The Greatest?

A sermon preached in the Church of the Ascension, Dallas, Texas,

the Rev’d Kai Ryan ’92, Rector, by the Rev’d Dr. Titus Presler,

Dean & President of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest,

Austin, Texas, on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost, 21 September 2003

Year B, Proper 20: Wisdom 1.16-2.22; James 3.16-4.6; Mark 9.30-37

"Who's the greatest?" — That's what the disciples were fighting about.

Imagine that! — Arguing about who's the greatest!

One disciple says, "I'm the greatest."

Another one says, "No, I'm the greatest."

A third one says, "I hate to tell you this, but you're both wrong.

          It may surprise you, but I'm the greatest."

Imagine adults talking like that!

Is that how it was with the disciples,

          and is that how it is with us? — 

Of course not!

The only person most of us know of who actually proclaimed himself “the greatest” was Muhammed Ali,

          and he is often termed, in fact, the greatest boxer who ever lived,

          so maybe he had good grounds for his claim!

I’m sure the disciples’ discussion was much more subtle than that,

          just as it is much more subtle among us today.

Jesus had been talking about the coming crisis of his life.

The disciples couldn't understand all the details of that:

          a Messiah getting killed sounded like an oxymoron to them,

          the rising again sounded fanciful.

But what they could and did understand

          was that Jesus was moving into a crisis,

          and it sounded like, in some strange way, he was going to come out on top.

In that case what was the pecking order going to be?

Who among themselves would be closest to the top?

I imagine Matthew the former tax collector saying:

"Hey guys!  The other day I was talking to my friend Justus —

                        you know, my former boss in the Roman IRS —

          well, he and some of the other agents are pretty interested in Jesus,

          and I've been sharing the gospel with them.

"I think there're some real possibilities

          of working them into a future Jesus administration —

          and I'd be happy to help Jesus coordinate that.

"What do you think?"

Silence.  Who can top that?

Peter gives it a try:

"That sounds interesting, Matthew,

          but I wonder whether we maybe need a more common touch;

          I'm not sure that we can ever trust those Romans.

"Here in Galilee, we've been having huge crowds of ordinary folks coming out,

          and they're really the people Jesus' gospel is for;

          I know a lot of them, being a fisherman and all.

“I've done some focus groups in the villages —

          you know, praying with people and talking about Jesus —

"People seem to look up to me,

          and I wonder whether I could be useful

          in helping Jesus put together a popular base.

"What do you think?"

Thud.  Silence.  Who can top that?

John gives a try:

"I think love is what it's all about, guys.

"Jesus and I had an interesting conversation about love the other morning while the rest of you were still sleeping.

"I'm very humbled by it, but Jesus seems to enjoy talking with me.

"I'm just looking forward to whatever Jesus may have in mind for me."

Who could top that?

And so it might have gone: each disciple trying to top the previous one —

All very civil on the surface,

          just sharing, as we might say today —

but really at each other,

          scrambling over each other to get to the top,

          all of them really arguing about who was the greatest!

Sound familiar?!

Sometimes, when we have ears to hear ourselves,

          we realize we’re really talking about who is the greatest.

We've all been at parties or in groups

          where the real game seems to be "Can You Top This?!"

"The other day I was having lunch with so and so, and she said . . ."

          — so-and-so might be the neighbor we both want to claim,

          or the boss we both want to impress,

          or the celebrity we both respect.

Competition about who is the greatest is cross-cultural, of course.

Jesus was speaking in a Middle Eastern environment,

          and it feels like he is speaking to us.

Among the Shona people in Zimbabwe —

          with whom my wife Jane and I worked as missionaries —

          concern about competition is fueled by a sense that the most corrosive vice in human relations is envy, what is called shanje in the Shona language.

Shona people are so concerned about shanje that often they will deliberately avoid trying to get ahead lest they provoke shanje in their neighbors.

At Bonda, the village where we lived, a widow named Mai Ramewa had her house torched one evening, and it burned to the ground, fortunately with no injury to her or anyone else:

          “Why would someone burn her house?” I asked.

          Shanje was the answer, for, despite the economic disability of being a widow, Mai Ramewa had become quite prosperous through diligent farming and a cottage industry she ran out of her house.    

Who is the greatest?

Who deserves to be the greatest?

These arguments work themselves into friendships and relationships,

          not only with people we don't like, but even with people we love.

Families can be full of arguments about who's the greatest;

          in fact, the family is where that great argument of our lives usually begins

          as we vie with brothers and sisters for the attention and affection of our parents:

          "Who does Mom or Dad, or both, love best?

