Sermon Title: "Striving To Be Least"
Date: September 20, 2009
Minister: Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Mark 9:30-37

Like most churches, we have a constitution.  It defines the purpose of this organization, how we’re organized, how ministers are called and members of the congregation elected to positions of responsibility.  Thankfully, it is only 14 pages long, and those of us who work and serve within the structure of this organization are fairly familiar with its contents.

There are, however, a couple of unwritten rules regarding the moderator, or the chief lay officer of our religious corporation.  Everyone on the nominating committee knows them, and, as that committee changes over the years, the unwritten rules are passed along informally, as if everyone already knows them.

They are:  1) persons nominated as moderator alternate between male one year, female next, male the next, and so on.  And 2) it is expected the moderator will have served on one of the church commissions before becoming head of the Board of Stewards, and our policy-making body.

Never once in my nearly 23 years here have I sensed any jockeying for the position.  Members of the Board don’t seem to be vying among themselves to sit at the head of the table and run the meetings.  Persons nominated first to be moderator-elect, with the assumption that the following year they will become moderator, seem genuinely surprised and/or honored to be asked.  I have had any number of nominees come into my office and engage in conversation about what the responsibilities are, do I think they can handle it, and what are the issues, if known, they will be facing.

I don’t think the moderator or the members of our Board of Stewards would be very good disciples.  That is not to denigrate their faith, their devotion, their willingness to serve.  It’s just that I could never see them having the squabble the disciples in today’s lesson were having.  Three times in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus predicts that he will be crucified, and after three days rise again.  Do they engage him in discussion?  Do they ask what he meant?  Do they try to head off this fatal prediction?  No; Mark reports:  “…they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” (9:32)

Instead, as they journeyed along to Capernaum, they engaged in a discussion among themselves.  Was it, “What did Jesus mean?  Did I hear it right?  I think he said it once before.”  No; like a group of high school students campaigning to become student body president, they argued about who among them was the greatest.  And when Jesus asked what they were arguing about on the way, they were too embarrassed to even answer him.

Then, in the manner of teachers of the time, Jesus sat down, and told them that whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  By way of illustration, Jesus picks up a little child in his arms and tells them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  If anyone wanted to be the greatest, he must strive to be the least.

We think it’s wonderful that Jesus welcomed little children to him, and in like manner we welcome them into the life of our church.  We think they are very important.  The future of the world is theirs.

Yet it must have been a shock to the disciples to see Jesus put so much value on a child.  In that part of the world, in that day, children were of little value—worthless, second-class citizens.  A child was a burden—dependent, helpless, non productive.  The mortality rate of children was extremely high.  There were no vaccinations, no flu shots, no antibiotics or penicillin.  A child was not considered a full human being until they reached adulthood, so it was not worth paying them much attention.  Typically 60% of them did not survive to the age of 16.

More than that, to place a little child in the midst of a circle of adult men being taught by their rabbi was a tremendous breach of all the social/cultural boundaries of Jesus’ day.  Children were separated off, part of the realm of women’s world and women’s work with which men did not have much contact.

In her sermon on this text, Barbara Brown Taylor puts it:  “They wanted to know who was greatest, so [Jesus] showed them:  twenty-six inches tall, limited vocabulary, unemployed, zero net worth, nobody.  God’s agent.  The last, the least of all … if we want to welcome God into our lives then there is no one whom we may safely ignore.” (“Last of All,” in Bread of Angels)

I think what Jesus was getting at was taking a larger view, of looking beyond oneself to those around us.  Absolutely nothing was accomplished by the disciples trying to figure out who was the greatest.  Neither will that be of much value for any of us.  By taking someone commonly ignored by his contemporary society, Jesus urges them to look beyond themselves.  After all, if he is accurately predicting his coming death, they are going to be left without him to lead them.  Then what are they going to do?  Lock themselves up behind closed doors in an upper room for the rest of their lives?

Jesus was trying to prepare them for their future ministry in his name.  He wanted the disciples to go out and preach his word—“to the ends of the earth.”  They were to welcome others in his name, heal the sick and the lame, care for the widow and the orphan.

Almost every religious denomination has a national conference every year or two.  Lately, their agendas have been consumed with ordination of gays and lesbians, equal marriage rights, diminishing finances and membership, revised governance models.  That’s what makes the news.  But what religious organizations are really about is serving others in the name of God if they are Jewish, in the name of Allah if they are Muslim, in the name of Christ if they are Christian.  And that’s what they excel at, long after the issues of this year’s or last year’s or next year’s national conference are remembered only by the national officers.

Last Sunday, we rolled out our Ambassadors program here at church—nearly two dozen people who want to be welcoming of all who come through our doors, to help them find a place in this church family, to invite them to fellowship time and to participate in our activities.  And many of those activities, as we certainly find here each fall, involve reaching out to others, especially those whom society might overlook, see of little value, ignore.

Innumerable hours have been put in by a cadre of women here knitting and crocheting scarves or tying fleece blankets as recently as yesterday to give out to our Christmas families or the clients of Christian Outreach in Action in December.  These are the people to whom such a handmade article of warmth means much more than the ones we buy for ourselves on Second Street or at the mall.

Every third Wednesday, women in our church’s kitchen put together large casseroles from all the casserole ingredients you have donated to feed the hungry and homeless at Christian Outreach in Action.  On October 4, we have our annual Third World Handarts sale.  We will never meet the artisans in Guatemala, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand who make those goods, but we will benefit those who have no other way of making a living when we purchase their handcrafted articles.

On that same Sunday, we have our annual Neighbors in Need offering.  Along with the Souper Bowl of Caring offering in February, the One Great Hour of Sharing offering in Lent, and the CROP Hunger Walk on October 18, we participate in a second-hand removed/distant opportunity to feed the hungry, to provide educational, agricultural and medical supplies to third world countries, and to help rebuild after natural disasters both here at home and abroad.  In December, our Concert Hall is overtaken by loaded tables of gifts, toys, clothing, furniture, bedding, towels and Christmas decorations for a dozen Long Beach families who are living without what all the rest of us take for granted.

The least are first when human beings reach out to protect, nurture and nourish the other living creatures of this earth, our home.  The least are first when loving congregations risk their safe stable existence by opening their doors—even their worship services—to the disadvantaged, the homeless, the mentally challenged and developmentally disabled—the very ones to whom Jesus spoke and ministered and healed—welcoming them as brothers and sisters in Christ.

When followers of Jesus—either at their national conferences or in their local churches—stop wrangling among themselves about status or which agenda item ought to be first, when followers of Jesus show hospitality and kindness to the unlovely and powerless and outcast of the world, they discover that they have not only received a stranger, but they have received Jesus Christ himself.  “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and…the one who sent me.” (9:37)

In the words of a song sung by the Sojourners Community:

Is there room in this city for the lowly and the poor?

Is there room in this city for the homeless and their friends?

Is there room in this city for the broken little ones?

Well, come in, Jesus Christ.  We want to make you some room.