Wishing to be great?

by The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

This sermon is based on Mark 10:35-45.

Ah, the Zebedee brothers!  So close to Jesus.  And yet so far away.  These two, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were among those first called to be Jesus’ disciples.  Looking back to chapter one, we remember these two brothers were quick to leave their father standing in their fishing boat so they could follow Jesus.  They have now been with Jesus quite a while.  And now in the passage we read today we see just how far away from him they are in understanding who he is and how they might follow him, what true discipleship entails.  

By this point the disciples have been told three different times that Jesus will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, they will condemn him to death, they will kill him and after three days he will rise again. And the first thing out of the mouths of the Zebedee boys after Jesus has repeated this scenario of his suffering and death is, “Jesus, we want you to do whatever we ask you to do.”  “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one on your left, in your glory,”  which is to have asked for a place of extreme honor.  Jesus simply says, “You don’t know what you’re asking.  Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”  And then the other disciples are angry with the Zebedee brothers, perhaps because they are embarrassed but more likely they don’t want James and John to get ahead of them in rank or position, they don’t want them to hold more power or have more respect than they.

What is wrong with this picture? Where and how have the disciples failed to understand Jesus’ message? When did their heads and hearts get so misaligned? They certainly seem to have started out with the best intentions, the best of motivations-following Jesus!  Something seemed to be clogging their spiritual arteries.

“Donald Meichenbaum, one of the American Psychologist’s ten most influential psychotherapists, tells of the time that his car was struck by lightning while he was driving.  Once he was safe at home, Meichenbaum began to share his ordeal with his teenage son, expecting at least some degree of sympathy. Instead his son interrupted, ‘Dad, let’s go buy a lottery ticket.  They say the chances of being hit by lightning are like the chances of winning the lottery.’” Do we see a connection between the self-absorption of this young teenager and the self-absorption of James and John? A connection between this teenager’s inability to get past his own individual interests and these disciples whose vision is so limited?   And what about ourselves?  Do we possibly recognize a tiny seed or maybe even an overgrown root system of self-absorption in our own lives at times?

It is difficult to have pure motives all the time.  In fact, it is impossible to have pure motives all the time.  It is part of the human condition to have competing motives in our actions.  We may start out in a particular direction with a good enough, perhaps even Godly, motive, like the Zebedee brothers, and if we are honest and reflective with ourselves, we may see that quickly other motives begin to creep in, motives of greed or self aggrandizement or self security, motives of power or position, status, vanity or ambition.  So how do we move away from self-absorption, move away from acting on selfish motives and move in the direction of the divine?  Jesus’ answer was a reversal from what the disciples thought was the way.  Maybe Jesus’ answer is a reversal from what we, at times, think is the way as well.  Maybe Jesus had more in mind for these disciples of his.  Maybe Jesus has more in mind for us, as well.

Jesus was offering an alternative community, the kingdom of God, where a ruler is not a tyrant but a servant leader, where the goal is to serve and not to be served, where the first must be last.  This alternative community, the kingdom of God would be the vehicle for transformation and the way to wholeness. “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”  It is difficult to say exactly when the truth of the message dawned on the disciples.  Maybe at this point in their journey.  Maybe not. They do seem to have struggled with Jesus’ message right up until the end.  But even though they strayed from Jesus when he needed them most, Jesus did not forsake them; Jesus stayed with them even in their weakness. Indeed he gave his life, he gave everything he had for a ransom for all - for the disciples, for the weak, for the strong, for the entire world.  Jesus’ sacrifice of his life was the ultimate paradigm for servant leadership and the ultimate act of love.  And in the end these same disciples gave of themselves; they were able to carry their own crosses and to love through serving others.  Ultimately they were transformed into their higher selves and were part of the unfolding kingdom.

If any of you saw the second presidential debate this week, you may have noticed an incredible verbal struggle at times, for both of the candidates and the moderator, to come out on top.  At several points all three were talking over one another in their efforts to gain control of the debate.  Comedy or tragedy, you can decide.  It would be easy to picture them literally stepping on top of each other in a big heap to see who would come out on top.  It was a fine reminder for us to search for a deeper truth, a reminder to pin our hopes of salvation on something that can bear the weight of our trust and hope, which is God alone.  None of us really know the motivations of our political leaders but as we move closer to the election, I wonder if we can consider the true test of leadership, that of a servant’s heart.  Can we take an honest look at our own motives for why we do the things we do and can we readjust our actions to reflect our call to serve others?

The Zebedee brothers wanted to be great, and they eventually found greatness in their ability to serve others.  The same is true for us.  When we serve others in love we release that self-absorption and a better self emerges. When we serve others in love, the kingdom of God unfolds.  We all have the capacity to serve, every single one of us, whether it is in sharing our material resources, doing physical works, praying or even simply sharing a kind word.  When we serve others we move toward wholeness because when we serve others we simply give what God has given us and we become more of who God intends us to be. So serve with love.   Let God do great things through you!   Amen.

MONEY!

by The Rev. Dr. John D. Lane

This sermon is based on Mark 10:17-22. An audio version of this sermon is available here.

