A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, October 18, 2009
Mark 10:35-45
If you’ve been paying attention you know that November 3 is election day, and that the most important issues are five questions – referenda – that require a yes or no vote. When you vote you can’t choose a “maybe” or write a long-winded dissertation on your personal convictions. You just mark the box yes or no.
That’s the kind of answer James and John asked of Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson. They wanted him to say “yes” even before they posed the question. It’s a stunt worthy of a six-year old; something like a job-seeker sitting down for the first interview and saying “I deserve top dollar!” Not a good idea. Jesus wouldn’t play.
This is a decisive moment between Jesus and the disciples because it casts sharp focus on how easily we can get sidetracked from our core desire to follow Jesus. More important, this is a tragic moment as we remember what Jesus has been saying to his followers: discipleship is not about power; it’s not about the best and brightest and richest; it’s not about fancy theology and high liturgy and finery.
Discipleship is about a life lived for others. Discipleship is about engaging God’s spirit and presence and then trying to embody that love in relationship to our neighbors. Discipleship is about living with a joyous sense of hope that comes from trusting the love and grace of God.
Jesus is now a few days from his entry into Jerusalem and he certainly sees the cross on the horizon even though the disciples can’t. So Jesus asks them, are you able to be baptized with my baptism and are you able to drink the cup I will soon drink?
In the second half of today’s lesson the other disciples enter the conversation and discover what James and John have been up to. They became angry that some of their trusted companions were positioning and bargaining for a reward. If James and John get dibs on the seats of honor where does that leave the others?
Jesus brings the conflict back into focus, as he reminds all his disciples that they live among the Gentiles, referring to all the non-believers. In that realm, Jesus said, the powerful ones do swing their weight around and show off their position. “Not so among you,” he said to the disciples. “You understand that among you the one who pushes to the front of the line ends up at the rear, and the one who shows humility and a spirit of service is elevated.”
Do we understand that? Here in our fine building with warmth and light and music and safety and fellowship and more than enough, do we remember that none of these signs that the world calls success and security, are signs of true discipleship? How easily we can get off the path.
Our challenge as individuals and as a church is to reach for the greater meaning, the higher calling, and to keep our focus on the two commandments — loving God with our whole being, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Jesus says that’s right and good and holy, while the world tell us that’s foolish.
Still, we all feel the tension between the ways of Christ and the ways of the world. I was talking to a church friend on Friday who remarked how tough things are these days in the business world and how unsettled it feels. “It’s been a bad year,” he said… “but when I get to feeling sorry for myself I just need to look a round for a minute and see lots of people worse off and if that doesn’t work I go volunteer at the Wayside Soup Kitchen.”
We all need to remember that God doesn’t back away in tough times. These are not easy times for any of us, including our church. A bad economy makes everyone cautious: As we you and I pull back in the face of our own challenges, giving declines. As our church membership ages we lose some of our most generous givers. As those who rent space from us feel the pinch, we lose needed income to underwrite our budget. And, yes, as some who are displeased with what they read in the Beacon or hear from the preacher, walk out the door, we who walk in the door and find a home also need to give generously to keep us vibrant and vital as a church.
On this Consecration Sunday as we gather, many of us bring feelings of anxiety and fear about our world, our families, our own lives, our job security and our financial pressures. Let’s be sure we also bring prayers for our church and for each other as we look ahead to our ministries in 2010 and beyond.
In the spirit of today’s Gospel lesson, let’s be brave enough to ask the over-arching question: “what does my church mean to me and how will I be a part of sustaining the mission and ministries that seek to embody God’s love for each of us and our love for our neighbors?”
As the old hymn says it: “‘Are ye able,’ said the Master, ‘to be crucified with me?’‘Yeah’ the sturdy dreamers answered, ‘To the death we follow thee.’
Lord, we are able, our spirits are Thine. Remold them, make us like thee, divine: Thy guiding radiance above us shall be a beacon to God, to love and loyalty.”
