We're Number One!

Proper 20B; Mk. 9:30-37; St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC 9/20/2015

Jim Melnyk: “We’re Number One!”

Fall is one of my very favorite times of the year.  Aside from the cooler temperatures and the shorter days – which I enjoy greatly, the sports nut in me can go crazy.  Major League Baseball is in full pennant-drive mode.  College and Pro Football have smashed onto the scene like a defensive end crashing through a weak offensive line.  Pro Basketball and Hockey are knocking at the door.  And the annual chants of the faithful rock the house: “We’re number one!  We’re number one!”

           

The political world doesn’t get left out.  We’re in about what…the fifth year of the 2016 Presidential campaign?  Candidate debates have started on one side of the aisle and it seemed like the only talk in this past Thursday morning’s news cycle was about which candidate in the Wednesday night debate came out number one!  And there are debates galore still to come on both sides of the aisle.

           

We talk about where we rank as a nation or as a state in things like education, pay, and best vacation or retirement destinies.  There’s even a website that lists the top ten “redneck” towns in NC.  We argue about who’s the strongest, the smartest, or the most profitable.  We’re raised up to never play second fiddle to anyone.  We ask, “Who are your people?” or “What do you do for a living?” instead of “How are you and what can I do to help?”  Although one of the neat things about a small town is how much we do often look out for one another.

           

Being number one – the Big Cheese – the top of the heap – only has meaning when placed in the context of those who are not.  And while not finishing first in the sports world or the world of politics may be life-changing, it isn’t life-threatening.  Not being number one – or not even finishing in the top twenty-five in other aspects of life can be devastating.

           

Our love affair with being number one changes how we look at life.  It can become so absorbing that we miss out on what’s truly important in this world.  We can miss out on the wonder of the created order, on a real perspective of how and where we fit in the world around us, and the importance of relationships in our lives.  Being number one means someone else needs to be number two – or number three – or even unnumbered, for that matter.

           

We recall how in last week’s gospel lesson Jesus and his disciples face turning points in their lives.  The disciples, following Peter’s lead, proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah – número uno – top dog – the Christ of God.  Jesus, realizing his ministry is coming to an end, turns his face toward Jerusalem and the cross, and apparently without really understanding any of what Jesus was saying, his disciples turn toward Jerusalem with him.

           

Along the way Jesus seems to realize they really haven’t at all grasped what he had been saying about Jerusalem.  “Look,” he says, “Let me make this short and sweet for you – easy for you to understand.”  Jesus does some plain talking for some plain speaking folks.  "Listen to me.  The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again."  “This,” Jesus seems to be saying, “This is what being number one means in the kingdom of heaven – it means being willing to give up my life for the life of the world.”

Mark tells us the disciples still don’t get it.  How can they kill you for being number one?  How can you be number one if they can kill you?  So, rather than wrestle with that pretty major conundrum, they decide to visit that all too well known place called denial, and begin an argument about which one of them is the greatest of the disciples – which one of them will be number one in the kingdom. With apparently no vision or understanding of what awaits them all in Jerusalem, they begin debating who will be at the top with the Messiah. 

As one late colleague of mine put it, “Clamoring as to who is Number One on the way to the gallows in Jerusalem is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  They displace reality with fantasy; that way their denial will not allow them to see what is [actually] going on” (H. King Oehmig, Synthesis, 9/20/2015).

Now, when life was getting a bit out of hand when I was a youngster, my Ukrainian-American grandmother used to look at me and say, “Oi, oi, oi, Jimmy, what are we going to do?”  And I can just hear Jesus using the same words looking at his followers.  “Oi! What in the world am I going to do with you all?  What was all that arguing about anyway?”  This, of course, is followed with a lot of staring at the ground and foot shuffling in the dirt.  Perhaps a few tugs at the collar and looking off into the distance.  Arguing?  What arguing?  Shuffle, shuffle, cough, cough.

Another teaching moment has arisen for Jesus and his disciples.  Taking a child to his side, Jesus offers another one of his enacted parables.  Jesus takes a little child and places that child in the midst of them all.  Mark doesn’t tell us if that child is a little girl or a little boy, and therefore that child is symbolic of all children.  Jesus takes the child in his arms and says to his disciples, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (Mk. 9:37).  What in the world is Jesus trying to say to us?

