"Me First"

by The Rev. William G. Lamont, Pastor

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  Then he took a little child and put it among them…he said to them “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  Mark 9:35

We’re into college football season…a short but important season at the beginning of the school year where colleges are pitted one against each other on a grassy 100 yard playing field where much is at stake.  Coaches and players have been training, practicing and scrimmaging since mid summer in preparation of this season.  And when that first hometown game finally comes along wouldn’t it be great to be a fly on the wall in the locker room just to hear that pre-game pep talk from the coach?  I think that speech would be most revealing – the last teaching moment for the coach…the final lesson to the team before hitting the playing field.

Well, you and I are not welcome in the player’s dressing room…but we do get to listen in on Jesus’ last speech to his disciples.  Today’s gospel lesson in Mark chapter 9 is the last teaching of Jesus in Galilee and he reserves it for his disciples.  After this they enter Jerusalem and it’s game time - the passion narrative begins.

It would seem this last teaching by Jesus was not a planned formal lesson but an improvised one.  They were on their way to Capernaum, and the disciples get into an argument with each other about who is the greatest. Now, Jesus has already told them twice that the journey to Jerusalem will take him to the cross, but they simply don’t believe it.  They are convinced that Jerusalem spells success for Jesus.  He’s the Messiah after all, and everyone knows the Messiah is destined for the throne and a long and glorious reign as king.  So they have an argument about who is the greatest…because they know that the greatest persons will get to sit at his left and right hand side and be his closest advisors.

Jesus catches them red-handed.  He asks them what they are arguing about but they clam up, have nothing to say. They know that Jesus won’t appreciate them jockeying for position in his kingdom.  But Jesus has heard enough to know what needs addressing…so he gathers them around, sits down, taking the position of a teacher, and delivers his very last Galilean lesson: It’s a lesson on leadership, for the ones who will lead his church:  “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  Greatness is not about “me first,” says Jesus, but about putting others first…serving others.

To concretize the teaching, Jesus performs a simple act.  He takes a small child in his arms…a defenceless, dependant, vulnerable little child who couldn’t last a single day without his/her mother’s loving care, and he picks up a child and says “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me…” We need to remember that in biblical times children were persona non grata…they lacked social status. They really didn’t count and there were no laws in effect to protect them, to assure certain levels of care, or to guard against neglect, harm or abandonment.  God help the child that was unwanted!  God help the child born with a defect or disability, or born into a poor family that just couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.  A child was totally dependent upon his parent’s love and acceptance for survival.  And apparently a sign of that acceptance in the Roman world was when a Roman father would pick up the newborn child…that marked acceptance and inclusion into the family.  If the child was not picked up it was destined to be abandoned.  Knowing this, consider the powerful act of Jesus picking up a child…a sign of love and acceptance without saying a word.  But he takes the lesson a step further saying: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”   He was identifying himself and his ministry with the child; a couple chapters later Jesus is identified with two great biblical figures, Moses and Elijah during the Transfiguration.  We understand that identification, Jesus is a great figure, like Moses and Elijah.  But here he identifies himself with a lowly child and says true greatness is not about being first, but being last.  And when we remember that this lesson is taught within the looming shadow of the cross, itself an act of weakness and vulnerability, it is all the more poignant.

Now, it would be presumptuous to think that Jesus is the author of this alternative wisdom.  In fact it is deeply embedded in the scriptures of the Old Testament.  Psalm 1 is an introductory psalm written to encourage the reading of the scriptures.  The psalmist speaks to the same tension of opposites that Jesus does in the Gospel lesson.  He suggests that there are really only two ways in life…two paths.  The sure path is to follow God’s way as outlined in the Torah.  It is to listen to God’s voice and follow his ways rather than the ways of this world.  It is to give authority to another word other than your own.  It is to pray:  “not my way, but Thy way, Lord.”  Those who follow this path are like trees planted by the water’s edge – whose trunks are huge, whose branches stretch high into the sky and whose canopy of leaves overhangs the river’s edge.  The other path in life is to ignore the Torah, scoff at God’s truth and follow your own way.  Those on this path are like chaff on a threshing floor…like dust in the wind.  They come, they go, and they amount to nothing.

Jesus seeks to lead his followers in the path of a deep abiding relationship with God, and he points to a life of servitude, a life of giving to others. He points away from “me first” to a life of “you first.”  But what Jesus preaches is utterly alien to his disciples because it flies in the face of everything they’ve learned about greatness.  And it is equally alien to us today, because the conventional measure of greatness really hasn’t changed in 2000 years.  The world says greatness is about having power, it’s about being strong, having influence, having material possessions and monetary wealth; greatness is being free to do or say whatever you want.