Greatness isn’t anyone’s to hand to us. We can’t earn it or demand it, or bargain for it. What we can do is to earnestly desire to walk in the ways of Jesus Christ. What we can do is live what we claim: “no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”
Our challenge is to trust in God’s love and live like we mean it
• “Yes, we are able,” even when everything around us is shifting, and our temptation is to drop anchor and hold on.
• “Yes, we are able,” even when public debates bring out the anger and fear in our communities, and our temptation is to say our church should close its eyes to the world and only talk about spiritual matters.
• “Yes, we are able,” even when the economic downturn makes us anxious and worried about our future individually and collectively, and we’re tempted to pull in and give less.
• “Yes, we are able,” even when we feel we have less than we used to have, and have trouble seeing how blessed we really are.
Jesus said to the disciples there and then: if you think following me is about safety, security, power and greatness, you’ve missed the point entirely. Discipleship is about an amazing and thrilling opportunity to make a profound difference because you know God will equip you and God will sustain you.
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I read recently that the Shona people of Zimbabwe have many names for God. One of them is “Chip-in-di-kure” meaning “the one who turns things upside down.” [Christian Century, 20 October 2009, p. 8]
Sit with that for a moment.
• What if the shaking of the foundations we’re seeing in the world right now is not the forces of chaos challenging the God of stability, but is rather the holy work of this God who can’t abide the status quo?
• What if the economic challenges and the social tensions, and the demands for civil rights aren’t opposed to God, but are rather signs of the God who is always turning things upside down? Wow!
This would suggest God is not trying to keep things as they have always been, but is shaking us up and asking if we’re able to follow!
As author Annie Dillard says if we believe this is the true nature of God, then we should wear crash helmets when we come to church… for here we dare to experience the enormity of this God who is not in the business of shoring up the ways of the world (the Gentiles, as Jesus called them), but in fact is ushering in a new realm – and confronting the carefully structured system by which the world rewards the powerful and comforts the already comfortable!
That’s a scriptural concept we have to consider even if it makes us squirm. “You want to be my followers? If you want to be my true disciples you need accept the cup I drink and the baptism with which I was baptized. Do that and follow me… but positions of honor? That’s God’s decision, not mine.” Rather than positioning ourselves for a ticket to heaven, or stepping on others for a quick trip to the top, Jesus tells us that generosity of spirit is what God asks of us.
This has always been true – in tough times and easy, in flush times and lean. There’s much to make us anxious about our world, our community, and our own lives. And it’s right for us to be concerned about the well-being of our church in anxious times.
But we’ve been here 275 years and lived through many, many chapters. There were times when there was good reason to wonder if the church could survive. Consider 1797, when the church was about 65 years old, and virtually dead – the building empty and idle, no pastor to serve. There had been tensions between two groups called the Old Lights and the New Lights. Some cut their giving and some left to form the Baptist church. But a determined and faithful band re-organized this church in 1801 and moved forward.
Old records show us that a few more times the church had dwindled to just a handful and was on the verge of closing, at least for a while. In the late 1930’s in the darkest hours of the Great Depression, the church was so poor that there was no heating oil and the building couldn’t be used for a time. One of the women’s fellowship groups gave their nickels and dimes to buy oil so Sunday services could be resumed.
There’s a time and a season for everything and through it all God remains faithful.
As we gather on this Consecration Sunday, though the times may confound us,
• we are able to extend our ministry of open doors, open sacraments, and open hearts.
• we are able to offer a ministry of compassionate service to our neighbors and our neighborhood.
• we are able to be a place where each of us can speak the truth as we know it, and humbly acknowledge that none of us knows it all.
• we are able to be a church rooted in the scriptures and particularly in Jesus’ call to follow, to serve, to comfort, to liberate, and to welcome.
And most of all we know that whatever we are able to be and do, it is by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit – centering us, filling us, and equipping us to live our faith boldly in just such times as these.