Getting in Line

First Presbyterian Church Memphis, TN

September 20, 2015

Psalm 1

Mark 9:30-37 

We’ve had long periods without much rain this summer and fall. So I’ve had to water a group of hostas in my front yard to keep them alive. I carry the watering jug from the back yard every other day or so and I give huge gulps of water to the green leafy plants. The plants appreciate my concern and my efforts, I am certain. But a colony of ants lives under the rocks and among the roots of one of those hostas. When I water the plant, the ants come scurrying up out of the ground by the thousands, maybe even by the millions, carrying ant eggs as fast as they can go—running for dry ground. I used to expect those ants to move, find a new place to set up their colony, to hatch their eggs. But they seem intent on staying right where they are. I water. They scurry. Happens over and over again.

I wonder who those ants think I am and what reason they imagine for this random flooding that happens to their home and family. I wonder if they go to church on Sunday morning and talk about whose sin is causing the colony to suffer so.

We are not so different than the ants. There is so much we do not know and cannot understand. One way to improve our lot in life is to acknowledge our limitations, just admit what we do not know. I like to think that I am different than the ants in that surely- by now- I would have tried something new.  If the floods kept coming, surely I would find a new place to live, a new place to be me. I like to think that. But I am deeply imbedded in this world and its ways. We get stuck in our patterns, our biases and our perception of reality.

The first Psalm, this Psalm we have heard this morning, is an introduction to all one hundred and fifty Psalms. Those who do not follow the advice of the wicked nor take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers will be like trees planted by the water. Their leaves will not dry up or wither. They will be fruitful. And, in all that they do, they will prosper.

We are tempted to find comfort in the simplicity of this Psalm. Those who do right will be rewarded. Those people who do wrong will be blown way, washed away, like chaff. Yet, you and I know faithful people, people who have lived exemplary lives, kept the faith, and yet are not prospering in the ways that we imagine prosperity. Just by reading the book of Job we can dislodge the notion that being a good friend to God will serve as protection from illness, grief and pain.

How do we get it right? Living faithfully and trying to understand what God wants and needs from us is so complicated. I can see why so many people give up. If we dare to ask questions, the answers are not always clear or simple.

I was recently with a young woman, Andrea, who was doing her best to figure out what it means to be faithful, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. She was going through some tough times; finances were the focus of her struggle. The ends were not meeting; her income didn’t stretch all the way through a long month of days and basic needs.

Andrea attends a church regularly and she listens to preachers on the radio. She was raised in a conservative and evangelistic congregation. She was raised to trust preachers, to believe that they are set apart by being specially anointed. Andrea was raised to believe and respect the words that come from the preacher’s mouth. The radio preacher was fired up, passionate about prosperity and how Jesus intends to give back more than what we, as disciples, can give to him. “Give!” the voice on the radio insisted. “Give everything you’ve got to this radio ministry. Give to help spread the Word of God on this program! And be amazed by what God returns to you!”

Andrea wrote a check to that minister and his radio program. She gave her rent money for the month and she waited for God’s return. She was evicted, lost her apartment. And she now lives with her parents, sleeps on their couch in the den. And she is nervous about asking questions like, “What does it mean to prosper in the Kingdom of God? What does it get a person to be faithful, trusting and true?”

In Mark’s gospel today we connect with Jesus and his disciples in Galilee. Jesus wants privacy, a chance to be with the disciples in his inner circle for some deep truth, difficult lessons. He tells them that he will be betrayed into human hands, killed, buried and then he will rise from the dead and return to life.

Not one of the disciples asked a question. Not one of them is recorded as saying, “But if you are the Messiah, aren’t you supposed to be a super hero? Didn’t you come to save us, Lord? To set us free from Roman rule and all forms of oppression?” No. They went on with what they were doing: lining up at Starbucks to pay big bucks for a cup of coffee, or whatever it was that the disciples did back then to distract themselves from the rough realities of life around them.

