Humble Tasks As Though They Were Great And Noble

Sermon-year b-Proper 20, Sept. 20, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I knew when I was 19 that I would be a priest some day. It was just so obvious, so clear to me. But I also knew that I wasn’t ready yet. So when I graduated from college, I decided that I needed to do some things to help me prepare, or as I look back on it now, to grow up. I thought I would find humble work and learn about ministry. So I decided to become a hospital orderly. I cleaned up after people, fed people, helped them put their clothes on, brushed their teeth, changed catheters-you name it. I worked20with people who were paralyzed, many from the neck down, and they were totally dependent on me for everything. I figured that I was learning about being a servant. One day, after doing this for 5 years I was talking to one of the patients who was a quadriplegic, explaining why I was doing what I was doing. I told him that I wanted to learn about servanthood and being humble. He told me that If I really wanted to learn about humility, I should become a patient.
If this morning’s gospel sounds familiar it should. We heard a variation on it last week. We will hear it again in a different form in about a month. I told you that Mark, the gospel writer, has Jesus starting a new direction after chapter 8. He continues to heal, to cast out demons, but his real teaching, about who he is and what he is about, has begun. Three times Jesus will tell the disciples that he, the messiah, will have to suffer and die. If they seem a little thick, it’s because Mark the writer does this on purpose. He was writing, 40 years after Jesus’ resurrection, and new Christians STILL weren’t getting it. So Mark wants everyone to see how difficult it is to understand. Jesus 3 times in 3 different chapters gets VERY SPECIFIC with his closest followers about what it means to be one of his. Last week’s gospel, Jesus told them that in order to save their life, they had to lose it. This week, he teaches
"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all " In a month Oct. 18, in chapter 10, Jesus will tell his followers that “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”
To save our lives we must lose them, the first must be last, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant…
Do you have any doubts about what all this means?
There is an old Sunday School story that has floated around for years. A teacher was trying to explain these gospel stories. So she organized a race, and explained that the winner of the race would win all sorts of prizes. Then she lined the kids up and had them run around the church. When the last child crossed the finish line, all the adults who were watching went wild. They put a blue ribbon on the last place finisher, gave her candy, and had her come up and stand on a platform. All the other children stared in amazement. So then the teacher lined the kids up a second time, told them the stories about the last being first, being servant of all, and told them that the winner would again be honored greatly. The kids all stood there for a long time, no one wanting to actually get ahead. Finally they all joined hands and walked around the church together in a line so everyone finished at exactly the same moment.
Jesus is trying to get through to his friends that to save their life, they must lose it, that the first must be last, and that they were called to be servants of all. Each time, after he teaches this, there is an example in the gospel of someone who is disabled, helpless, or powerless coming to Jesus. Today it’s a child. It’s not because children were more precious, in Jesus’ day. If anything they were much further down on the value scale. Jesus wanted to teach his disciples what an upside down kingdom was like-where those who were the greatest weren’t those with the most power or status or abilities.
Every once in a while you’ll see me serve as an acolyte. It always happens when the person scheduled that day doesn’t show up, and at the last second we can’t find a youth who is prepared, with vestments, and is willing. Let me tell you, lots of adults always come up to me and say, “why didn’t you ask me to serve.” And I always say the same thing, “you don’t know how to do it. The kids make it look easy, but it really does take some skill. And I didn’t want you to be embarrassed.” When we were in the UP 25 years ago we didn’t have any children in one of the churches, an a woman who was 65 came up to me and asked if she could be an acolyte. I said, “Lorraine, why?” And she said that when she was young girls weren’t allowed to carry the cross in church and she always wanted to.
We are a church, and that mea ns that in the world we witness to a different kind of power, the authority of servanthood. The disciples are fighting over who would be the greatest. Instead Jesus wants them to argue over who can be the servant of all. My experience has been, at least in this church, that most of the time, people will work very very hard to be the best servant. I have seen people here fight in order to be the one to do an unpleasant task (I have also seen people back away from unpleasant tasks, but that’s for another sermon). For the most part, I think most of you get it. It is not painless being a Christian. It is not easy being a servant. But I think we realize that that is what Jesus is asking us to do.
Helen Keller, who could not hear, speak, or see once wrote“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”
Three times in 3 consecutive chapters, Jesus will tell his followers, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.", the first must be last.
It’s a simple teaching-but it is not easy. Ronald Reagan used to keep a sign on his desk that read: "It's surprising what you can accomplish when no one is concerned about who gets the credit ".
We have two choices in life, to be great in the sight of others, or to be great in the sight of God. The world’s criteria is clear, but in the kingdom it is simple- Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
9:30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;
9:31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The 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."
9:32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
9:33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?"
9:34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.
9:35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
9:36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,
9:37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."