| Note: No sermon is quite the same when you read it. You miss the inflections, the expression that you gain in the hearing. The words below are only a close approximation of the sermon, taken from handwritten notes. Nevertheless, the words (as best as can be deciphered!) are shared with you here. The Webmeister |
Sixteenth Sunday of Pentecost Clergy conference, a three day gathering where clergy from all over the diocese of Texas begrudgingly assemble at Camp Allen, is only a few weeks away. I don't feel as if I can legitimately gripe about it yet, being as I've only been once so far, but I know that Jim, who was "attended" time and time again has his own thoughts about it. Clergy conference is something that I actually am looking forward to, provided that I beat out Bruce Bonner in selecting Jim as my roommate. See, the great thing about having Jim as your roommate at clergy conference is that you know he never stays overnight, so you get the room to yourself, without having to share it with some priest you've never met before who might snore like a wounded hippopotamus. Bruce is smart, and knows this well, and that is why he still puts Jim down as his roommate. So when registration opened for clergy conference this year, I quickly registered, to hopefully beat out Bruce in selecting this highly prized roommate. What I don't like about clergy conference is all the priests buzzing around and jockeying for positions of grandeur, talking about how great their churches are, how strong their membership is, how many people came Sunday morning, and it goes on and on. That kind of conversation bores me because first it's usually not true, and second the competition of who is the greatest priest or who has the best church is ridiculous. And its conversations I overhear like these that remind me of the disciples arguing and bickering among themselves about who was the greatest. The disciples, Jesus' trusted close circle of friends, arguing among themselves about who was the greatest, the best disciple. This arguing amongst the disciples happened while they were on their way from Bethsaida to Capernaum along the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Earlier in Mark, Jesus was transfigured, revealing to James, Peter, and John (the three disciples closest to him) that he is the Son of God. Afterwards, Jesus healed a boy, and now, probably tired and weary, he is walking beside his entourage of twelve on the way to Capernaum, and there disciples are, arguing about who was the greatest among them. Not that this is unusual. I think arguing on a road trip is something that some people are just predisposed to do, whether it's the disciples or ourselves. I remember as a boy in Arizona one day driving home from our cabin, and my brother and I were riding in the back seat of a car that my mother was driving. And as brothers do, we started arguing. I don't remember what it all was about, but it escalated to the point where my mother said "Okay you all be quiet now." We were quiet, for about a minute. And then it all started again, and my mom said "If you all don't stop now I'm pulling over and you're going to walk home!" Well, we didn't think she'd do it, and so we continued fighting, and then, all of a sudden, the car started slowing down, and we pulled off onto the side of the road and came to a complete stop. Mom turned around and looked at us and that was all we needed, and our arguing ended. I see Jesus, like my mother, listening to his disciples argue while on the road, with the exception that Jesus was a little more patient than mom was. Instead of threatening to make them walk home, although maybe that would have been smart, Jesus asks his disciples once they reach Capernaum "What was it you all were talking about on the way here?" And the disciples, of course, don't say anything, because they are embarrassed. They knew that what they were arguing about, about who was the greatest, was ridiculous. And indeed it is. This drive for self-importance, for achievement, for popularity, it is a drive that is within almost all of us. After all, we all want to be liked. We all want to be thought of as an important person, whatever that is. Most of us are in other words, ambitious. And there is nothing wrong with ambition. Ambition gets us out of bed in the morning. But as we see with the disciples this morning, their selfish ambition, their desire to be greater than the others, did nothing but create chaos. Which is not really surprising, as the reading from James reminds us this morning that "where there is selfish ambition, there will be disorder of every kind." James writes this because selfish ambition, that drive to be the greatest, the best, the most important, is ambition that is of the world, and not of God. The kind of ambition James writes of is the kind that is focused on the yourself, putting yourself first among others. I have lived long enough to know that if I put myself above others, disorder is all that follows. And the reason putting yourself above others breeds disorder as James says is because if you say that you are better, that you are more important, that your needs are greater than your neighbors, then the life you live, is going to be a lonely one, because in your own self-inflated importance, no one is ever allowed to come close. Theologians have a word for this kind of living where your selfish ambition constantly supersedes the needs of others; where your ongoing desire for recognition and importance is all that feeds you. The word they use to describe this lifestyle is "hell." There is a way out. There is a way out of arguing over who is the greatest. There is a way out from selfish ambition, and the disorder leaves in its wake. And Jesus shares this way out with his disciples, sitting them down around him in Capernaum. And he says to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." In other words, true greatness, Jesus says, does not come from our ambition. It comes from allowing the needs of the other to come before our own. That is where true greatness lies. If you understand that, it makes all the energy we might devote to wondering who is most talented or the greatest seem so petty. Mark doesn't say if the disciples understood what Jesus said to them, or if they went on bickering with each other about who was the greatest. Mark is silent on whether or not Jesus' words had any affect at all on them. But I know they have an affect on me. "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." That is where true greatness comes, not from our selfish ambition. Amen. The Reverend James M. L. Grace September 24, 2006 *Past sermons may be found here. |
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