          "Who is more gifted, or more obedient, or more promising?

          "Who's somehow just better human material?

          "Who, in short, is the greatest?"

And those arguments begun in childhood can last a lifetime,

          not only continuing to shape families,

          but working their way into friendships and colleague relations —

          taking the edge of joy and love off every relationship they touch.

Of course, those arguments work themselves into the church,

          into our own company of disciples,

          which is another kind of family:

          "Who's more spiritual?

          "Who gives more to the church?

          "Who does more in the church?

          "Whom does God really love more?"  And so on.

In the life of the Episcopal Church as a whole in these days following this year’s General Convention

          there’s a similar anxiety, only now it’s expressed in the questions:

          “Who’s really right about all this?

          “Am I on the winning side or the losing side?

          “As the conflict continues who’s going to come out on top?

          “Who’s going to be vindicated and who’s going to be vanquished?”

It's all very competitive,

          and we may feel we need to be competitive.

After all, the rewards of life can seem limited:

          there's a limited amount of money to be earned,

          a limited number of promotions to be granted,

          a limited number of jobs to be filled,

          a limited number of awards to be passed out,

          a limited amount of church respect and resources to be divvied up,

          a limited amount of love and acceptance available.

So we feel we need to compete for what's out there —

          that’s the craving James talks about in his letter today —

          we're afraid that if we don't compete we're going to be left out in the cold:

          unpaid, unrespected, unpromoted, unrewarded, unloved.

What was Jesus' response to all this?

"Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said,

          'If anyone wants to be first, he or she must the very last,

                        and the servant of all.'

“Then he took a little child and put the child among them; and taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’”

Jesus turns human striving upside down:

          there are some standards of greatness out there,

                        and maybe there will be some rewards,

          but not the standards or the rewards we have come to expect.

Jesus took a human being who seemed not to be even on the chart of greatness,

          a child too young either to compete in the greatness sweepstakes herself or to offer others greatness for being associated with her.

Jesus held up vulnerability, weakness, unformedness —

          “As you welcome one of these, you welcome me.”

The argument about who’s the greatest can be just as live in seminaries as it is anywhere else:

Students come with a natural competitive instinct about who’s more promising as a future clergyperson in the church,

          and then when they get into classes it can be not only who gets better grades, but who’s more articulate and insightful in class.

At ETSS, where I’m dean, most students opt for the pass/fail option, which helps significantly with the competition, but it’s still an issue.

Faculty can compete with one another in the rightness sweepstakes, or the popularity sweepstakes, or the scholarship sweepstakes, or the publication sweepstakes —

          we try to address that through working together as collegially as we can.

In the wake of General Convention, one of our opening Community Days at the seminary was an entire morning devoted to talking together about the results of convention.

Embracing Difference is our theme at the seminary for the next several years,

          so the theme of this morning was Embracing Difference after General Convention.

As we broke into small groups, the encouragement was not to debate the issues,

          but simply to share with one another the impact that convention’s sexuality decisions have had in our lives, in our parishes, in our dioceses,

          and our personal responses to them —

          because we want the seminary to be a place where people truly can share,

          where all voices can be heard,

          where people can explore their questions on all sides without feeling dismissed, disparaged, or diminished.

The result was, quite simply, wonderful:

          people came back testifying that there really were differences among them,

          but that they’d been able to share their views candidly in a sacred space of sharing,

          and that they felt heard and respected.  

“Who’s the greatest?”

That question is based on a scarcity model of life —

          that there’s a limited amount of value to go around.

God’s model of life is a model of abundance —

          that every person is infinitely valuable

          because every person is created by God in God’s own image

          and every person is infinitely loved by God.   

 “You wish to be great?” Jesus asks, “Then welcome and serve this child,

                        welcome and serve all the weak and vulnerable,

                        with no regard to what someone on your left or right is doing —

                        just do that gospel work of the Reign of God.”

Simply resting in the love that God has for each one of us is a key to that kind of living. 

The famous children’s Sunday School song proclaims,

          “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Do you believe that — that Jesus truly loves you?

Can you trust in that fact, in that love?

Can you trust that personal love of that personal God?

As we truly rest in God’s love for us, as we allow that reality to wash over us and fill us,

          we need not worry about who the greatest is.

As we rest in the love God has for us,

          we know the greatness not of ourselves but of God,

          and knowing the greatness of God we need no other greatness,

          for the fullness of God brings us to a fullness more than we could ever expect or hope —

          and there we simply love and adore.