Despite our competitive culture, Jesus teaches us that life isn’t all about who’s number one – who’s on the top – who’s in charge.  He tells his disciples – and he tells us – “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (9:35).  You see, as sweet and nice as it may seem, the child in this instance does not symbolize innocence and naiveté.  We may like it to – we may want it to be about being sweet and innocent – but it’s not.  Here the child represents vulnerability – represents a “secondary status” – a status of someone who is a “lesser human” being.  A lesser human being.  To see a child, with such lesser status, as a true representative of humanity, mirrors their willingness to receive “Jesus as sent from God” (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, note, page 79).  It’s all about affording status to those whom the world constantly chooses to deny status.  

It might obviously start for us with considering how we treat children in our society today – whether we talk about welcoming them in our churches or a doctor’s office – whether we talk about their education or food on their tables.  And while most of us in our culture don’t see children as “lesser human beings,” there are still those who are treated that way in society today.  Jesus tells us it’s about the last becoming first.  It’s about Jesus turning expectations and the conventional wisdom of his culture and day upside down – or perhaps, right-side up. 

How do we treat the most vulnerable among us?   As a society how do we even view vulnerability?  Where, we might ask, do we relegate others to the back of the line or the bottom of the pile?  What is happening to our neighbors and the strangers among us when we get too caught up in being number one?

Not too much later in Mark’s gospel James and John come to Jesus privately seeking a place at his right and left.  Jesus will call all the disciples together again for some remedial teaching.  Heavy sigh.  Let’s try it again folks.  “…Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (10:44-45).

What good is being number one when a spouse, a parent, or a child gets sick or, God, forbid, dies?  What good is being number one when the job goes away or the economy collapses? 

What good is being number one when a world is beset with people fleeing persecution and execution and thousands upon thousands of refugees find a world unwilling to welcome them – putting them at the bottom of the pile?

Jesus tells us being number one is only good when we use that status to serve – when we become a servant of all – when we are willing to give our lives as a ransom for many.  Jesus reminds us that when we serve the least among us we are serving him, and serving the One who sent him.  That’s what Jesus means by taking up our crosses and following him.

We’re number one!  We’re number one!  We like being number one.  We like the sound of it, don’t we?  We like the status of it, don’t we?  We’re number one!  And if that’s true, and if we wish to be true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if we really are number one, well then, it seems we truly have our work cut out for us.       

Turning Points – The Road Less Traveled, Continued

Proper 19B; Isa. 50:4-9a; Mark 8:27-38 St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC 9/13/2015

Jim Melnyk: 

“Turning Points – The Road Less Traveled, continued”

Last Sunday we witnessed Jesus facing a major turning point in his life.  Faced with the stubborn request on the part of the Syrophoenician woman that Jesus heal her daughter, Jesus had to come to grips with a widening of his calling.  Was he called only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, or did his messianic charge go beyond Galilee – beyond Jerusalem – beyond Israel – to encompass a whole world.  In Mark’s telling of the story it takes an argumentative gentile woman, and the healing of a deaf gentile man, for Jesus to embrace his turning point. 

Last week I mentioned that Jesus’ prayer as he healed the deaf man, “Ephphatha – be opened!” may well have been as much a prayer he uttered to himself and his disciples concerning their need to be open to the full inclusion of the gentiles in his mission as for the man he healed. 

Without that turn we would be outsiders looking in, rather than a people fully grafted into the household of God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  That Jesus and his disciples made the turn is good news indeed, not just for each of us, but for a whole world as well.

One point the gospel seemed to drive home for us was the need to pay attention to the turning points in our lives, and how Jesus calls us to that same sense of openness in our own lives and ministries – a challenging reality for sure.  We closed with the promising words of the poet Robert Frost:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

And so, as we also mentioned last week, we come to a Sunday of multiple turning points in Mark’s gospel.

Just who is it everyone is saying this Jesus character might be? 

What will the disciples say when pressed by Jesus?  What will those statements elicit from Jesus?  What will his disciples do with this new-found knowledge?

