Year B
Mark 9:30-37
The Rev. Denise Vaughn
Ask the Questions!
Do you remember the fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes? The King was being outfitted for a new wardrobe and an unscrupulous tailor was taking the money for expensive clothing but only delivering skimpy garments. At first the king was suspicious, but the tailor flattered him and calmed his royal fears. Of course, none of the kings subjects were about to criticize his apparel. They simply concluded silently that the king was losing his mind. The tailor finished his job and made off with the money leaving the king walking around in his rather skimpy attire while the people didn’t dare ask. Then one day it happened. A wee child seeing the king said aloud, “Why, what’s the king doing walking around in his underwear?”
Why is it that we are sometimes afraid to ask what we don’t understand? What causes our fear and our reluctance to ask the questions? I always hated to ask questions in math class especially anything beyond Algebra 1 because I was afraid I wouldn’t understand the answers which I didn’t much of the time. No one wants to look uninformed, confused or clueless. We often withhold our questions even within our church because our society says to us we need to look like we have all the answers without asking the questions. Like the kings subjects, we can pretend we don’t have hard questions to ask. Yet, the deepest mysteries of life do indeed elude us. Why do good people suffer? Why are humans so brutal sometimes to one another? Why does evil seem to succeed? Why did God set up a world like this? All good questions in our struggle to understand God and who Jesus is and what that means for our world and our lives.
Today, all the readings help us with some of our questions by providing us valuable insights and answers to questions we may have into God’s intentions for all human beings. They do this by confronting us with some sharp choices, with either-ors, seeming to allow for little or no space for middle ground. For example in James, two kinds of wisdom are described. One is marked by envy, selfish ambition and deceit, the other by peacefulness, gentleness, and mercy. No middle ground; those who wish to be a friend with the ways of the world becomes an enemy of God. The Gospel presents a similar choice. The disciples argue about who will be the greatest, Jesus responds by putting a child, a symbol of the least, into their midst; the powerful or the powerless? No middle ground.
Jesus and his disciples are again on the road walking through Galilee. As we heard read, he did not want anyone to know he was in town because he wanted time away from the crowds to continue to teach the disciples about his and their mission. For the second time in Mark’s gospel, Jesus speaks about what lie ahead that he would be betrayed, killed and rise again but they still don’t quite get it. They fail to understand and are so afraid or intimidated that they don’t even ask him what he meant. They went silent. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, possibly they didn’t ask because they had heard enough to get some idea of what he was talking about but didn’t want to believe what they were hearing or appear confused.
If that wasn’t enough, we are told that on this journey they got into an argument among themselves about who was the greatest. When Jesus asked them about the argument, they are so embarrassed they went silent again and had nothing to say. They may not have understood everything Jesus was talking about but they obviously knew enough to realize their argument was completely out of line with what Jesus had been teaching them. Many of us might fall silent also if Jesus were to confront us and ask us what we spend our time talking and fretting about. Is what we are doing and saying out of line with the way of life Jesus sets before us? How difficult it must have been for them to realize Jesus somehow knew what they were talking about, as it is for us to come to realize that our lives are open before God.
But Jesus is not done with them yet. Strikingly, the disciples are not reprimanded for what seems like a ridiculous argument about greatness and power instead Jesus begins to teach them a lesson in servanthood when he speaks of being last of all and servant of all. Then, he shows them what he means by taking a little child in his arms. In Jesus’ day, a child was regarded as a nonperson, a possession of the father in the household. The disciples wanted to know who was greatest, so he showed them, the last, the least of all. In welcoming the weak and the helpless they will be welcoming him. Those who would find status before God will do so as they serve the needy. Greatness is found in service. Here Jesus redefines the whole notion of greatness, and proposes new categories for determining success and failure, winning and losing, achievement and fulfillment. In this story, we begin to get a glimpse of what it means to set our minds on divine thoughts.
The disciple’s failures and lack of understanding are typical of generations of us who are also sometimes slow to get the point and who persist on setting our minds on human things instead of divine things. How might this story be different and the disciples relationship with Jesus changed if they had asked Jesus their questions? How might our stories and lives as disciples of Christ be different if we were to ask those hard questions instead of being silent? I invite you to write down any questions you might be afraid to ask? Someone else might just have the same question. Our questions just might lend themselves to a good discussion group. We can take heart because the good news is that Jesus welcomes us despite our not understanding yet, he encourages us to start asking the questions and looking for biblical answers. He tells us, “Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Jesus’ example of taking up basin and towel to wash the disciples feet and the text today, of a child, the ultimate symbol of not knowing, not understanding, and immaturity, suggests to us God overturns our social hierarchies by welcoming the lowly and no one can rise higher in life than to be a servant This text demands us to ask the question: are we willing to accept the kind of authority that this Messiah is willing to give to us and ask of us? What if our notion of greatness could be conceived of in Jesus’ terms? Welcome the little child in my name and you welcome me; welcome me and you are welcoming God, where we find comfort, aid, security, mercy, forgiveness and love. In this understanding of servant leadership, there is no need to fear, or to seek the world’s greatness because Jesus shows us that this is how we are to welcome him into our lives, as a child and this understanding is not just for the church but also the witness of the church to the world. In God’s world things are very different and thank God for that.