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Yes, folks, today’s gospel is about money. Coincidentally, this is the time of year when people complain, “I go to church and all they talk about is money.” Jesus talked about money and possessions in something like 38% of his teaching. So preachers, if they are to be true to the gospel, talk a lot about money. Blame Jesus. He can take it.

But aren’t we all reluctant to talk about money? Even to raise the subject publicly seems tacky. A psychoanalyst recalls a patient he had been seeing 1-2 times per week for 3 years. They had talked about virtually everything, laying bare all the joys and problems of the man’s life. The patient opened up about his difficult upbringing, his marriage, his children, his shortcomings as a father and husband, what we would call his sins, the dishonesty that often pervaded his life, and so on. He described in vivid detail aspects of his life that could certainly be called kinky if not outright degrading. The analyst thought all was going well until he asked the man about his money and how he spent it. “That’s none of your business! I didn’t come here to talk about that!”

When we talk about money, people often feel either guilt or shame–guilt that we are well off and don’t do enough good with what we’ve got or shame that we aren’t able to keep up with the Joneses. As Erma Bombeck wrote, “Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving.” A lot of us think that the world is too permissive, that people no longer blush or feel guilty about much of anything. Money may be the one exception. Like the man seeing the psychoanalyst, we don’t want to talk about how we use our money, particularly our pattern of giving, because we feel guilty about it. This morning in this particular instance, as something that goes against all my bleeding heart liberal tendencies, I’d like to endorse guilt. It can motivate us to do better.

He said to [Jesus], “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Jesus finds the man’s biggest vulnerability, the thing that keeps him from becoming a true follower. His wealth gets in the way of his faith, and probably some other things as well. Rather than being a comfort to him, his money is a millstone around his neck. Like the analysis patient, the man had not come to Jesus to talk about money, but it is his vulnerable spot.

A couple of weeks ago, stock broker Roller Shipplett spoke at Rotary. Like Warren Buffett, Roller is wary of diversification as an investment strategy, and counsels his clients to limit their holdings to those companies they can understand and follow carefully. Find something you like and concentrate on it.

About 20 years ago, I took our son Edward to talk with a college admissions director, a year before he would be applying anywhere. She met with him then called me in. She said, “Edward is a fine student, high test scores, high grades, good recommendations from teachers and others. He is involved in many different extra-curricular activities, sports, church choir, pop quiz team, a nicely balanced record. But what I’m looking for is passion. I asked him, ‘Edward, what is your passion, what really grabs you and won’t let go?’ and he couldn’t really answer. My advice: before you begin to apply, find your passion, follow your bliss.”

What the rich man lacked was passion. Jesus was interesting, intriguing, inspiring, but money was the stumbling block keeping him from becoming a devoted disciple.

Around the time Edward was talking to the admissions director, I ran into a clergy friend whose two sons had recently completed college. How did you survive the financial pressure? I asked. “Well, it’s kind of like Alice in Wonderland. It’s completely impossible, but somehow you come out the other side and everything’s okay.” The same is true of increasing your giving.

I’m a strong believer in commitment, commitment to things that are important: God, relationships, civility, generosity. We have received many gifts, and we need to give back.

Over the next few weeks, you will be invited to cottage meetings to discuss your faith and God’s mission in this place. You will also be asked to fill out a pledge card. I implore you to attend the meetings and to fill out a card. And I ask that you give enough that it feels good to be doing it. If you don’t, you may feel guilty. And we then lie to ourselves that we don’t give as much as we can because we don’t like something at the church. They never sing hymns I know. People aren’t friendly. The bathroom is dirty. The clergy don’t seem to know me. I don’t like the preaching–particularly true this Sunday, I suspect.

If you are generous, you won’t have to go through all this bugga-bugga. I exhort you to be generous, to be more generous than you had planned, and for sure to be more generous than last year. A few of us have reasons why that isn’t possible, but I’m speaking to the rest.

I had a friend named Purnell Eggleston. He was an attorney in Roanoke and seemed to hold the office of Stewardship Chair for Life at St. John’s Church. Every October, Purnell would get up in front of the congregation and give an impassioned speech about why everyone at St. John’s should tithe–or start working toward tithing. Purnell was a wonderful man, and it was clear that he was deeply committed to what he was saying. It was his passion. On one such Sunday after church, a friend came up to him and said, “Purnell, you were really great this year! You almost convinced me.”

I’m no Purnell, but I hope I’ve convinced some of you to give generously. The pleasure of generosity is one of life’s hidden secrets. Try it. You’ll like it. And you’ll never go back.

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Not Alone

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 8, Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, and Mark 10:2-16. 

An audio version of this sermon is available here. 

“It is not good for the man to be alone.”

This verse from the opening of our first reading sets the tone for all our scripture lessons today — in fact, it sets the tone for all our prayers and liturgy and communion as well. Everything we do here today is held together by the central proclamation of God’s will that we human beings should not be alone, God’s will that we be in relationships, all kinds of relationships, relationships in which we can give to each other and receive from each other with freedom and generosity and grace and joy. The message today is that it is not good for us to be alone; or, to put the same truth in a positive way: It is good that we are not alone. 

