Picturing Greatness

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 20, Year B
September 19, 2021
 
I follow a feed called the Good News Movement on Instagram.  It is not overtly religious, rather, it features images and stories of ordinary people, going about their lives, and doing extraordinarily good things.  It a breath of fresh air from social media.  As September is National Suicide Prevention Month, I received a picture in my Good News feed that grabbed my heart and soul.
 
The photo shows a man, standing outside a bridge railing over a highway.  He is facing inward balanced on a precarious ledge.  According to the story, he intended to end his life, but when he climbed over the railing, several passersby jumped into action, reaching out and put their arms around him.  One has his chest, one his waist, and another has his legs, all of them in a hugging embrace.  There is even a small length of rope securing him to the railing.  These people were complete strangers to one another, but all of them huddled together, staying with the man, and holding him close, comforting him in his despair.  They told him he was loved.  They told they would stay with him as long as he needed them.  Wherever they needed to be on that bustling work day had to wait.  All of them remained there for two hours, holding a stranger, saving a life.  This is greatness.
 
Speaking of greatness, on the way back to Capernaum, winding up a long road trip with Jesus, the disciples had been debating amongst themselves.  They were talking about what roles they would get in the new regime, after Jesus takes out the Romans and becomes King of Israel.  James wanted to be Chief of Staff, John, Secretary of State, and Peter, Director of Communications.  Ok, that may be a stretch, but we get the idea.  They are jockeying for position, extolling their own merits, seeking fame and fortune.
 
Even though Jesus repeats himself, telling them that his being the Messiah is not what they envision, they are hard headed, and a little dense.  They are not about this business of suffering even unto death, they are into rising: rising up and taking charge.   That is what they believe makes for greatness.
 
It is hard to blame the disciples.  What they see is the powerful are the rich and well-armed Romans.  The powerful are the elite Scribes and Pharisees luxuriating in fine robes, well financed through the temple taxes and kickbacks from the sale of sacrificial animals.   In their experience, blessings of health, wealth and security come from power and power is what makes greatness.
 
It may be easy for us to think of the disciples as dupes.  Mark sets them up for criticism in just about every encounter with Jesus.  And yet, what kind of Messiah do we expect Jesus to be?  Do we bargain convenient good works for blessings?  Are we more than a little impressed with wealth and celebrity?  Might we believe the following “our” messiah makes us better than all those godless and unrepentant secular folks?  We might think that if we were in charge, we would fix them for sure.
 
There is a great song all about this by the Who, Won’t get fooled again that puts it this way:
 
We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song…
And I get on my knees and pray, we won’t get fooled again
 
And the last line is this:  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.  Yeah.
 
At the dinner table back in Capernaum, Jesus asks the disciples what they had been arguing about on the road.  They do not answer as they do not want another fiery lecture on dying to self in order to rise in glory.  Being Jesus, we must believe that he knows all about their conversations and their will to power, and ours too.
 
Jesus, then, takes a child onto his lap.  And as the text says, he put it among them.  It?  This tells us about what they thought of children.  Likely this child was running around with lots of other children, scruffy, snotty, and raggedy.  Child mortality was staggering.  They were the poorest of the poor, living precariously, only of value when they grew up to work and contribute.  But not for Jesus, he wraps his arms around this squirmy little girl, holding her, saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  In that moment, Jesus shows that he will break the cycle.  His power is not material, it comes through sacrifice.  His way is not about domination, his blessings come from love, not stuff.
 
I would love to say that the disciples got it once and for all.  I would love to say that all humanity immediately followed Jesus’ way.  I would love to say the human will to power flipped over to become the will to service and self-emptying love.   The disciples did not get it, at least not until Easter happened to them.  We don’t get it until, in moments of clarity and grace, we give up on the old boss or the new boss, and follow the real boss.
 
Jesus wraps his arms around a child to change the picture of power and blessing.  At a moment of clarity and grace, a bunch of perfect strangers, on a typical work day, put their arms around a fellow child of God with saving him with power and blessing.  They were not going to let go.  Whatever despair or pain or grief or loss we know, Jesus tells us that God is there.  He is there as God in all of us too.  We are here because we need that Good News in our feed.  We need to see real pictures of greatness to lose ourselves in love and save our lives.