17th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 20B

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20B September 20, 2015 This past Wednesday night, as I was leaving church with the kids, I realized that I was very low on gas. I made a mental note to stop at Kroger on the way home, and then I realized over half way down Hoy Road that I had completely zoned out and forgotten to stop. (It had been a long day!). So I ran the kids home and drove back to Kroger (around 7:30 pm). When I got to Kroger, all the pumps had people at them, and there were more people waiting. I got more and more frustrated as I watched people maneuver and cut in front of others to get to the open pumps, and so finally, I went to one of the pumps on the back of the lot and pulled up behind a woman to wait until she was done. As I waited with my window rolled down to enjoy the beautiful night, I watched this woman be completely engrossed in her cell phone as she pumped her gas. The truck in front of her left, and she was still pumping, but I couldn’t get around her car to get to the open pump. So I waited. Finally, the woman’s gas was finished, and she slowly close up her gas tank, never taking her eyes off her phone screen. I waited a couple of more minutes as she stood there looking at her phone and she realized that she had to push the button if she wanted a receipt. (“Please, don’t want a receipt,” I said to myself, but alas it was not to be.) She continued to be consumed with what was on her phone as her receipt printed, and she slowly pulled it and made her way into her car, maneuvering herself into the driver’s seat while not taking her eyes off her phone. (At last, I thought, I will get my gas and get home to eat supper and put my children to bed! I put my car into drive with eager anticipation.) But it was still not to be. The woman turned on her car, and sat there looking at her phone. At this point, my curiosity about this woman and her obsession with her phone had turned into acute irritation. But what to do? I didn’t want to be rude (because I had just talked at church about how I try not to drive like a jerk because I have a St. Columb’s sticker on my van), but this woman had been obliviously blocking two pumps for a while now, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. So I hung my head out my open window and yelled nicely, “Would you please pull your car forward?” I got nothing except curious and startled glances from the people at the other pumps. (Who is this crazy woman in the van trying to talk to other people at the gas pump?!) So finally, I just couldn’t stand it any longer, and I did it. I honked my horn. And what do you think happened? The woman jumped-startled when I honked, and then she put her phone down so that she could have both hands free to make rude gestures at me with in her rear view mirror. Then, FINALLY, she drove off. Well, I was livid! How dare she make rude gestures at me when she had been so self-absorbed that she had been blocking not just one but two pumps while a bunch of other people waited?! I pulled down the row to the first open pump and the gas attendant was walking over to empty the trash can. I said to her, full of my righteous anger, “did you see that woman blocking two pumps while she was on her phone?!” and the gas attendant said to me tiredly with her bag full of trash, “Honey, they all be like that. Every day.” And Jesus said to the disciples as they were arguing over who is the greatest, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” As I stood there in my collar and pumped my gas, I thought about the gas attendant, what she said, what her life must be like having to deal with that level of self-absorption day in and day out. And I realized that, even though she didn’t mean it this way, when she said “They all be like that. Every day.” Her “they” also meant me. And I knew, in that woman I had encountered Jesus, and I was simultaneously chastened and hopeful that I could be better. Because that’s really what is at the heart of the disciples’ argument in today’s gospel. Jesus has, for the second out of three times in Mark, taken himself and his disciples away from the crowds so that he can tell them about his impending death and try to help prepare them for when he’s gone. But they just can’t get it. We see they are so confused and afraid that they cannot even formulate questions for him about what he is trying to teach him. So they try to fill that void of confusion and fear by arguing over who is greatest. Instead of the self-sacrifice and service and courage that Jesus is trying to teach them about, they become fearful, close-minded, and self-absorbed. So Jesus sits down with them (which is the posture that Rabbis would take when teaching), and he tells them: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And then he brings in a child, the lowest of the low in that society, and tells them this is what they must be: vulnerable, powerless, and dependent. I’ve been reading Brene’ Brown’s new book Rising Strong. Brown is a sociologist who is also an Episcopalian, and she has interviewed thousands of people about the human condition and their own life experiences. She studies the concepts of shame and failure, and she has determined that vulnerability is the key characteristic that fosters and nourishes whole-hearted living and human relationships. In her new book that I am reading, Brown writes about the importance of examining our own failures and asking important questions to help us learn from them and also to recast and reclaim those stories for ourselves. Which led me to ask some questions about my encounter at the Kroger gas pumps the other night. Why did I get so angry at the woman on her phone? (Because her self-absorption suggested that she thought her time was more valuable and important than mine.) What could I have done differently so that I would have felt like that encounter was a failure and to not be one of the “theys” in the gas attendant’s life? (Maybe I could have gotten out of my car and gone and knocked on her window and kindly and politely asked her to move instead of honking?) I read a blog post from the spiritual writer Parker Palmer this week, and he quoted a passage from Rainier Maria Rilke (Reiner Maria Reelkay) — from Letters to a Young Poet, that has caught my attention and made me think about the kind of questions that I ask. "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer." We are so like the disciples; when we are afraid or angry or confused, we don’t ask the right questions. We spend our time arguing about the wrong things, things rooted in our insecurity and self-absorption. But Jesus teaches us that the way of discipleship is the way of the cross. It is a way of courage, self-sacrifice, and service. So then let us be courageous. Let us we pay attention to what is really going on in our hearts. Let us try to live generously with ourselves and one another, and let us try to ask the better questions.