Today’s lesson from Mark’s gospel begins with the first of two turning points in the lives of the disciples.  It all begins with a pop quiz by Jesus: “Who do the people say that I am?”  The answers run the gamut – everything from John the Baptist raised from the dead, to Elijah, to simply one of the prophets – nobody seems to know which – but one of them.  Question two: “But who do you say that I am?”  And Peter, bless his heart, is the one who jumps in with the pronouncement, “You are the Messiah.” 

None of the others argue Peter’s declaration.   Turning point one for the disciples: a bold statement that they believe Jesus to be the Christ of God.  What Jesus has to say next about his life and ministry will bring the disciples face-to-face with the second major turning point in their lives – what will they do with this insight – especially when Jesus introduces them to reality of his impending death on the cross?  In order to understand what’s going on in the mind of Jesus and then his disciples we need to take a brief look at our first lesson for today.

Our Old Testament passage is the third of the four servant songs in Isaiah, and it sets up the final two turning points in today’s gospel passage.  While there are multiple interpretations of who the suffering servant is meant to be, there is a great deal of evidence that points to Israel when she is at her covenantal best.  The servant songs of Isaiah point to Israel’s continuing suffering at the hands of gentile oppressors, and the hope and promise that God would vindicate Israel. 

Based on the gospels we know Jesus was conversant with the writings of Isaiah – and so it is no coincidence that his life and faith mirror those writings.  And it is not surprising that over the centuries Christians would identify Jesus with the suffering servant.

           

In today’s lesson from Isaiah we find Israel waiting upon and hoping, looking for vindication and a return from exile.  The nation, still in Babylon, sets her “face like flint” trusting God to present with her in the midst of all her troubles.  Likewise, in Mark’s gospel, Jesus sets his face like flint as he turns toward Jerusalem and the cross – he will not be stopped from trusting God to be with him along this challenging road. 

This is the second great turning point in the life and ministry of Jesus, following closely on the heels of last week’s passage from Mark.  Jesus has come to understand that his mission and the Good News he has proclaimed – especially to the poor and disenfranchised members of society – has become a threat to those in power around him.  And like the many faithful prophets of God who have come before him, Jesus has come to understand that the only place to speak a word of truth to power is at the very source of power itself. 

Jerusalem has become his inevitable destiny, and only someone not paying attention would fail to see the train wreck that such a journey is destined to become.  The disciples, also conversant with the stories of their faith, know what usually happens to prophets who show up in places like Jerusalem to speak a critical word to those in power – the disciples paid attention.

Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem and the cross and his disciples have come to a fork in the road – which path will they take?  They can turn away from Jesus and quite possibly live long, if not challenging, lives.  Or they can journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem – understanding that the Roman cross of crucifixion may well await them as much as it awaits Jesus.  The disciples turn their faces toward Jerusalem with Jesus – even though it takes a bit of debate between Jesus and Peter to get them moving – including a bit of name calling on Jesus’ part – and even though it takes the rest of the gospel, and finally Jesus’ death and resurrection, before the disciples fully understand what that journey means. 

The disciples’ turning points become our turning points as well.  Who is this Jesus for us – and in making our decision, will we follow him even if it means going to Jerusalem – to the places of power and great risk– as well.

Speaking the Good News of God in Christ only becomes a challenge and a threat to us when we understand that the Good News is a word of challenge to people in power – a word of challenge to people live only for themselves – a word of challenge to those who would ignore the very people Jesus sought out and embraced – the voiceless, the lost, and the powerless.  Speaking the Good News of God in Christ becomes a challenge when we speak it in places that cannot live beyond, or even see beyond, their own comfort zones.

           

And I am thankful that the ministry of St. Paul’s, through groups like the Outreach and Social Justice Committee, the ECW, and the Brotherhood of St. Andrew – as well as ministry of many others individually – speaks and lives words of comfort and hope for so many around us.  This is Good News indeed.

