We thank you, gracious Lord, for receiving us into
your loving embrace and help us to welcome others in your name. Amen.
We love greatness. Whether it’s a list of the 10 greatest baseball players of all time, the 10 greatest albums, or the 10 greatest travel destinations, we’re attracted to greatness. History is full of examples of emperors who built tributes to themselves and we often compare ourselves to others based on degrees, accomplishments, titles, and lifestyles. Before we make a purchase, we check to see how many stars it has. Humanity is obsessed with greatness.
Early
on in Genesis, there’s a story about humanity in which the people are
attempting to make themselves great by building a tower that will reach the
heavens. They say, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its
top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” But greatness comes
not through soaring higher, but rather greatness is found in lowliness and
humility. In a nutshell, that story about the Tower of Babel is a summary of the
points being made by James and Jesus in this morning’s readings, and it’s the focus
of this sermon. Whoever wants to be first must be last.
The
problem with greatness is that it’s not a metric that God seems to care about.
God chose to save the world through lowly Israel instead of a more powerful nation.
And God chose to call and shape that nation not out of a strong and young
leader, but through the elderly Abraham and Sarah who were, by all accounts,
past their childbearing years. When God needed to save the people from trouble
in Egypt, he chose the stuttering murderer Moses. When God chose to show us the
way of love, it was by coming in the flesh, born as a vulnerable baby to an
unwed Jewish girl named Mary. And this Messiah did not grow up to be a warrior,
but rather was executed in his early 30s as an enemy of the state. Nothing about
the story of our faith is great by any human metric.
So
when we measure ourselves with greatness in mind, we end up focusing on the
wrong things. Several years ago, the journalist David Brooks wrote about résumé
virtues and eulogy virtues. Résumé virtues are those skills that we have, the
things that move us along the track of greatness, the sorts of things we post
on social media or put on the front of our Christmas cards. Eulogy virtues are
the things that we hope people will remember about us – were we kind, honest,
compassionate, generous?
Brooks
is just translating what we heard in James into modern terminology. In James,
we hear “Where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder
and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits.” Résumé
virtues, or we might call them “social media post-worthy virtues” are inwardly
focused. Eulogy virtues, or perhaps “the virtues of the Kingdom” are about humility
and openness to others.
At
least theoretically, many of us would say that those eulogy and kingdom virtues
are how we want to live as opposed to the Tower of Babel building,
greatness-seeking, résumé ones. But we just can’t seem to get away from all of
those 10 greatest lists and comparing ourselves to either others or our
self-imposed expectations. Whether it’s having a bigger church, a thinner
waist, a newer gadget, or another zero at the end of our bank account, like moths
to a flame, it’s hard to resist the Siren’s call of greatness.
Our
problem isn’t ignorance. We know about Jesus’s call to follow the way of love
and don’t necessarily disagree with James when he calls us to focus on purity,
gentleness, and mercy. It’s just that greatness is all around us as an idol,
goal, and metric. Humility, openness, and mercy might sound nice, but how do we
do that? What does it look like to live with the wisdom of James as a guiding principle?
How do we put into practice the first being last and the last first?
Well,
as much as is possible, we have to do the hard and challenging work of seeing
the world differently. This will take practice and it will take being gentle
with ourselves as we grow. Have you ever been to a movie that’s in 3D? They
give you those special glasses that you have to wear – those glasses make
everything come to life. Without them, you can still see the movie, but it’s
not quite right; everything is distorted. Well, faith is something like that.
We have to put on the glasses of the kingdom so that we can see things
differently. But instead of being 3D glasses, these glasses of faith flip
everything upside down.
I
remember when I was a kid, maybe you did this too, I’d get on all fours and put
my head down on the floor and look at the world upside down. If I was in my
house, I’d imagine having to step over the door frames to get from room to room
and if I was outside, I’d think about what it would be like for trees to grow upwards
from the branches instead of the roots. The eyes of faith are something like
that – seeing the world through the lens of lowliness instead of greatness.
It’s
something that the disciples of Jesus struggled with, just like us. Jesus is teaching
them about the trajectory of his mission. He’s telling them that this isn’t
about victory or success in the way that they’re imagining it, rather he will
be betrayed and killed. Yes, he mentions Resurrection as well, but they seem to
have gotten tripped up with the betrayal and killed part. Plus, how could anyone
conceive of what the Resurrection might mean pre-Easter? Jesus is subverting
their expectations and telling them the Messiah goes against the grain of all
of their expectations and desires.
