Good morning again, Emmanuel! For those of you whom I haven’t met, let me
introduce myself again, I’m Vicar Jonathan and I am blessed to be here at
Emmanuel for the next two years or so.
And I am excited. And it’s been
interesting, because whenever you start a new venture, it’s really like
beginning a new life as you leave behind everything that you had previously
been a part of and move into what can truly be described as a new life.
And I have to say, I love it here. I feel so welcomed, I feel refreshed. This new life is for me, a truly amazing
thing.
And even though it is almost fall, it seems like new life is
all around us right now. A lot of
friends online have been posting pictures of butterflies in various stages of
transformation. Just this morning I
watched a video a friend posted of a caterpillar cocooning itself. It was the transformation of life happening
right there in front me, the journey from an old life to a new life, the
leaving behind of old ways for rebirth as a new creature and it was beautiful.
And part of what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel
reading is new life and what it means to have a new life as a result of
following him.
Mark is subtly telling us that a big part of following Jesus
is following Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.
There are multiple meanings to the fact that the Mark refers to this
group as being ‘on the way’. They are on
the way to the cross, they are on the way to Jesus’ eventual death, and if
we’re being honest, following Jesus means that we are on that same path of
death and resurrection that Jesus is walking.
And Mark is interesting because he never really portrays the
disciples in a good light, because you’d think that knowing that are walking
with Jesus to his eventual death, the last thing that would be on their mind
is, ‘who is the greater disciple’? Not
to mention, that at this point in time, what does it really mean to be a great
disciple? Did you catch more fish than
the rest? Maybe you collected more
loaves of bread after the feeding of the 5,000.
It’s an odd question if we really think about.
But don’t we do the same thing? Don’t we try to use worldly measures to figure out who is the greatest? Both individually and as a church, we place
value and judgment on things in a way that shows we are really looking to
figure out who is best. We can’t just
have two styles of worship that are simply different expressions, we argue how
one version is so much better than another.
And that kind of misses the point, in this example worship is about God,
not about demonstrating our own greatness.
And Jesus emphasizes this point to the disciples. Greatness, real greatness, is not about
ourselves, real greatness is about others.
Real greatness comes about not by ruling over other people, but by
serving other people, by caring about other people. True greatness comes not by seizing power,
but by giving up power!
So in following Christ we die to our old way of thinking and
are reborn into this new understanding that reflects God’s own love and
compassion. And this really is what
begins in our baptism. We often talk
about baptism as being a washing or a cleansing, and with the manner in which
we baptize, a little sprinkle here and there, it’s easy to get that understanding,
but the original imagery of baptism was one of drowning, where we are immersed
in the water and our old self perishes while we are fully reborn as new
creatures in Christ with new ways of understanding and seeing the world and a
new way of living with each other and of acting towards each other. We are changed to be great in God’s eyes by
being servants to each other.
And while yes, we are called to be servants to all,
throughout scripture, and again in the reading for today, we find that God
continually lifts up those whom the world has cast aside, God lifts up the ones
who those hold worldly power have said don’t matter, God lifts up the oppressed
and says that it is in these people, in the rejected, that we find the kingdom
of God. We are called to be amongst
these people. Not to just visit, but to
have real relationships with them.
The other thing that being called to be among those in need
tells is that if we are called to be there, God is already there amongst
them. Working on their behalf,
comforting their pain, healing their wounds.
You see, Jesus is standing against an empire. A vast and powerful empire that does not care
about the lives of the Jewish people, they have said that their lives don’t
matter. In Jesus’ teachings he
continually subverts the traditions of the empire, ‘Render unto Caesar what is
Caesars’ is an example of this, even the use of the term the Son of God is a
subversion of a title that was used by the emperor. Jesus is standing against the systematic
oppression that faced so much of his world.
In today’s reading, Jesus takes a small child into his arms
to say that whoever welcomes a child is not only welcoming Christ, but is in
fact welcoming God. While today
everybody loves children and we love to have babies around and we have entire
industries built around children. The
Romans didn’t quite share our opinion.
It was legal to abandon children to die, to just leave them out in the
road, and it was pretty common. The
children that were picked up weren’t picked up by rich, caring folks, they were
picked up and raised so that they could be sold into slavery. And all of that is if they didn’t die of
disease.
Being a child was hard and they had no rights, no status,
they were nothing. The Jewish people
didn’t abandon the children, but they still weren’t treated well. So for Jesus to take a small child into his
arms was a radical move of love and compassion.
This small act is a true act of revolution. It takes what the empire says is the least
important thing and makes it the most important thing. Jesus says to love and protect the children,
but the empire kills children.
And I have to tell you, and you already know this, but the
empire is still alive and well all around us and the empire still kills
children. Our children are still dying
at the hands of empire. We’ve seen in it
Florida, we’ve seen in Missouri, we’ve seen it in Ohio, we’ve seen it in
Texas. We’ve heard the names Trayvon,
Michael, and Tamir. We see what the
empire has said is not important and we know that God has called us to stand
with our brothers and sisters. We know
that God has said that in fact, these are the ones who are most important. That we are called to stand against the evil
in our midst. And make no mistake, it is
evil.
This is what our servanthood looks like. This is what Christ’s servanthood looked
like. Christ stood against an empire
that said that some lives were not valuable.
We stand up and say that the lives the empire has devalued are in fact
the ones that are most valuable. That
they are the ones that matter the most.
We are not passive participants. We stand up; We speak out. We march.
We participate in God’s work in the world as God brings us to unity; as
God brings peace, as God’s love is poured out over the earth and we are brought
together in servanthood towards each other and in love of each other.
Emmanuel, we are walking this road of discipleship
together. We are called to be a presence
in this community. We are God’s light in
the darkness. We are God’s hope in the
face of injustice. We are called to be a
visible part of God’s work in the world.
But I’m not going to lie, this kind of call can be
frightening. The disciples were
frightened when Jesus talked about the road they were walking down. Standing up to the forces that seek to hold
us down can be terrifying.
But faith is stronger than fear. We put our trust in God because we know that
there is no place we can go where God is not already present. We trust that God is with us as we speak out;
that God is with us as we march; that God is with us through all things.
We trust in God’s presence.
We know that God has won the battle through Christ on the
cross;
We know that love triumphs over hate;
We know that love triumphs over persecution;
We know that life triumphs over death;
We know that God triumphs over all!
Brothers and sisters, we serve a God who is for us; who is
actively working for our good in this world and who is constantly bringing the
kingdom of God into reality; bringing light into the darkness of this world,
bringing hope to us every day.
We serve a God who is with us; a God who stands against the
empire and never leaves us. A God who
loves us despite our actions; a God who gives us strength;
And we serve a God who is out ahead of us; clearing a path
for us; making a way for us to move in the world and constantly working for our
good. We are called into a new life
through Christ where greatness is measured by servanthood and love is the
ultimate currency.
In spite of the threat that the empire poses to us, we
already know the end of the story. We
know that God wins. We know that through
the cross, the forces of sin and darkness cannot prevail. Brothers and sisters, love wins. God wins.
The empire loses and God will reign over all creation; God’s justice
will prevail; God’s mercy will cover us all and God’s love will bring us together
in unity, in equality, in love. And because of that, we can truly say, thanks
be to God. Amen.
