In Mark 9, we get a vision of the flipped script, the powerless raised up and the powerful brought low. And still, we struggle to see ourselves in it.
Jesus warns that being a stumbling block deprives us all
Proper 21B | Mark 9:38-50
Is the second time ever the charm?
At this point in Mark, Jesus has predicted his death twice. Two weeks ago we covered the first time when Peter muffs it. The star pupil who aced the pop quiz proves to his teacher he really knows nothing.
And Jesus calls him the Satan — the Adversary — for he is placing himself in front of Jesus like a stumbling block. Or a wall. To not only slow Jesus, but stop him. Stop him from dying. Like a friend, or a son who doesn’t want his dad to go away.
The Satan, the adversary, the tempting stumbling block, needs to get back in line behind him.
Because they are going to Jerusalem. And Jesus is going to be killed like a terrorist.
We’re all like Peter. We don’t want to face the cross. But there it was again, last week. Right in our face.
And what do we do when Jesus brings it up? Twice? We’re standing here, hearing the gospel proclaimed. What are we doing and thinking? Who are we being right now?
Are we like these disciples, arguing about greatness? Which of us is the greatest? Or maybe how our neighbor would be a little greater if they just lost some weight or changed their behavior? If they just do what we want them to? Maybe they wouldn’t get abused if they didn’t ask for it?
After the First Time
Two weeks ago Deb Moore-Harden preached at our Holypalooza service about the first passion prediction. But before Jesus makes the second passion prediction we heard last week, in that in-between Jesus does something really big.
He takes the Satan with him up the mountain for the Transfiguration. Peter, the one he berated and humiliated is one of the three who comes to this seminal moment, a moment Peter’s likely to screw up again.
And on the way down, he tells them that the teaching they’ve inherited, the teaching about Elijah and the coming future reign of God has already occurred. They’re looking for a future savior when the saving is happening now.
The disciples don’t get it.
Both those who went with Jesus and those who stayed behind. Their fear, confusion, distrust keeps them unfocused, distracted. They lose sight of Jesus. You were just in front of us, Jesus. Then you went away and this guy shows up with a sick kid and we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t save him.
Jesus can. And does.
But the disciples are confused. Why couldn’t they?
It takes prayer. And fasting. Sacrifice, humility, getting down low.
That’s what it takes. That’s where real power comes from. And it is what Jesus will do again on the cross.
They’re still talking?
After all this — after Peter gets called the Adversary, this vision, the teaching of the present Kin-dom of God, the boy they couldn’t heal — why are they still talking? Wouldn’t all this stop their mouths?
And why are they boasting and claiming to be the greatest, arguing with each other? Have they no shame?
It’s like the entire class flunked the last test and they’re still talking about who has the best grade. And this is after the one who aced the pop quiz got detention for talking out of turn!
What are they thinking? It’s like they think they’re awesome ‘cause they’re in GT (“gifted and talented”), even in the midst of epic failure. Their grades, status, place in society, elevated by Jesus and each one thinks he’s the best.
As if their boasting will make it all true. As if their boasts actually convince each other.
Like we, anyone, can’t see their failure with our own eyes.
Welcoming God
They’re arguing and Jesus, like any good teacher, knows what’s going on behind him. He asks what the fuss is about and suddenly they clam up. Of course, they do. As if the very idea of greatness is anything but fool’s gold.
And he sits them down and teaches them a simple lesson. The one they, and we have a really hard time truly wrapping our heads around.
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
And to hammer the point home, he took the lowest, least powerful human being he could find: a child. One who has no rights, no resources, no standing, and no value in that society. He puts that person in the middle and says that welcoming her is welcoming God.
But the lesson wasn’t to put children in the middle of the room for us followers to ogle. It’s about power.
Turning from Power
The greatest is the one who makes himself this little girl’s servant.
This is the point we struggle to understand. Our pursuit of greatness doesn’t only put us at the end of the line, it quite literally pushes us further and further away from God.