Pastor, author, and Christian activist Brian McLaren puts it this way: “Faith was never intended to be a destination, a status, a holding tank, or a warehouse.  Instead, it was to be a road, a path, a way out of old and destructive patterns into new and creative ones.  If a spiritual community only points back to where it has been, or if it only digs in its heels where it is now, it is a dead end or a parking lot, not a path” (citation unknown).  The Good News of God in Christ becomes a challenge when those around us would rather live their faith out in a dead end or a parking lot – and it becomes a word of comfort for all who long for a pathway that leads us – and leads others – into the heart of God.

It doesn’t take much research to understand Jesus’ understanding of the Good News.  Preaching in his home synagogue, according to the author of Luke, Jesus reads another passage from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

Having read that portion of scripture, Jesus looks at the congregation and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).  Jesus doesn’t add any qualifiers to Isaiah’s words.  He doesn’t give himself any outs, and therefore doesn’t give us any outs either.  As a modern day disciple of Jesus puts it: “Our job is not to judge.  Our job is not to figure out if someone deserves something.  Our job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting” (Facebook Meme).  The word we speak to power must also be a word of comfort for those who need hope.

As modern day disciples of Jesus we face turning points in our lives as well.  Having decided who this Jesus is for us, how will we proclaim the Good News of God in Christ in and through our own lives?  Having decided who this Jesus is in our lives, what word will we speak to power – especially when power ignores the very people whom Jesus embraced and commanded us to love? 

Many times throughout our lives we will find ourselves standing at forks in the road – and we will have to decide which path to take.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

Turning Points and the Road Less Traveled

Proper 18B; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37 St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC 9/6/2015

Jim Melnyk: “Turning Points and the Road Less Traveled”

We all experience turning points in our lives – moments of decision that change the course of our destinies.  Poet Robert Frost wrote:

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves not step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!”

This Sunday and the next are turning points in Mark’s gospel for both Jesus and his disciples – roads taken when other paths lay wanting.  In today’s lesson, Jesus comes face-to-face with a decision about his ministry – about whom it is he is called to serve.  Next week Jesus will ask his disciples what the crowds are saying about him, and will then ask them point blank – Who do you say that I am?  Jesus will turn his face toward Jerusalem and the cross, and the disciples will then face a turning point of their own.  They will have to come to grips with what they have come to believe about Jesus, and decide whether or not to follow him to Jerusalem. 

Looking at this morning’s lesson we realize that up to this point in Mark’s gospel Jesus has focused his ministry within Israel – predominantly around Galilee – and toward his Jewish sisters and brothers.  Taking a break from the crowds, Jesus and his disciples head to the nearby region of Tyre – gentile territory.  Perhaps they figure the crowds won’t follow them out of the comfort zone of their own faith communities.

When the gentile woman in today’s story – a woman whose daughter is possessed of an unclean spirit – when the gentile woman first approaches Jesus for help he comes to a turning point in his life that will change the course of history.  In Mark’s story Jesus simply points out to her that the children should be fed first, rather than taking their food and throwing it to the dogs.  You may recall from other times we’ve heard about this story that Jesus was being down-right insulting here.  He’s not calling the gentiles cute little puppies – but dogs – implying something less than human – not worth his attention.   As theologian Sharon Ringe puts it, Jesus “was caught with his compassion down,” and we find “Mark’s portrayal of Jesus” in this instance is neither “a typical or comfortable one” (Sojourners Online, Preaching the Word, 9/6/2015).

Later, in Matthew’s version of the story, Jesus will tell the woman more directly, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Jesus comes to a turning point.  Is the Good News of God for all people or not?  Can I actually turn my back on this woman and her daughter simply because they are not of the house of Israel?  To her credit, the woman stands fiercely before Jesus on behalf of her daughter – and to Jesus’ credit, he relents at the sign of her faith, and heals the little girl.  In essence, this unnamed Syrophoenician woman sets a table before Jesus “to which all are invited” (ibid), and Jesus affirms her faith.  God’s grace does extend beyond the house of Israel.  God’s grace is boundless.  Jesus is called to serve not just Israel, but the whole world.  And this moment becomes a turning point in Mark’s gospel – a turning point in Jesus’ life and ministry – an exclamation point of God’s love for a whole world.  And by this woman’s act, as the late lay theologian Verna Dozier commented, “The people of God have been enlarged” (ibid).

