{"id":20426,"date":"2024-09-17T15:30:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T13:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=20426"},"modified":"2024-11-28T15:34:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T14:34:58","slug":"mark-9-30-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/mark-9-30-37\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark 9.30-37"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 18th<\/sup> Sunday after Pentecost | 22 September 2024 | Mark 9.30-37 | Richard O. Johnson |<\/h3>\n

Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, \u201cThe Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.\u201d But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, \u201cWhat were you arguing about on the way?\u201d But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, \u201cWhoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.\u201d Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, \u201cWhoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.\u201d (Mark 9.30-37 NRSV)<\/em><\/p>\n

Have you heard the story of the Sunday School teacher who asked her class of 5-year-olds, \u201cDoes anyone know what today is?\u201d One little girl eagerly raised her hand. \u201cYes!\u201d she declared, \u201cIt\u2019s Palm Sunday!\u201d The teacher smiled and said, \u201cThat\u2019s right, Sarah. Very good.\u201d And little Sarah beamed. \u201cNow,\u201d said the teacher, \u201cDoes anybody know what next Sunday is?\u201d Again Sarah\u2019s hand shot up. \u201cIt\u2019s Easter!\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right!\u201d said the teacher. \u201cAnd why do we celebrate Easter?\u201d A third time, Sarah\u2019s hand was waving. \u201cI know!\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s because Jesus rose from the grave.\u201d But before the teacher could congratulate her, she went on, \u201cBut if he sees his shadow, he has to go back in for seven weeks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ya gotta love her! But Sarah had misunderstood things a bit; and that\u2019s not just a characteristic of 4-year-olds. In this morning\u2019s gospel lesson, we see it again among the disciples. Jesus has been teaching them: \u201cThe Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.\u201d But Mark says the disciples \u201cdid not understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the depth of their misunderstanding becomes clear in the next moment when we find that as they walked along to Capernaum, the disciples were having a private discussion about which of them was the greatest! Can you imagine that? Jesus has been talking about his own impending death, and the disciples respond by discussing their relative status and importance! I\u2019ll take little Sarah\u2019s kind of misunderstanding any day!<\/p>\n

What would we see and hear?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Mark, this story introduces a section of the gospel that considers what it means to follow Jesus Christ. It is an important part of Mark\u2019s gospel for us, because we are so often like Jesus\u2019 disciples\u2014so slow to understand the things he tries to teach us. If we were to join the disciples in Capernaum and just observe for a few moments, what would we see and hear?<\/p>\n

First, we would see Jesus sit down. That\u2019s an important detail that Mark gives us there in verse 35, because in the Jewish tradition, the rabbi sits down to teach, while his students stand around him in respect, listening to him. When Jesus sits down, it is a clue that he is about to start teaching something very important.<\/p>\n

Then we hear him call the twelve. Now that\u2019s an odd phrase. It seems like the twelve were there already, so why does Mark say that he \u201ccalled\u201d them? I believe it suggests again the importance of what he is about to say\u2014and it emphasizes that he is talking to the disciples<\/em>, to them<\/em>. And, of course, that means he is talking to us, for we are disciples as well. It\u2019s sort of like what happens in a family when a parent makes some general comments about cleaning the house; it\u2019s easy enough to ignore or not hear, until the parent gets specific: \u201cBilly, you pick up your room!\u201d Here Jesus is getting quite specific with us: \u201cYou members of Peace Lutheran Church, I\u2019m talking to you now.\u201d It makes it a little harder to ignore, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Then he says, \u201cWhoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.\u201d Well, that\u2019s a bit obscure! Whatever can he mean? That\u2019s exactly the question he reads on the disciples\u2019 faces\u2014and perhaps on our faces! So he does what any good teacher would do. He gives an object lesson, an illustration. \u201cHe took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, \u2018Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The first children\u2019s sermon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe we could call this Christianity\u2019s first children\u2019s sermon. The description works in a couple of different ways. First, obviously, because he uses an actual child as the content and focus of his message. But it also works because he does just what modern pastors try to do with a children\u2019s sermon\u2014he uses an illustration to help make a point in a way that will be remembered. What do you suppose is his point here, with this child in his arms?<\/p>\n

Often, I think, we read this story as a sort of sentimental little tale. How many paintings or stained-glass windows have you seen with Jesus surrounded by the little cherubic children, like some kind of Mr. Rogers in a beard and robe? But I think there\u2019s a much deeper meaning to the story.<\/p>\n

