learn and understand. 

We think we are supposed to know everything, especially if we’ve been around a particular church for a long time.  Many of you have your areas of interest at Trinity that you know a lot about.  Maybe you have expertise and education in certain fields that help you serve at Trinity.  Many of you have been here a long time.  You are experts at Trinity and experts at Lutheranism.  This Gospel is encouraging us all to put aside everything we know and be open and curious.  What might God have in mind for us that we don’t already know?  Is there someone we could ask to come along side us in a certain ministry area to teach them what we know and to open ourselves to new questions and insights about other ways of doing things? 

The word for disciple is actually “learner.”  There is always more to learn about the Bible and always ways to grow in faith.  People we’ve known for years have stories and experiences we’ve never heard.  How can we be ready to learn disciples like the little child?  How can we open our hearts to Jesus’ teaching?

Much more in Jesus’ day, children were there to serve and help their family.  But even today, children are bossed around and told what to do.  They are told to make themselves useful and given chores and sent on errands. 

We too should not be surprised that Jesus asks us to do thankless tasks that are below our station that no one ever sees.  Jesus is the Son of God and he’s a servant, walking around this earth in human form, scrounging for something to eat, being approached by all sorts of people making demands of him—healing, food, attention.  We find Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, touching lepers, visiting a mother-in-law, multiplying loaves.  People see what he can do for them and they flock to him to make him their servant.  And Jesus serves.  He never asks for anything back.  He doesn’t complain, but he does look for some moments of rest and prayer.  Jesus comes to serve and ask us to also serve as his disciples.

So we find ourselves asked to be a servant—to take the garbage out and clean up litter and clean up human waste from the church grounds.  We are invited to be a servant—to notice people who are invisible—clerks and waiters and bus drivers and children and serve them—invest in them, notice their needs, meet their needs.  We are challenged to take care of this beautiful world God made, to care for animals and plants and bodies of water that will never thank us.  Jesus served and we as Jesus’ disciples serve.

We are to be like the child and we are to welcome the child.  Because Jesus is like the child.  Jesus is vulnerable, curious, serving—not what you would expect from the Son of God, from a leader, from someone so powerful.  Jesus didn’t come to collect power, but to give it away, to spread it out among those who didn’t have any and to show us all how to let go of it, because that is also powerful.  The heart of the Gospel is that servanthood is about the power in relationship, the power of giving, the power of dying to yourself and your own desires and rising to new life in community—a much greater power—power with.

The Gospel-writer, Mark’s community was asking, since Jesus has ascended and we can’t see him, how can we receive him?  By placing this child in their midst, Jesus is showing us that Jesus is found in our midst in all the people we didn’t notice in our worldly quest for greatness, power, and stability.  Jesus comes to us as a needy, curious, vulnerable child and Jesus gives us grace to be that little child, beloved of God, to love as he loved us, to serve as he served us, to look to the fringes and ditches and see him and know him and love him to receive and be received in grace                                                                                               .

We don’t come to God trying to prove ourselves and our greatness.  We come to God and are humbled.  We come to God in our need and vulnerability.  And we find that God has received us, as immature and weak as we are.  God tenderly washes our faces in our baptism.  God sets a meal before us to strengthen and feed us in Holy Communion.  God teaches us God’s ways of servanthood.  God gives us communities in which to serve and give our lives away.