22nd Sunday after Pentecost
I’m not sure how old I was, but I must have been four or five years old, because Bola, an exchange student from Gambia was living with us at the time. It was Christmas, and one of the gifts that my parents had got for me was a metal robot that had to be put together. It was called “Zog, The Great”. Bola was helping me. My parents were in another room, but they could hear the conversation that was going on. Bola and I finally got “Zog, The Great” put together. And the way my parents tell the story, it was then quiet for a few seconds. Bola finally asked, “What are you going to do now, Eric?” To which I replied, “Next, I will create life!”
Clearly, I had big plans. We don’t need to concern ourselves with “creating life”. God’s already got that pretty well in hand. But what if I told you that you’re engaged in the most important thing in the world? Maybe that sounds like hyperbole, but hear me out.
Once again, as we do throughout Mark’s Gospel, we hear Jesus challenging the disciples and their understanding of how things ought to be. Which actually means that Jesus is challenging the world in its understanding of the way things are or ought to be. We know how the world operates. We see it happening all around us. Those who have power and influence tend to accumulate more of both, while those who have little to none have even that taken from them. Right here, in the richest country on earth, according to the EPA, 30-40% of the available food went into public landfills. Food waste is the most common material in landfills and incinerators in the U.S. More than 85% of the greenhouse gas emissions from landfilled food waste come from activities before disposal, like production, transportation, and distribution. And yet, at the same time, in 2023, 47 million people lived in food-insecure households.
42So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Clearly, what Jesus is talking about today is nothing less than changing the world. Turning everything upside down or, as Jesus would say, putting everything right again.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, show us how the world looks at things: They want positions of influence and power in the kingdom they believe Jesus has come to establish. They want to be his right and left-hand men. They want to be the ones to rule side-by-side with Jesus! They want it all!!! And what does Jesus say? “You don’t know what it is you’re asking.” They don’t know what it is they’re really asking for because they don’t understand Jesus yet. Jesus says to the disciples, “…whoever wishes to become 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." Three times Jesus predicts his death in the Gospel of Mark, and in all three instances the disciples deeply misunderstand what it is he’s trying to teach them about the nature of his Messiahship. And the symbolism Mark uses is telling, because those three episodes are bookended by two stories of blind men having their sight restored.
In other words, the disciples (and we) are often blind to the fact that we’re part of something that’s bigger than ourselves, our desires, and our wants. If we want to understand Jesus, we need to understand his humility; the same humility to which Jesus calls us. Because what we often call humility is actually a false humility. It’s self-debasement in the guise of humility. It’s the attitude that says, “Look at the enormity of what it is God wants us to do! I don’t have anything of value to offer. I don’t have any abilities. I don’t have any gifts. I don’t have any talents.” It’s a problematic attitude because it means one of two things: Either it means we’re lying when we say that all things come to us from God and that the Holy Spirit gifts us with talents and abilities. Or it means that we don’t value the gifts that God has given us; that we don’t think they’re worth anything. While Jesus demonstrates the utmost humility, he’s also very clear about the value of what he has to offer: For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for? Not one, not two, not a few, but many; a King’s ransom. True humility means recognizing that we have something valuable to offer. Something valuable enough that most people would consider it something worth holding onto.
God has given us gifts of time, talent and treasure, and like Christ who gave entirely and completely of himself, we are called to give of ourselves in order to make a difference in the world. It’s not prideful to think that you have a role to play in changing the world! It's a sensible conclusion. We have received everything from God; we are created in God's image, members of the Body of Christ. We have been reborn in the waters of baptism and empowered by the Holy Spirit as members of the Church. Of course, we are invited to participate in God's mission of healing and reconciling the world; it's what we were born for! Walking away from that calling serves only the earthly powers, who would just as soon that we do nothing, say nothing. True humility doesn't walk away from power; true humility requires claiming power: the power of love and grace; the power of forgiveness and reconciliation; and then confronting the power of this world. You are part of something larger than yourself. That's how God made you. That’s how God made each of us.
God sent Jesus into the world to restore us to wholeness; to open our eyes to the greater reality of which we are a part. We find that wholeness when we're fully engaged in God's mission: when we see Jesus in the face of a neighbor next door or a refugee from the next continent. That's when you begin to see and know who you really are, the restored child of God you were born to be. When we take a big idea, like making a difference, changing the world, and make it real: That’s what we call “creativity”. The kind of creativity that’s part of what it means to be made in the image of God, the Creator. To sense that kind of personal power – the power of claiming your identity and vocation as a child of God – that’s an empowering, humbling experience.
True humility uses that God-given creative power to empower others.
Not claiming your power is a good way to serve the status quo, and that's not what God calls any of us to do. Doing so makes us no different than James and John. But here’s the kicker: Once we’ve realized the creative power of Christ who dwells within us; once we’ve claimed it for ourselves? We must then realize that we can’t hold on to it; it’s not to keep. We live out our lives in light of Christ crucified, resurrected, and ascended; who didn’t exploit his power for his own gain. We have to be willing to give it all up again. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The word for "life”, here, means something like our phrase "heart and soul"; To "give your life" isn't necessarily or solely to die, but to pour out your heart and soul for something, to put into it everything you’ve got. Scripture doesn’t tell us that Jesus poured out his life like a libation of wine that’s simply dumped out onto the ground. Scripture tells us that Jesus poured out his life for the life of others: as a "ransom for many," for the life of the world. In other words: it matters. It matters, what we use God’s gifts for. How we use all the amazing gifts that God has given us, matters. Trusting God to provide for us and protect us, we can be generous with the gifts that God has given us.
In Creation, in the Incarnation, on the Cross and in the Resurrection, and in every gathering of Christians doing mission and ministry, from the earliest disciples right up to us today, God gives us the necessary gifts of time, talent, and treasure and pours out creative power to enable all of us, created in God's image, to live into who we are as children of that Creator.
God loves you. God loves you just as you are and receives anything you offer as a gift. Even though, in the act of giving, we are simply returning to God, what God has given to us in the first place. The fullness of God's call to us is to live into God's mission to the world. None of us serves God's mission by false humility. We serve God’s mission by praying for the courage to be the powerful agent for mission that God calls us to be. And as we lose ourselves in service we find ourselves living more fully than ever before.
In the end, it comes full circle. Because true humility calls us to recognize the worth of every other person. If our power is God's creative power, and if we have it by virtue of our having been created in God's image, we need to recognize that same image of God in every other human being, that same identity as God's child, that same power to change the world in the service of God's mission.
And when the powers of sin and death are confronted by the people of God, bearing the gifts of God, we may not create life. But we sustain it. And the power of the resurrection is affirmed. AMEN