Sermon for Proper 24B

Proper 24B
October 18, 2009
In our gospel reading for today, the writer of Mark tackles the theme of greatness. In a part we did not hear today (or last week), Jesus and his disciples are on the way to Jerusalem and Jesus predicts his death and resurrection for the third time. Immediately after that, James and John ask Jesus to grant their request to each sit in places of honor and influence beside him; a fight breaks out among the disciples, and Jesus calls them all together and teaches them that the way of the world in measuring power and greatness has no place among them. He talks about how, in the world, people in authority lord it over others…. “but it is not so among you,” he says.
“It’s not so among you.” I find it hard to understand what Jesus means by this. He has been talking about his death and resurrection; he’s offered the disciples a chance to participate in his resurrection; and they’re worried about the seating chart in heaven—who’s going to sit where and how much influence they’re going to have. How can Jesus say to them, “It is not so among you” when they’ve offered only evidence to the contrary?
I went to clergy conference this past week, and the bishop shared with us the sobering fact that because of a combination of different factors—the economy, the results of the stock market in 2008, and the diocesan commitment to pay the interest on the properties purchased by churches on the Coast who have relocated but not sold their other properties—because of all these factors, the diocesan budget for 2010 will have to be cut by $300,000— which will be just under 15%. However, the bishop is using the process of cutting the budget as a time to revision who we are as a diocese and to examine how what have been doing and are doing now fits into who we want to be in the future and how we live out our mission of “One Church: United in Mission. Inviting. Transforming. And Reconciling.” At Clergy conference, he invited all the clergy to enter into this exciting and creative process with him. As we broke into small groups to begin to do this, I became utterly disgusted as we all fought and squabbled over whose agenda and ideas were more important. And what could have been an invitation to participate in resurrection, through listening, prayer, and discernment, turned into a theological and doctrinal contest of one-upmanship.
In the midst of that I heard the words of Jesus echoing across our cacophony…“But it is not so among you..”
Then I came back home for yesterday’s funeral, and I found the truth in Jesus words. I found a love story: a husband and wife who were married for 60 years, and when the wife’s health failed, the husband showered service and care and devotion upon her until her last moments. I found a parish who pulled together to offer service—food, comfort, and a well-planned and well-executed funeral—to the family. I found people who were not worried with who was doing what job but who were just concerned with getting it done and doing it well and who poured themselves out in love and service to do that. And it was remarkable, and it was the physical embodiment of the gospel for me in a time when I sorely needed the reminder that Jesus’s words for his disciples and for us do ring true: “It is not so among you.”
At clergy conference, our speaker, Bishop Jeffrey Lee of Chicago, told us a story of how a Christian priest went to a Zen Master for a retreat. It was the practice of the Zen Master to offer a mantra for each person on retreat, and the Master said to the priest, “I have been reading of your Jesus, of his story, of his resurrection. Your mantra for this week is “show me your resurrection.”
Jesus invites us to participate in his resurrection by loving service to one another and to those outside of our doors. May we remember that the way of the world does not have to be our way. May we live into the mark of the cross made on our foreheads at our baptism and Jesus’s prophetic words for us at our best: “it is not so among you.” May we unflinchingly walk the way of the cross, through pain, suffering, sacrifice, and death, into resurrection. And may we have the grace and the courage to show forth our resurrection in every moment of our lives and our life together.