The
poet TS Eliot once wrote, “Go, go, go said the bird: human kind cannot bear
very much reality.” That’s what we see in the disciples’ response. When
confronted with seeing the world upside down, we are disoriented and scramble
back to the safety of the familiar. Jesus is talking about betrayal, weakness,
and death. When Jesus asks them what they were arguing about, they are
sheepishly silent before admitting they were arguing about who is the greatest.
The truth of Jesus’ humility, betrayal, and death was too much reality, and so
the disciples fled to thinking about strength, power, and greatness.
One
lesson for us in trying to keep those glasses of faith on is to be curious.
None of the disciples were curious; or rather, they weren’t courageously curious.
Mark records that they didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and were afraid
to ask. Whatever questions you have about faith – there is a place for you here.
This is a church where you can not be sure about something, where we can admit “I
don’t know,” where we aren’t asked to think whatever we are told, instead we
can ask questions and struggle with what we hear. And, to be clear, just because
we have questions doesn’t mean that we’ll always get answers. Some questions don’t
have answers. Well, that’s not quite true. Love is always an answer.
Julian
of Norwich, a 14th-century Christian, wrote “Do you wish to know our
Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well: Love was his meaning. Who reveals
it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why did he reveal it to you?
For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same.” Seeing things
through the lens of love is part of our kingdom glasses. The only way to
understand the death and Resurrection of Jesus is through the lens of love. Love
is vulnerable, love is hard, and love means being open. We often hear it read at
weddings, “Love is patient and kind, it is not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way but rather loves bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” Fundamentally, love is
about being open to the other. Love is about pursuing not our agendas or
greatness, but rather love looks towards the needs of the other. Love is an upside
down, which is actually right side up, way of seeing the world.
And
so love and curiosity really go hand in hand. We have to be curious about
others instead of assuming that we know what they think, need, or want. In this
passage, the disciples couldn’t quite summon enough courageous curiosity to
look at the cross and do anything but turn away from it. Whether it’s through praying
with a rosary, prioritizing the Eucharist, or having a cross or crucifix on
your wall – focusing on the cross is a helpful way of reorienting our vision.
And we don’t focus on the cross as a glorification of violence or anything like
that. Rather, the cross brings the lowly, the rejected, the suffering, and the
needy into our field of vision.
And
this is exactly the lens that Jesus gives to the disciples and us. Jesus places
a child among them and says “Whoever welcomes one such child welcomes me.” In
Jesus’ context, the child did not represent playfulness, innocence, wonder, or
potential. A child is symbolic of the lowly – someone without any legal rights,
someone who cannot do anything for us but rather someone who is vulnerable and
needy. The child has no connections to lead us into greatness – they don’t have
money to give us, they can’t introduce to us an influential friend, they can’t
help us solve a project. Instead, the child needs us and has nothing to give in
return. The child cannot repay our welcome or advance our greatness. And
serving them is what’s all about.
A
few months ago, I heard someone wisely observe, “You can tell a lot about a
person based on how they treat children.” As the civil rights attorney and
author Bryan Stevenson put it, “The true measure of our character is how we
treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the
condemned.”
The
Gospel runs on paradoxes – Jesus is human and divine. Jesus is a crucified and
risen savior. We are both broken and beloved. The bread we receive is his body.
The first must be last. It’s an upside-down way of seeing things; a different
and holy priority. And it’s hard to be different. Jesus though gives us a very simple
reminder of what this looks like. He gives us a pair of glasses to see the
world through. He would have us ponder the question – Who do we welcome? Who are
we open to receiving into our community? Who are we willing to invite into our
homes for a meal? Who do we invite to church? Who do we make room for? Who do we
dare to love?
Ultimately,
we gather this morning as those who have been welcomed by God. None of us are
here because we’re great – rather we come confessing our sins, praying for help
and guidance, and stretching out our empty hands for the bread of life. And God
meets us in that lowliness feeds us abundantly. Putting together the wisdom of
James and Jesus, we are told that the way to draw near to God is to extend that
welcome to those who we would otherwise overlook. Put on the glasses of faith
that help us to see the world upside down. It’s right there at the top of our
parish’s identity statement: Come and see the difference Christ makes.