Now, as we heard a few minutes ago, we have two stories about Jesus today.  On the way home from the region of Tyre Jesus and his disciples stop in the region of the Decapolis – still in gentile territory.  There they come upon a deaf man who also had difficulty speaking.  By now Jesus’ reputation has spread, and the locals ask Jesus to heal their friend.  I cannot help but imagine the exchange with the Syrophoenician woman ringing in Jesus ears as he touches the man’s ears and tongue, and looking to heaven prays, “’Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened!’”

Perhaps Jesus was directing this prayer not only at the man who stood before him, but perhaps at himself and his disciples as well.  “I get it, Father,” he seems to be saying, “I am sent for all your people, and to all your people I must be open.”  And we find ourselves grafted into the household of God perhaps due in part to the two gentiles who come into contact with Jesus in today’s lesson and help him see beyond race, clan, and creed.

There are turning points in our lives as well – though I am convinced we’re not always open to seeing them play out in our lives.  I suspect there are times when our surety is challenged by the Good News of God in Christ – times when we feel compelled to circle the wagons and claim a wall of exclusivity around us – us being the good guys, of course – and those turning points pass us by.

The Episcopal Church has been asked by our sisters and brothers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church this Sunday to make visible our solidarity with them in desiring to put an end to racism in our nation and in the world.   And so our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori has asked churches across the nation to acknowledge today as “Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday.”  AME Bishop Reginald Jackson writes, “Racism will not end with the passage of legislation alone; it will also require a change of heart and thinking. This is an effort which the faith community must lead, and be the conscience of the nation...” (quoted in Letter to the Episcopal Church, 9/1/15).  Ephphatha!  Be opened!

We might wonder if so many recent senseless deaths – whether we’re talking about the civilians gunned down in Charleston, SC, or the National Guard soldiers in Chattanooga, TN – police officers in Houston and Chicago, or the civilians in places like Ferguson and Arlington – might somehow become a turning point in how we treat one another in our nation.  We might look at how refugees are being treated today in places like Germany and Hungary – or even in the US – and see that as a turning point in how we treat one another around the globe – treating everyone as people created in God’s image.  I hope so.  I hope to God, so.

“The writer of the Book of James makes it very clear that to show partiality of one segment of human beings over another is sinful. In today’s reading the example compares the treatment of the rich to the poor. But, the same type of example can apply to conduct between people of differing races and different nationalities.

Another example the writer of James uses is not addressing the needs of a brother or sister who is hungry. Using words to wish a hungry person peace is not sufficient. The hunger itself must be addressed. The reading ends with what may be the most well-known sentence from the Book of James: ‘So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead’” (Lorraine Ljunggren).

We need to stand together as a community, as a nation, as a world – we need to hold hands with one another – we need to stand vigil with each other – we need to pray together as the family of God.  We need to create turning points in our lives and in the lives of our communities – in the life of this world – that will enable us to respect one another’s dignity and honor one another as human beings created in the image and likeness of God. 

Honoring one another in that manner will enable us to come to the holy table together despite our differences of opinion and in celebration of our diversity as a people; and this is vital today because I see our world becoming more and more fractured.  I see our world selling life on the cheap.  I see our world so into our own lives that we fail to see Christ in the eyes of our neighbors – in the eyes of the stranger – and sometimes even in the lives of our families and closest friends.  And sometimes, like the author of James reminded us last week, sometimes we look in the mirror to see our own selves, but walking away we forget what we look like – we fail to see and remember the image of God looking back at us through the glass.

Do we as a community of faith say to ourselves, “Well, that’s happening in Houston or Chicago – that’s happening in Ferguson or Arlington – or Germany and Hungary – not in Smithfield.”?  Or do we say to ourselves, “As people of faith how can we work toward a more just society?” 

Unlike the two roads in Robert Frost’s poem, the other road isn’t always just as fair – even if it seems so at first glance – though it may seem easier or more enticing or alluring.  Do our personal turning points direct us toward the comfort and safety of hearth and home, or do we see our personal turning points directing us toward the challenges and risks of Jerusalem?

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”