Proper 20, Year B
Sunday, September 23, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
I don’t know about you, but the
disciples’ argument over who is the greatest among them is not entirely foreign
to me. There are many times when I’ve
desired greatness or dreamed of being famous and winning awards for a variety
of things. I know I’ve even argued about
who was better than whom, at least with my identical twin brother. Growing up, it seemed like most things were a
competition between the two of us; we were always trying to one up each other. Now that we’re grown…not much has changed,
but I get the disciples’ desire for greatness and their argument over who is
the greatest.
I’m guessing most of us get their
desire to some extent or another. Any of
us who have ever played sports or been in any competition at all understand a
desire to be better than others at something, and yet when I read about the
disciples’ desire for greatness, there always seems something kind of ugly
about it, which then tells me that there’s probably something a little bit ugly
about my desires for greatness.
“But the wisdom from above,” James
writes, “is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy
and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in
peace for those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18) I could hear those words over and over again,
and just sip on them all morning long like a hot cup of coffee. What a wonderful way to live with the wisdom
from above which James describes.
That stands in rather stark
contrast to desires for greatness the way Jesus’ disciples were behaving in our
Gospel this morning, arguing over who was the greatest among them. I don’t think this means that we shouldn’t
strive to be great at whatever we do.
Rather, Jesus is referring to our desires to be admired for our
greatness and vaulted above everyone else.
So, Jesus tells his disciples to be servants rather than to try to be
better and have a higher social standing than everyone else. Be like a child, Jesus says, or in this
context, be like someone with no social standing whatsoever. Children, at least toddlers, are not always
the most peaceable, gentle, and willing to yield…I love the terrible twos, but
children don’t, at least in my experience, tend to care all that much about
class and social standing.
Unless
they’re taught to, children don’t much care about the social standing of those
with whom they play. If you’re nice and fun, they’ll pretty well want to play
with you. So, be a servant, and be like
a child, Jesus says. Serve others and
don’t care too much about rungs on the social ladder.
Then we
have James. Jesus was comparatively easy
on the disciples regarding their ambitions for greatness. Be like a child, Jesus said. James, on the other hand, wrote, “But if you
have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and
false to the truth. Such wisdom does not
come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.” (James 3:14-15)
Now, it
would be pretty easy as a preacher to take these readings and give a “do more,
be better, try harder” sermon. If you
just try harder, you can be like a servant child or like the kind of disciple
James tells us to be. To a certain
extent, yes, we could. There isn’t a
particularly lot of good news, however, in “do more, try harder, be better.” It’s nice to know that we can, but that’s not
really the Gospel message.
“Do more,
try harder, be better” seems like it might be the Gospel message by looking at
our Proverbs reading for today, or at least for all the women. I guess the guys are off the hook. “A capable wife, blah, blah, blah.” Let’s put this reading into a little bit of
context.
This was
written as a mother to her son. So, reading
this as the wife’s mother-in-law saying what she wants her daughter-in-law to
be like, it puts some of the hyperbolae of perfection into context. But still, rather than read this simply as a
treatise on how to be or how to find a good wife, we might benefit more if we read
this passage as describing how the church should be as the bride of Christ.
So the
church, as the bride of Christ manages the affairs of the household well. The church takes care of those in need, makes
wise decisions regarding resources and finances, works hard, clothes and feeds
not only the poor, but also herself and her household, i.e. the church takes
care of its own. As the bride of Christ,
the church is wise, kind, strong, brave, and most importantly, faithful to God.
Ok, so
again, as the bride of Christ, we, the church, could do better. Even of our own power, we could do better,
but of our own power, we’re not going to be that perfect. I don’t think the church ever has or ever
will live up to the perfection illustrated in Proverbs. The good news of the Gospel is that we’re not
the bride of Christ all on our own. The
church, as the bride of Christ, is united to Christ, the two having been made
one.
In the
Proverbs reading, it seems as though this perfect wife acts with the husband
nowhere around. They aren’t partners,
rather, she does all the work and he takes all the credit. As the church, we don’t act on our own. We don’t strive on our own. Jesus helps us in our efforts. When we try to live as Jesus taught us to
live, and when we seek his help in doing so, Jesus guides us and strengthens
us. We’re never alone as we seek to live
well. As Paul said to the Athenians, God
made humankind “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and
find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our
being.’ (Acts 17:27-28)
All that we
do is done in God. Our good deeds and
our not so good deeds are all done within God’s very self. As God’s beloved, God has united himself to
us such that all of our lives are lived within him. Little wonder, then, that we might wish to be
better or try harder.
The purpose of our marriage to
Christ, however, isn’t simply so that we’ll be better people. In regular old marriage, we don’t generally
marry thinking that doing so will make us better people. We marry out of love. With Christ too, we are joined to Christ simply
out of love and then seek to do good out of love as well. We’re not trying to be good enough for Jesus,
for Jesus has already declared us good enough to be his bride. We’re trying to love Jesus as much as we can
in response to his love for us.
How then
does this tie back to the disciples’ desire and our desire for greatness. For St. Mark’s, as part of the whole church,
we would want to be an excellent bride of Christ, not to be better or get more
recognition than the other churches in Bay City, as if we were in competition
with them, rather, we would want to be an excellent bride of Christ out of our
love of Jesus.
A desire
for greatness or a desire to one up any of the other churches feels just as
ugly for St. Mark’s as for Jesus’ disciples in our Gospel reading today. Instead of quarreling over greatness like the
disciples did today, we would be lowly and be ok with that, seeking to do good
simply out of our love for Jesus. We
would seek not greatness or admiration, as we often think of it, but rather ,
we would seek the wisdom from above.
“[For] the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality
or hypocrisy. And a harvest of
righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18) Amen.
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