And that central truth echoes through all our readings. It’s there in the Genesis passage, when God makes a human being, and doesn’t want the human being to be all alone, and so plants a garden full of wonderful trees and plants and flowers and fruits, and puts the human being in the garden to till it and keep and be in a relationship of caretaking with it, and then makes all kinds of animals come out of the ground to manifest different aspects of God’s goodness and to receive names from the human and to be in all kinds of relationships, and then finally turns the human into a man and a woman for the most mysterious and amazing and surprising relationship of all. All that happens because God creates the world for relationships, and in such a world it is good that we are not alone. 

And that central truth is there again in Psalm 8, when the psalmist expresses awe and wonder at the intricacies of God’s creation, the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars God has set in their courses — and then is pulled up short in sheer amazement that in all this wonder God makes human beings so important, God crowns human beings with honor and glory, God gives to human beings “mastery” — which means not just “control over” but “faithful caretaking of” — domestic animals and wild animals and birds and fish and things so far out of human ken that we don’t even have names for them, so that the whole Universe is one big exaltation of God’s Name. All that happens because God creates the world for relationships, and in such a world it is good that we are alone. 

And that truth is there again in Hebrews, where the author quotes from Psalm 8 to show that Jesus is the one who sums up and exemplifies God’s will for all our good relationships. Jesus is the exact imprint of God’s being, from whom all things come and to whom all things return and in whom all things are sustained by his powerful word. Jesus is the one in whom God’s revelation of love is made perfect, the one who shows us that God’s love is stronger even than death, the one who shares God’s love with us so that we may be sanctified, that we may be blessed and we may be a blessing. All that happens because God creates the world for relationships, and in such a world it is good that we are not alone.

And that truth is there in the Gospel, when Mark shows Jesus debating with Pharisees and welcoming children. The Pharisees challenge Jesus about the lawfulness of divorce, and Jesus says, Yes, in the Torah it is lawful — but just because it's lawful doesn’t mean it’s what God really wants. What God wants, Jesus says, is that marriages, like all other relationships, be tender-hearted, intimate, caring, mutual. Sometimes hardness of heart gets in the way of God’s ideal for relationships, sometimes hardness of heart does lead to divorce, sometimes hardness of heart leads to disciples trying to prevent children from coming to Jesus. But wherever there is hardness of heart, Jesus says, wherever there is acting in un-love, Jesus says, there we need to remember that God creates us for relationships, God makes us for each other, and it is not good for us to harden our hearts and try to go it on our own, but it is good that we are not alone. 

Over and over again in our scriptures today we hear that central message: It is good that we are not alone. And today at Trinity we bear witness to the Good News that we are not alone in two particular ways. 

Today we have our Blessing of the Animals. Every year at the beginning of October, near St Francis Day, we bring pets and four-footed friends and companion animals to the churchyard, and pray in thanksgiving and blessing that God has placed us in such a goodly multi-species company. In a way, every Blessing of the Animals is a re-enactment of today’s Genesis story: we name our animals, and in naming them bless them. The Blessing of the Animals is a reminder that we humans on this earth are not alone, but we are one part of a vast web of life, a delicate dance of relationship between people and animals and plants and bacteria in the soil and chemicals in the air and plankton in the oceans and microscopic creatures living in our own bodies and helping our bodies to function — we humans on this earth are not alone, and we could not live without all these others to sustain us. The Blessing of the Animals is a witness that it is good that we are not alone. 

And today we begin our fall pledge drive, Trinity Gives. October is Stewardship Month, and during October we will have cottage meetings and stewardship moments and shared reflections on how we pledge ourselves to the financial support of God’s mission at Trinity Church. And I think that pledging to the church is another kind of witness to the truth that it is good that we are not alone. Of course giving money to the church has the practical consequence of keeping the lights on and the doors open and the building maintained and the staff paid. But more than that, giving money to the church is a material sign of our relatedness, of how we recognize that we are in this together, how one person’s gifts and talents are complemented and completed by other persons’ gifts and talents, how my shortcomings are made up for by your abilities, how all our hopes and needs and aspirations and dreams are made more whole by being shared with each other. Pledging money to the financial health of the church helps to create this environment where our Christian relationships can thrive. We celebrate that we are not alone when we make music together, and support the program that makes the music in our pledge. We celebrate that we are not alone when we worship together, and support the people who lead the worship in our pledge. We celebrate that we are not alone when we are transported by the beauty of this building, and support the upkeep of this building in our pledge. We celebrate that we are not alone when we send mission trips to Honduras and Haiti, and budget financial grants to aid agencies that operate throughout our area, and engage our Sunday school classes and youth groups in service projects in our community, and support the parish infrastructure that enables those acts of service in our pledge. So much more than just writing out a check, making a pledge of financial support of the church is an outward and visible sign of our spiritual relationships. It is an act of caretaking, an act of stewardship, as much as Adam in the Garden or Jesus with the Children, that shows forth God’s amazing gift to us that it is good that we are not alone.

Stewardship Month, Blessing of the Animals, Genesis, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel — everything this morning points us to God’s gracious gift that we are not alone. Let us be not-alone in communion here today, and in lives of love and service and relationship every day. Amen.