That’s what we don’t understand about power and the Kin-dom. The line to the Kin-dom isn’t static. Our fighting disrupts everything.
All this jockeying for power and glory and esteem — the best job, the best church, the most money, winning at all costs, exercising all the power we have against other people — drives us away from God. And the line comes with us.
Which means we drag the little girl who is at the front of the line. We pull her further and further from God.
Because our earthly power is so great. We think it’s our birthright.
The Stumbling Block
All of this should be in our minds when we get here. When the disciples come to Jesus complaining about the unauthorized kin-dom builder. The one who doesn’t have the certificate. The degree from Jesus U. The one exorcising demons in the name of Christ.
Because, if it is in front of our minds, we’ll see the problem. It’ll be clear, beyond the platitudes about teams and sides.
Mark gives us this beautiful turn of fortune underlining Jesus’s kin-dom vision with a thick, chisel-tipped Sharpie.
A person can have the power of Christ without following Jesus — just as those disciples lost the power of Christ even as they followed Jesus.
This happens, verses apart. Their weakness, powerlessness, faithlessness, their utter failure before Jesus is capped with a fight over greatness. And what do they see, but a stranger doing what they couldn’t.
How jealous do you think that made them? How privileged did they feel just a few minutes earlier?
This power is nothing without the Kin-dom.
It’s about the Kin-dom
Because it isn’t about us. It isn’t saying the right Trinitarian formulation, waving our hands in the right way, or meeting each other’s expectations for greatness and superiority.
It isn’t how many people flood these pews or who here loves the right way.
It’s about the Kin-dom.
It’s always about the Kin-dom.
And these teachings, these warnings, these opportunities Jesus gives us come with that plea:
Don’t be a stumbling block,
a tempter, a satan, a stealer of love.
All this talk of greatness, this debate is hubris. And so is our rejection of children, the poor, and the victims of abuse. Even checking papers to make sure we’re all on the same team before we even see their humanity…or lock them in cages. We’re so busy worrying about our team, we aren’t seeing how God blesses them.
Don’t be a stumbling block,
a tempter, a satan, a stealer of love.
Because you’re not protecting the kin-dom, you’re blocking us from it.
And every time we pull that little girl at the head of the line further away from God.
We’re All In This Together
What else would we expect from Jesus then this kind of reversal, this admonition, this teaching? Folks, this isn’t easy! It means letting go of ego and obsessions and just about everything we’re taught by our country.
But it really isn’t that hard when we start looking for that Kin-dom come. We start praying “your will be done” and mean it. When we take this synergistic Kin-dom vision of a heaven and earth aligned, it all starts to slip into place.
We can demand of God in the imperative language of children calling for what’s promised. Not greatness. Not inherited wealth and an easy ride from prep school into power. Bread. All we need to eat. All we need to eat. Our daily bread.
The Kin-dom life here.
Where we all can eat. All live debt-free. We are all loved as beautiful children.
And as the world shifts and the space between heaven and earth gets thinner and thinner, we can see it was already here. The stumbling blocks are exposed for what they are. And the love is recognized for what it really is.
Our love, all of our love, like God’s love (because it is) is spreading. And all those little girls and boys, those who were battered and abused, those who agonize over suicide and gender dysmorphia, those enslaved and chained and hanged, crucified by the powers, those whose love was always hidden, those whose parents were never pleased, those whose grades were never good enough or could never wear an acolyte’s robes and those abused who did, those who were punished with prison for what they’ve done and continue to get punished by people after they’ve served their time, those who have to share their #metoo stories or give their children “the talk”, those who can’t afford a place to live and those who have nothing to eat because its the weekend and the end of the month, all those people at the front of the line draw ever closer to God when we all give up our power, our greatness, our devotion to empire. We all get closer to God.
We are also Peter. Out of line. Trying to get the Christ to stumble over power. We just don’t realize it!
Don’t be a stumbling block,
a tempter, a satan, a stealer of love.
Be the love. The Kin-dom is here. Demand our bread. And share it like our lives depend upon it.