Sermon: Sseccus
Texts: Mark 9: 30-37, James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Date: September 20, 2009
Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
Verse 32 in the gospel reading made me think of Willy Wonka. It says the disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying and were afraid to ask him. The irony, of course, is that Jesus was being perfectly understandable, and they didn’t want to hear it. Like Willy Wonka, who, when the children visiting his chocolate factory ask a question he doesn’t want to answer, suggests that they are not speaking clearly enough. For instance, after he comments on how one of the children, who has now swelled into the shape and hue of a blueberry, is getting her just desserts for chewing disgusting gum all day long, one of the other kids asks, “If you think gum is so disgusting, why do you make it in your factory?” Wonka’s response: “I do wish you wouldn’t mumble. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” Down the road when the same child challenges his knowledge about how something works, Wonka replies, “I’m a little deaf in my left ear. You must forgive me if I don’t hear everything you say.” The boy shouts his remark. Mr. Wonka says, “You’re a nice boy, but you talk too much.” [1]
In Johnny Depp’s memorable movie portrayal of Willy Wonka, he ends up shouting “MUMBLER!” at whatever he doesn’t particularly want to hear. I thought we might try that out as a sort of liturgical response. I’ll read what Jesus was trying to teach the disciples. Your response will be to yell “MUMBLER!”
“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.” [“MUMBLER!”] “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” [“MUMBLER!”]
I’m not a bit surprised the disciples had trouble understanding Jesus. He was turning the definition of success inside out. They probably thought when they signed on with Jesus that they had picked a winner. They pinned their messianic hopes on Jesus. Seeing what he did—the healings, the exorcisms, the spell-binding teaching, the gathering of unprecedented crowds to see and hear him—must have been very exciting. Since so many teachings about the Messiah in the Jewish tradition had to do with good finally triumphing over evil, they believed that their collective star was on the rise.
They may have had fantasies about moving into the Governor’s mansion once Jesus’ movement had succeeded in throwing the oppressors out. Why wouldn’t they? If Jesus was the Messiah, as they had come to believe, they would have expected to be on easy street once the epic battle was over. They would have been patting themselves on the back for getting in on the ground floor of his movement.
Their theological and political expectations were the equivalent of cotton in their ears when Jesus started talking about betrayal, suffering, dying, being last, and being servants of all. “I’m a little deaf in my LOSER ear. You must forgive me if I don’t hear/understand everything you say….Mumbler.” I doubt they were afraid to ask Jesus for details in the way you hesitate to bug a cranky person for fear of getting your head bitten off. It seems more likely that they were afraid to ask because they didn’t want Jesus to spell it out for them one more time so clearly that they would no longer be able to pretend to Jesus, each other, and themselves that they didn’t understand.
Those poor, pathetic disciples of the first century. They just couldn’t quite grasp what Jesus was getting at. 21st Century Christians don’t have any such problems embracing Jesus’ inside-out-and-backwards teachings on vulnerability, dying and rising, success and greatness, do we? We love the idea of being the last and the least. Especially here in America.
In truth, if the first century disciples had cultural cotton in their ears that made it difficult to hear and understand what Jesus was trying to teach, we 21st century Americans have the equivalent of concrete in our ear canals. We’ve been so acculturated to First-ness in every aspect of our lives that choosing to be last, to be vulnerable, is almost incomprehensible. We know about success, and believe you me, it’s not vying to be last. One of the churches I visited last summer puts it right out there: their mission “is to make successful Christians of all people.” The goal of every ministry at their center is to “cause people to be successful spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, physically, financially, and socially.” [2] The last sentence of their children’s ministry mission statement, painted boldly on the wall, is “I was born to be a winner.”
In my view, this church has ideologically mixed up a bubbly cocktail of Christianity and Americana, and I wonder how they do it with a straight face. (P.S. This is a huge and growing church.) But I’m not here to mock them; I just think they make it a little more obvious than the rest of us. Most churches are collectively into success, though they may define it differently. I remember once hearing about a clergy person who stated as his career goal to be called to a “two-fork church.” That is, a church that would be prosperous enough that it could sit down to a church meal with one fork for dinner and a clean fork for salad or dessert. That’s one version of success—and by that measure, I have made it to the Big Time in my ministerial career! I would sneer, if I hadn’t always sought to serve churches where we could pay someone else to type and print the worship bulletin so I wouldn’t have to do it.
My point is that success, variously defined, is pretty darn seductive to the human spirit, and neither individual Christians nor churches are immune from its charms. G.K. Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Chesterton, a well known MUMBLER.
A story: Abou Adam was wealthy according to every earthly measure. At the same time, however, he sincerely strove to be spiritually wealthy as well. One night he was aroused from his sleep by a fearful stomping on the roof above his head. Alarmed, he sat bolt upright in his bed and shouted, “Who’s there?” “A friend,” came the reply from the roof. “I’ve lost my camel.” Perturbed by such stupidity, Abou screamed, “You idiot! Are you looking for a camel on the roof?” “You idiot!” the voice shot back. “Are you looking for God in silk clothing, lying on a golden bed?”
I wonder if we can really find the spirit of Christ in a church that’s a little too comfortable? If our focus is on what will make us comfy, what will make us successful, maybe even mildly (or wildly!) popular, will we fail to connect with the spirit and mission of Christ? A new book by Paul Nixon, reviewed in United Church News, suggests that the founding spirit of many churches wanes after their first decade of existence. “Many churches eventually get so settled and comfortable that they forget about the world outside their doors almost entirely…except as a venue for token acts of mercy and the collection of special offerings.” He thinks that only desperation, crisis, raising up a visionary leader or the infusion of new people can alter the slow deterioration that occurs as churches become more concerned with “doing church” than acting on their original evangelical impulses.