In the past couple of weeks we have seen the ugly side of this greatness displayed by politicians, stars in the music industry, and by star athletes.  When the President gave his health care address to Congress last Wednesday, Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You lie” when the President said that health care would not be extended to illegal immigrants.  He later apologised privately to the president.  Last week at the Video Music Awards in New York City, Taylor Swift won the award for the best female music video.  While she was giving her acceptance speech, Kanye West jumped up on the stage, took the microphone out of her hands and said “I’m really happy for you, Taylor; I’m going to let you finish…but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!”  Then he handed the mic back to her and walked off stage.  He too later apologised.  Then at the US Open this week, tennis star Serena Williams was called for a foot violation on one of her serves.  Serena lost it and threatened the line judge – saying if she could she would she would take this tennis ball and shove it down her throat (leaving out the expletives). It was a rant that cost Serena the game and matches because she had smashed her racquet earlier in the game and had been given a warning about further outbursts on the court.  One of the commentators said Serena’s rant was beyond anything he had ever heard in tennis before…including John McEnroe’s rants.  Initially Serena refused to apologise for her actions, first brushing it off as a normal part of tennis:  “What for?  Altercations with line judges happen all the time.” And later claiming not to remember exactly what she said.  She has since come forward and apologised to her fans and the tennis community.

Notice that all these outbursts were made by people of status…people of rank, people of greatness. It wasn’t the janitor at the Video Music Awards who got up and took the microphone away from Taylor Swift…it was a music superstar!  It wasn’t a placard-waving protestor who broke in and shouted ‘you lie’ during the President’s speech. It wasn’t some unranked tennis newbie who cursed out the court-line judge.  In all these cases it was people who have achieved greatness who did these things…and I don’t think that is coincidental.  One of the pitfalls of greatness is the tendency to believe that you truly are better than other people.  You are above the social more that the guide others. You are above the rules and regulations that govern the rest of society.  Your beliefs and opinions are supreme and deserve to be heard.  Kanye West believed his opinion about Beyonce’s music video was supreme – better than the opinion of the panel that picked Taylor Swift, so he hijacked the Music Video awards.  Greatness is that intoxicating!

Jesus saw his disciple fighting over who was the greatest…so he sits them down and gives them “the last lecture” – a lesson on true greatness.  It’s not a lesson in avoiding greatness; it’s a lesson in pursuing true greatness.  So Jesus redefines greatness for his followers.  True greatness is not “me first” but “you first”…it’s living a life in service of others.

Hollywood lost a great actor this week with the death of Patrick Swayze.  His battle alone made him a great person – Swayze had pancreatic cancer – a disease that takes most people in 4-6 months and he lived with it for over two years, continuing to work as an actor in the mini-series “The Beast” during that time.  He was so low after his last chemo session that he decided to host a party at his house for the cast of the show and apparently he was running around hugging all of them!  He was an inspiration to many people.

In his last interview with Barbara Walter, Swayze said that the best line he ever got in a show came in the movie “Ghost” where he says: “It’s amazing, Molly.  The love inside, you take it with you.”  He said that when you are dying, it really doesn’t matter how much money you’ve made, or how many material possessions you’ve accumulated in life.  When you come right down to it, it’s the relationships you developed, the love you shared, that really matters.  This is what we carry with us and what outlasts us.

I was asked to give a reference for a minister I know who applied for a new position.  It wasn’t a formal reference, just a passing question by someone on the committee, but sometimes those references are the ones that really count.  I said I had never heard this person preach so couldn’t comment on that, never worked with her on a committee so didn’t know how she worked with others.  I said, “Well, let me tell you this, when Sue was sick with cancer, this minister invited us over and took us out on a day-long cruise on the water.  It was a beautiful sunny day and Sue was feeling pretty well at the time, and I just savoured that day with them. I never forget that act of kindness - it was one of the highlights of that dreary summer actually.” 

It’s love that really matters…not your material possessions, not your wealth, not your social status.  True greatness is found in sharing yourself with others in this life  – even doing small things like a phone call to someone you haven’t seen in church for awhile, a visit to a shut in, a card to someone who is sick, a word of welcome to someone new here today.  These are the things that last…this is the measure of true greatness.

Amen.