In today’s Gospel reading we see what happens when some members of a community seek prominence over others. Specifically, the focus is on ultimate values. These eternal values are shown in stark contrast to the false values that contend for our loyalty.
Jesus continues to e frustrated with those who seek Him only for healing rather than the wider truth of His teaching. Clearly, the main concern is not making new disciples, but rather teaching the Twelve already committed to Him.
Although they have been with Him from the beginning, seen His marvelous acts and listened to His teaching, their minds are still set on human rather than divine things. One again, the disciples fail to grasp Jesus’ straightforward words about the nature of His coming betrayal, death, and Resurrection.
They don’t want to hear about that! They still believed the Messiah would be a victor and establish a glorious future or Israel. No sooner had they recognized Jesus as the coming Messiah, they were confronted with the images of the suffering servant. Instead of asking Jesus for more details, they ignored all Jesus said and began to argue among themselves about who was the greatest.
As they vied for power positions, Jesus sits down and asks another question: “What were you discussing?” The embarrassing silence is deafening! The, Jesus, as He often did, gives a graphic illustration about what their attitude should be. The only way to be first in God’s eyes is to choose to be last of all.
With this radical statement, Jesus did what He had always done -He turned cultural assumptions about power, position, and status upside down. Next, He brings a child into their midst. Why a child? Because in the culture of that time a child was under the authority of others and had no legal rights. There would be no gain in receiving a child. Jesus says, however, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me: and whoever receives me, receives not me, but the One Who sent me.”
So who is wise and understanding? Who is the greatest? In God’s kingdom the concept of merit is radically different. The greatest is the one who follows the example of Jesus and puts aside all considerations of power and prestige to become the servant of all.
Much of the momentum behind much of today’s religious zealotry is an attempt to recapture what some perceive to have been lost over time. Increasingly, we encounter the questions: “Are you saved?” or “Are you a Christian?” My response has always been, “That depends upon what you mean by saved and Christian.”
Can Christians agree that following the teachings of Jesus and the example He and the best of His followers have set is sufficient to maintain a Christian identity and witness in the world? Maybe not! The complaint is often lodged that some have defined “Christian” in a way that imposes a strict set of beliefs, standards, and a sense of entitlement and not an accompanying lifestyle.
The Bible more than once makes the point that God’s ways are not our ways, and that the mind of God is vastly different from our minds. If God is the God of all, then God has made provision, not necessarily known to us, for the healing and care of creation and not just our little corner of it.
If there is Good News that is truly Good News for everyone and not just a few with higher wisdom and who “have been saved,” it is this. God is bigger and greater and more generous than the best who profess to know and serve Him. This is the radical nonconformity against the conventional wisdom that Jesus both proclaimed and exemplified and, in the end, cost Him His life. How can we, who call ourselves “Christians,” fare any better as we struggle to walk in the Master’s steps?
The way of discipleship is long and much is expected of us. There is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminded us, a cost to be paid. Just as Jesus laid down His life for us, we ae asked, too, to offer our lives, our priorities, our gifts, and our very selves to live the “Christian” life. As Jesus embraced a little child, and urged us to do likewise, so are we to embrace Jesus and the One who sent Him. What marvelous things can happen when we reach out and when we are willing to yield for the child, the poor, the broken, the lonely, the frightened, or the forgotten? Is is when we put aside concern for power, prestige, and greatness. It is when we go last.
Source: © The Rev. Peter Groschner, September 23, 2018. Mark 9:30-37. Reprinted with permission from the author.