Proper 20

Mark 9:30–37 (NIV84)

30 They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31 because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. 33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. 35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” 36 He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

A CULTURE OF RANKING

We live in a culture absolutely obsessed with ranking and competition

If you are a sports fan competition is what its all about

But consider how in our modern context we aren’t content with competitive standings, we also have things called power polls

This is an EXTRA way of ranking we’ve come up with

Then if you turn on ESPN you’ll see them debating who has the hardest schedule, who is the best quarterback right now, how modern teams rank compared to teams from twenty years ago, etc., etc., etc.

Everything ranked, all of the time

Best of Phoenix

Michellin star restaurants

America’s fasting growing churches

RANKED

Rolling Stone just came out with a revised 500 best songs of all time

I’ll save you the click, Respect by Aretha Franklin was #1

But they’ve got Smells Like Teen Spirit, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Hey Ya! in the top ten

How are you going to compare those vastly different pieces of art and say one is BETTER

And WHY? Why can we not just appreciate their uniqueness without placing them in a hierarchy?

I think it’s partly because making judgments gives us the feeling of having a voice

And in a world that so often robs us of that, there is a sense of power in asserting our opinion

But I think the world is like that … robbing us of agency and voice … because we still see life as a competition

The world very much operates according to a darwinistic, survival of the fittest mentality

If our imaginations are framed by the story of scripture we’d argue that the world isn’t supposed to operate this way but the reality is that it does.

It’s a biproduct of humanity being captive to a culpable in the power of Sin, which makes everything a competition for power and drives people against one another unto death

And in a world based on competition, we rank everything to keep the score

And it’s very easy to find our own sense of worth and value through the ranking system

I have THIS title

I went to THIS school

I have THIS much money as evidenced by THIS car

whatever

And on the flip side, it’s very easy to feel de-valued if we aren’t recognized in the ranking system

It’s so engrained in us it shapes our faith if we aren’t intentional about it

Merton

“And interior solitude is not possible for anyone who does not accept his right place in relation to other men. There is no true peace possible for the man who still imagines that some accident of talent or grace or virtue segregates him from other men and places him above them.

“As soon as you begin to take yourself seriously and imagine that your virtues are important because they are yours, you become the prisoner of your own vanity and even your best works will blind and deceive you. Then, in order to defend yourself, you will begin to see sins and faults everywhere in the actions of other men. And the more unreasonable importance you attach to yourself and to your own works, the more you will tend to build up your own idea of yourself by condemning other people. Sometimes virtuous men are also bitter and unhappy, because they have unconsciously come to believe that all their happiness depends on their being more virtuous than others.

In this passage Mark gives us this stark contrast to make a point

Jesus has just been talked about how he is going to give his life and rise again

Simultaneously Jesus is modeling that he is the greatest human (conquering death and all), but also modeling a life that isn’t consumed with asserting rank.

Rather, the greatest human shows us that greatness is service with and for others.

And when he asks what they were talking about during their walk it turns out they entirely missed the point

They were debating which one of them was the greatest

Jesus gives an object lesson by calling a child over

And he says greatness looks like welcoming and serving children

Especially in their day, that certainly wasn’t a path to worldly recognition and power

You couldn’t even have a mommy blog or write a parenting book to become a celebrity

In the next chapter Jesus says that if anyone wants to enter the kingdom they need to not only welcome the children but become like them.

What can we learn?

Now, I would suggest that when Jesus points to children, we need to think of the sort of ideal of a child

Meaning children are human beings too and even the sweetest child has been malformed by our fallen world

So children aren’t always shining examples of righteousness

But there is something about the innocence of childhood that is important

We come into the world with God-designed needs

One of those is the need for secure attachment to others so that we can feel safe

In the best of situations our parents provide this place, where we feel seen and valued and loved

And that creates a home base of sorts where we can go out into the world and explore it and participate in it even if it’s scary and wounding

We can come back to home base and know that we’re seen and valued and loved

But for many, that place of safety never forms

And the world reinforces that in order to be see and valued and loved you have to compete

Not just compete but conquer and dominate

And to do that you have to be strong and defensive

And you can elevate yourself by tearing others down

And so much of what we see in our world is just a toxic expression of this original wound people have of not really feeling seen or valued or loved

And our world is so jacked that we valorize this behavior

Like when we talk about Michael Jordan being overlooked on his high school basketball team and having chip on his shoulder the rest of his life

That story is told in sports all the time. “This guy didn’t get the recognition he thinks he deserves now he’s dedicated his entire life to dominating everyone in everything and rubbing it in their faces. How virtuous. What a winner.”

But imagine the child (if you have kids you know this feeling), who is in his/her content, safe, happy place.

They’ve snuggled up with you and they feel protected a loved and maybe they have a book that adds the feeling of learning and curiosity

And in that moment a child feels no need to dominate anyone or compete

You may see that they react to another kid only because that safe place is threatened

We tend to have a scarcity mindset and believe others being loved means we won’t be

But that ideal place, that place of safety is what we want to rediscover

We may find it to varying degrees with people in our lives, who are also trying to find it for themselves

But we are ultimately meant to find it with God

And when we talk about resting in God, meeting with God, abiding in God, this is what we’re aiming at.

Finding that attachment to the ultimate source of love who knows us and sees us and values us.

And it takes work to cultivate that connection, but that is the Christian life.

And ultimately when we are able to rest there, like TRULY rest, we’ll see our need to compete fade away