Remember that this children\u2019s sermon of his comes in the context of the disciples talking about who is the greatest. Now in the ancient world, children were on the absolute bottom of the social heap. This is hard for us to grasp, because we live in a culture where children have greater status than ever before in history. But in the ancient world, children were regarded as little more than property. One reason, of course, is that infant and child mortality was very high, so parents often cultivated a kind of emotional detachment from their children that would seem incredible to us today.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite interesting to read about the ethical stances took by the early Christians. One of them was a strong opposition to a very common practice in the Roman Empire. In that culture, if a woman bore an unwanted child, the child would simply be left out in the wild to die of exposure. The early Christians found this abhorrent, and often would take these children in and raise them as their own.<\/p>\n

Welcoming those the world counts as nothing<\/strong><\/p>\n

The point is that here in this story we have yet another example of Jesus teaching his disciples that servanthood, discipleship, being a follower of Jesus, means welcoming and loving those whom the world counts as nothing. He hears them talking about greatness, and he tells them that Kingdom greatness, greatness in God\u2019s kingdom, is quite different. It means welcoming children\u2014not because they are cherubic or cute or lovable, but precisely because they are those whom the world counts as unimportant. When you play with a child, you aren\u2019t climbing the social ladder. When you hang around with children, you aren\u2019t making money or getting ahead in the world. You\u2019re focusing instead on something every different: you\u2019re learning that God is found among the lowly and unimportant of the world.<\/p>\n

A congregation I served was a regular Wednesday night host for a \u201cfloating homeless shelter\u201d in the community, a program that bused the unhoused to a different church each night to provide dinner and a warm and safe place to sleep. Once at the program\u2019s monthly board meeting there was a discussion about whether that week\u2019s Saturday night\u2019s ministry would have to be canceled because there was no church willing to host the homeless guests. Most churches, it seemed, were willing enough to take other nights of the week, but there were no regular sites available on Saturday nights because the churches were afraid that their facility would not be shipshape by the time people start showing up for church on Sunday morning. So the board had to scramble every week to find some place for the homeless folks on Saturday night, and that particular week they just didn\u2019t have a place to go. Of course I said, \u201cBring them to us. We\u2019ll be happy to have them.\u201d After all, God is found among the lowly and unimportant of the world. If the bathrooms aren\u2019t quite clean some Sunday morning, or if the Fellowship Center has a little lingering body odor, nobody will die from it. It is the lowly and unimportant that we are here to serve.<\/p>\n

I read a story about a Lutheran congregation in Colorado. There was a couple in this church who had a wonderful ministry of taking into their homes foster children who had Downs Syndrome. While these children lived in their home, they got them fully involved in the life of this congregation. So the congregation\u2019s children\u2019s choir generally had two or three or four Downs Syndrome kids. They were not able to sing the way we like children\u2019s choirs to sing. They were loud, off pitch, inarticulate. There were some families in that suburban church who had taken their children out of the children\u2019s choir because they thought the Downs Syndrome kids were too disruptive, and it made their children uncomfortable. But the pastor said that the congregation as a whole, after some initial discomfort, had learned to love the sound of that children\u2019s choir. \u201cThey learned,\u201d he said, \u201cto listen with different ears.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Jesus means! The disciples have been having a very worldly discussion about what and who is great. They\u2019ve listened to their culture, their own ambition, their own wants, their own comfort, and they\u2019ve got quite a sense of value! Jesus asks them to listen with different ears, to smell with different noses, to see with different eyes, to think in a different way about what\u2019s important. He makes his point by suggesting that they welcome children\u2014just for the heck of it! Just because in that world, nobody else cared about children! Welcome these little ones, he says, not for their sake, but for your sake. It\u2019s spiritually healthy, he says. It turns you in the right direction! It helps you listen with different ears! It leads you to true greatness\u2014not in the world\u2019s eyes, perhaps, but in the Kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u00a9 The Rev. Richard O. Johnson (retired)<\/p>\n

Webster, NY<\/p>\n

roj@nccn.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 18th Sunday after Pentecost | 22 September 2024 | Mark 9.30-37 | Richard O. Johnson | Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, \u201cThe Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,538,157,853,108,110,219,349,3,109,285],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-20426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markus","category-17-so-n-trinitatis","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-9-chapter-9-markus","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten","category-richard-o-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20427,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20426\/revisions\/20427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20426"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=20426"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=20426"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=20426"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=20426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}