The disciples didn’t ask Jesus about this deep and painful lesson he was teaching them because it did not fit into their cherished narrative. They already knew the story: The Messiah would come and make things better by knocking down the bad guys and eliminating suffering. I imagine they hoped and planned to be on the front lines and on the front pages of the newspapers when the world got turned upside down by Jesus.

We want to believe that life has order and meaning. We want to know how to pass the course. “Uh, professor,” a hand goes up in the middle of the classroom while the professor is standing up front lecturing. “Will that be on the test?” That’s what we want to know. Will it benefit me to learn this lesson? How will I be rewarded? Because if learning this lesson will not move me closer to the front of the line, then I see no point in paying attention.

There’s so much in this world that we do not understand, far too much that doesn’t work out the way we planned or the way we hoped it would. I don’t know what benefit, if any, Andrea received from her generous gift to the radio minister. But I am sure that the radio minister was glad to receive her check, glad for her contribution.

We understand the radio minister. I’ll be honest. It is easier for me to understand the radio minister than it is for me to understand what on earth made Andrea give away her rent money. I know what it is like to work to earn a profit. I even know what it is like to take advantage of other people’s weaknesses in order to increase my profit. For a while I worked as the RN in a weight-loss clinic. I was the designated “medically supervised” part of that clinic and the weight loss diets of our clients. It was my job to run EKG’s, record weekly weights and to counsel clients about their progress. The more of our brand-name products I sold to clients during those counseling sessions, the more profit I made. So I did my best to convince men and women that they would look better, be happier and lose weight faster if they purchased more of our products. Lettuce, spinach and carrots from the grocery produce section just would not work the same way. I went to work to make money and that was how the organization worked.

Maybe you have done things on the job that clearly benefited the bottom line. If so, you can understand the radio minister. We might not want to recognize him when we look at ourselves in the mirror, but we understand him. It’s the way the world operates. To get to the front of the line, we have to sell more, stand out, have our brand recognized around the world and make more profit.

Let’s return to our text in the Gospel of Mark. We follow Jesus and his disciples into Capernaum. Here, Jesus asks a question. ‘What were you arguing about on the way here?” The disciples were reluctant to tell him the answer. They were arguing about who was the greatest among them.

We understand this. Competiveness runs through our veins right beside the red blood cells. We want the best, the newest, the most. We want our children to be at the top of the line in the best schools. We want to think we have earned God’s favor and that we deserve all the conveniences and things we own. In so many ways, you and I are up toward the front of the line—by the world’s standards. We have power to make choices in our life. So many people just wish they had a clean glass of water to drink.

The best we can do is be brave enough to ask questions like: What is it costing this nation to hang on to so much wealth while so much of the world goes without food and clean water? What would Memphis gain if each of the seven thousand churches adopted a person as they were released from the county jail, really supported that person and their family until they got on their feet? What rewards would our city gain if our churches united in a singular, concentrated effort to erase racism and its cancerous toll on human life here? Where would this congregation be in a year if you focused all your prayers, time and talent on increasing the minimum wage to a living wage in Memphis?

We are called upon to sit down and consider what Jesus says to his disciples about the line-up in the Kingdom of God. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” What does it mean to be servant of all?

I urge you never to underestimate the value of a good question. Don’t be afraid to ask them. Maybe we could all agree to live with this question in the coming week…What does it mean to be servant of all?

There’s so much mystery to God. God says to the prophet Isaiah, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Jesus knew how challenged his disciples were by the notion of the last being first and the first being last, so he took a small child into his lap as an illustration. A child. Open-minded. Curious. Needy. Creative. Trusting. “Be like this,” Jesus said.

I am thinking about Andrea and that radio minister. It would be so easy for us to scoff at the hypocrisy of that radio minister and to write him off as a fraud. And Andrea. It would be just as easy for us to dismiss her as foolish.

But then I have to remind myself …there is something to be learned from everyone and everything in the Kingdom. If we, as disciples of Jesus, did more learning and less judging, we might be more help to God in ushering in the Kingdom.

Amen