18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20B

18th Sunday after Pentecost- Proper 20B September 23, 2018 What does it mean to be the greatest? This question resonates across the centuries from the disciples’ quarreling to our own day. From a pop song called The Greatest (which I threatened some of our youth that I would rap in the sermon today), to the popular movie The Greatest Showman to the political slogan “Make America Great Again,” our culture seems to be obsessed with greatness. So, this gospel reading for today is really difficult for us because we know, deep down in our hearts, that just like the disciples, we don’t really get it either. 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. 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. Jesus is telling his disciples and us that as his followers, we must look out for the nobodies; we must be the nobodies. This is the counter-cultural definition, both then and now, of true greatness. It’s interesting because I think that a desire for greatness is often a reaction to our being in a position of vulnerability, of insecurity, of suffering. (All the examples from above came out of this place—the song The Greatest comes out of failure in love; the movie The Greatest Showman comes out of childhood poverty and insecurity; MAGA…a desire for employment, stability, and working together to meet the American dream…) It seems to be our default as humans to seek to be the greatest, especially when we are feeling vulnerable. Last week, I read an older blog post by the Quaker teacher and writer Parker Palmer titled Heartbreak, Violence, and Hope for New Life. Palmer starts his blog post by sharing the following Hasidic story: “A disciple asks the rabbi: “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rabbi answers: “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.” Palmer goes on to talk about how violence is what happens when we do not allow ourselves to feel suffering. When we try to avoid pain, we fall into practices that do violence to ourselves and to each other. Palmer writes, “Sometimes we try to numb the pain of suffering in ways that dishonor our souls. We turn to noise and frenzy, nonstop work, or substance abuse as anesthetics that only deepen our suffering. Sometimes we visit violence upon others, as if causing them pain would mitigate our own. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and contempt for the poor are among the cruel outcomes of this demented strategy.”i We see this happening in the gospel reading for today. The disciples are anxious and confused and upset as Jesus is trying to tell them about his impending death. And rather than dealing with their own pain, they turn to arguing about which one of them is the greatest. And we do the same thing, don’t we? But it isn’t as easy to identify in our own lives, in our church, in our greater common life, even in our country. A few years ago, I had an encounter that helped me identify some of these issues in my own life. It’s an important reminder for me today. I was driving home from Wednesday night programming one evening with the kids when I discovered that my van’s gas tank was completely empty. Since I had already passed the gas station, I dropped the kids off at home and went back out for gas. This was around 7:30 at the end of a long day. When I got to the gas station, 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 that night about how I try not to drive like a jerk because I have a church 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 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 where 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.” 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 someone that Jesus meant when he said we are called to see the nobodies and to care for them, and I was simultaneously chastened and hopeful that I could be better, could do better. I had been so full of my own self-importance that I hadn’t even really seen this gas attendant who had to deal with people puffed up on our own greatness, people like me and the cell-phone obsessed woman day in and day out.ii How are you called to see the nobodies in your life and world? How are you called to care for them? How are we, as followers of Jesus, called to be nobodies in a culture obsessed with greatness? i. Palmer, Parker. Heartbreak, Violence, and Hope for New Life. April 15, 2015 https://onbeing.org/blog/heartbreak-violence-and-hope-for-new-life/ ii. This story was first used in my Proper 20B 2015 sermon.