We may argue that we can’t recall having any “evangelical impulses” and nor would we want them any more than we want a case of hives that would make us all itchy and jumpy. Evangelical impulses, indeed. A 127 year old white steeple church is NEVER impulsive.
But you wouldn’t have to get all impulsive and eeeevangelical to decide—even before desperation or crisis provides the motivation—to take seriously the idea of being a little less Settled and a little more Servant. If we turned success inside out as Jesus did, and considered servanthood to be the key measure of greatness, how might it change our life together?
One of the books I read last month was Prophetic Renewal: Hope for the Liberal Church. The author, Mike Piazza, was until recently the senior pastor of the Cathedral of Hope, a Dallas MCC church that joined the UCC a couple of years ago. When he started his ministry at that church it was in serious trouble with a large debt, a small congregation, and the AIDS crisis just coming into focus. The congregation was depressed and dying. Piazza tells the story of how they worked together to discern an appropriate mission for their time and place. Because the MCC is a church that was founded to welcome gay and lesbian Christians, they had a natural tie to that community and could see that help was needed there as more and more young gay men were stricken with HIV/AIDS. So the first thing they did after their visioning retreat was to hire a full time AIDS minister, who would create a comprehensive AIDS ministry. The church didn’t even have a musician at that time; they couldn’t afford two additional staff so they hired the AIDS minister. He recruited, trained and supervised more than 150 lay people to do hands-on care for those who were ill and dying with AIDS. They decided early on that they didn’t need members of their church, they needed ministers. So their membership classes were formulated to be “orientation to ministry” classes. They put a sign over the main exit that said “Servants’ entrance.” They decided to be a servant church, and they think of their “customers” not as their members but the people in their community who need care.
That’s how they have continued to shape and plan their church’s ministry. When they could afford to hire a professional musician, they hired someone who was known as a good teacher instead of the one known as an expert performer, so they could involve lots of people in the music ministry. And so on. These days, they give away more than a million dollars a year in money, goods and services to those in need, almost all of it to people outside their church and immediate community. They’ve been taking care of the landscaping and play yard of a nearby elementary school, for example, even though they don’t have any kids who attend that school.
Piazza says that when people come to them from other churches it takes some time to re-orient them. He recalls an instance when a relatively new member was complaining to a person next to them in the pew about some component of a particular worship service that had changed. When he stated what he didn’t like, the person in the pew replied, “Well, I don’t think they did it for you. After all, we’re not the customers here, are we? And if it benefits someone else, I’m glad they made the change.”
Piazza makes a strong case for churches refreshing their understanding of servant leadership. He recommends that churches that have become like spiritual clubs that gather weekly for the sake of their current members should die so that their property can be returned to the tax rolls—at least that way they would be contributing to the common good. (I wish he would speak up. I can’t quite hear him when he MUMBLES like that.)
Piazza certainly has his point of view of what makes a church thrive as he urges liberal churches to renewal. What do you think makes a church “successful?” I’ve thought about that a lot this last couple of months as I have been visiting some pretty happening churches. I don’t know that I have the answer, but it does seem like it is more than owning two forks for everyone and being able to pay the utility bills. Success is not in perfect music or poetic liturgy. It’s not in being so harmless that you never make anyone mad enough to leave. It’s not in maintaining the most pristine building on the block, or in being the place where the “in crowd” goes. It’s not in budget surpluses and fat endowments. It’s not in being the biggest church in town. All those would be measuring success in what James might label “earthly, unspiritual wisdom.” Selfish ambition.
The “wisdom from above” turns success inside out and backwards. Jesus calls the disciples to let go of their fantasies of easy street, popularity, triumph, adulation, even to let go of life as they have known it. He holds up the most defenseless, powerless person he could lay hands on, a little kid, daring them to welcome such naked vulnerability. He knows that fear is making them a little deaf to his call, so he speaks as loudly and clearly as he can, using plain words like “first,” “last,” and “servant.”
Managing fear always seems to show up when you’re talking gospel. It must have been a really hard decision for the Cathedral of Hope to make to hire an outreach minister and plunge into service when they were so close to going bankrupt and closing their doors. It must have been very frightening. They must have wondered if they were going to die trying something new, something so risky. Good thing they were journeying with Jesus. The Messiah who was willing to die, but knew in the very marrow of his bones that God would raise him up to new life. The Holy One who still leads through valleys of the shadow of death to vibrant new life.
You see, even when Jesus predicts being killed he foresees rising up. He knows absolutely that God is in the resurrection racket. Jesus invites the disciples to go with him even though they are scared spitless about the dying part of dying and rising. He models what it means to pour out your life for others even when it leaves you vulnerable and weak-kneed with fright. And he shares his resurrection with the faithful; you see it played out in millions of lives as those who follow his lead pour out their lives in countless acts of service.
How would Jesus spell success? Inside-out and backwards, s-s-e-c-c-u-s. I don’t know how to pronounce that, but I can faintly hear Christ singing it out. I can just about hear it…in my good ear.
[1] Dahl, Roald Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Puffin Books, 1964, p. 109 & 135
[2] http://www.caseytreat.com/contentpages/184/91189fb9-9eae-4676-a21f-32ac737cdefb/AboutUs.aspx
[3] Ibid. p. 63