Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Understanding Jesus"
Date: September 24, 2006
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Mark 9:30-37

How many times have you read the Bible, maybe the words of Jesus, and found comfort in what it said?  How many times have you read the Bible, maybe the words of Jesus, and said, “I don’t understand this!”

Well, you’re in good company.  In today’s lesson from Mark, Jesus makes his second passion prediction—that the Son of Man was going to be betrayed, killed and, after three days, rise again.  “But [the disciples] did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” (9:32)

When Biblical scholars look at this passage, they understand the passion prediction, but ask, “What does ‘Son of Man’ mean?”  Scholars are not in agreement as to the exact meaning or even the origin of this identification that Jesus chooses for himself.

So, if the disciples didn’t understand back then, and were afraid to ask, if scholars don’t understand it all today, why should we expect ourselves to understand everything? 

The scene shifts to a house.  Jesus draws the disciples into a discussion, not letting them stay on the comfortable outside.  Jesus asks about their conversation among themselves on the road.  Silence again.  “I’m not going to tell him!”  Jesus responds to their silence with two sayings, indicating he knows full well they were discussing who was the greatest.  And so he sat down and called the twelve to him.  This is a very significant move.  It is the difference between us chatting in the Concert Hall after worship and me standing in the pulpit at this moment delivering a sermon.  Sitting down before speaking puts Jesus in the formal position of a teacher.  You have to understand that subtle note to realize what Mark describing Jesus’ position actually represents.

Jesus’ statement was, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  This concept is familiar to us today.  Remember the story of the banquet hall in the Bible?  Don’t sit yourself at the choice table up front, for you’ll be embarrassed when the host says, “Excuse me, this seat is saved for someone more important.  Please sit at the back.” 

This is still good advice today.  When you enter a ballroom for a formal dinner, a wedding reception, a political dinner or a fundraiser, if you don’t already have assigned seating, isn’t it best to look up front to see which tables are reserved for family or dignitaries before you choose your seat too close?  Then, what a pleasant surprise and honor when the host sees you sitting near the back and says, “Oh, you should be sitting here up front!”

Of course, sometimes there’s a price to be paid even if you’re supposed to be sitting up front.  Last week at my Kiwanis luncheon the president up at the head table held up my name placard and asked why I wasn’t sitting up there.  (I was to give the invocation that day, but I didn’t realize I was supposed to be up front.)  I responded that this group of Kiwanians from the Fullerton club had come to our meeting and, not wishing them to sit alone and be ignored, I joined them.  I was still fined $10!  I’m not sure where the honor was for paying $10 to miss sitting at the head table!

Jesus saying whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all requires a reversal of status in the kingdom.  Then Jesus does something that we think is very endearing.  He picks up a little child and sets the child in their midst.  Jesus loved little children.  Every time we baptize an infant we give the family a cradle cross with Matthew 19:14 embossed on the front:  “Let the little children some to me, and do not stop them for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”

‘Oh, isn’t that sweet!’ the disciples must have said.  WRONG!  The shocking element in this episode of picking up the little child cannot be appreciated, let alone understood, by modern readers such as us, who love seeing the little children gather up front on the chancel steps.

But in the culture of Jesus’ time, children were essentially non-persons.  They were left with the women, who themselves were considered subservient to the men, but children were even further down the social ladder.  Only slaves were lower in social standing than children.  In fact, childless Romans who needed heirs commonly adopted adults, rather than children.

And as if to reinforce the insignificance of children, Mark doesn’t even identify the gender of the child.  The Greek word he uses is paidion, which like the English word “child” into which it is translated, is neuter. Thus in today’s New Revised Standard Version, the account says that Jesus “took a little child and put it among them” (italics added).

You can’t get much more impersonal than “it.”

Thus, to say that the followers of Jesus could welcome him by welcoming a child was a mind-blowing suggestion.  But Jesus wanted them to understand how God viewed greatness.  It came not from being high on society’s status ladder, but by welcoming those on the bottom rungs or those who don’t have a place on the ladder at all.

For us to be called great would mean that there are others who do not measure up to our status or achievement, and who are therefore less than we are.  Jesus was not taking issue with the idea of measurement to determine greatness; he was simply saying that the disciples were measuring in the wrong direction.  True greatness is not from how far we rise above others in status or fame or achievement, but in how far we are willing to go in including and caring for the least and the lowly in his name.  That is a mission at which I believe this congregation is GREAT.  When Amelia Nieto spoke last Sunday about our contribution to the work of Centro Shalom, she was telling us we are helping people whom society considers to be on the bottom rungs of the ladder.

Far from calling for a leveling of humankind, Jesus was urging his followers to stand tall in their recognition of every person — even the most decrepit among us — as someone for whom he came.  Thus, in welcoming such a one, they and we welcome Jesus.  And in welcoming Jesus, we welcome God.

To quote my favorite scripture passage from Matthew once again, talking about the Last Judgment, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

There’s something Jesus said that I understand!