Shock treatment
Commentary
Last week via the gospel lesson we joined Jesus and his disciples in a journey through Galilee. The trip began with the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida and will end in Jericho with the healing of blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). Through the shifting scenes of this journey Mark is illustrating for us what it means to walk in "the way" of Jesus. Issues of hearing and seeing surface. These are highlighted by the blind who do see and the disciples who neither see nor understand.
The first sign of a serious problem of communication between Jesus and his disciples arose at Caesarea Philippi in the open conflict between Jesus and Peter. Stern words were exchanged (Mark 8:32-33). Our awareness of the comprehension problem of the disciples is heightened in today's lesson. Personal power and prestige remain the priorities on the agendas of the disciples who screen out the cross talk of Jesus with its strenuous call to self surrender and personal risk.
It is important to keep Mark's concerns in mind, for his gospel addresses the church of his and every day. Keep your sermon within Mark's field of meaning and probe for the cutting edges lest we also fail to hear. I have heard enough sermons on Jesus and little children to convince me that it is easy to miss the shock tactic of Jesus if the preacher does not do some homework.
The words of James remind us that personal agendas and selfish ambitions can still wreak a destructive influence in church and society. But then, we do not need James to tell us that. We just have to watch the daily newscasts. The ode to a capable woman which is the Old Testament lesson provides an entirely different set of suggestive thoughts for the preacher.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Proverbs 31:10-31
This ode to a capable woman indicates that women were not without some standing and influence in patriarchal Israel. The woman in this portrait is economically active. She runs a cottage industry, buys and develops agricultural property, and has a keen business sense. She is praised for her compassion for the poor, her strength and dignity, her sense of humor, her kind and wise words. This is quite a tribute. We note that she and her husband are affluent, a circumstance to which she makes no little contribution. Her servant girls no doubt find their own possibilities more curtailed.
The capable woman is not quite out of the shadow of her husband, however, and her area of operation is primarily domestic. But this goes with the times. Might the writer not give us license to do some amending here and there? Today his wife might own her own real estate agency, or be more at home with computers than spindles, and have her own career track. But the heart of the portrait involves character: qualities like social compassion, kindness, wisdom, dignity. When our models of the new person, man or woman, exclude these then we are in trouble as a people.
James 3:13--14:3
Envy and bitterness were certainly in the hearts of the disciples of Jesus as they wrangled with one another about positions in the new kingdom they expected Jesus to establish. Greed and selfish ambition certainly are in the air around us. James says, "You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder." That sounds extreme. Yet even as this column is being written two brothers are on trial charged with conspiring to kill their parents for the insurance payments, and associates of an Olympic skater are being arrested and charged with carrying out a vicious plan to incapacitate another competitor in the skating competition. Well, winning is everything, isn't it?
Mark 9:30-37
As they continue their journey to the next destination, Capernaum, Jesus continues to challenge the understanding of his messiahship that prevails among his disciples. He continues his cross talk. Mark tells us they still do not understand and are afraid to ask any questions. Maybe they were afraid of getting verbally zapped as Peter did at Caesarea Philippi. Maybe they just did not want to hear what they were hearing.
As they walked along there were times when they had conversations among themselves to which Jesus was not privy. He did evidently discern that whatever the subject it involved them in an argument. When they arrived at the house in Capernaum he asked casually, "What were you arguing about on the way?" Their sheepish silence spoke volumes. Jesus called a special meeting of the 12. It was time for shock treatment.
If any of the 12 thought it was promotion time they were jolted by the opening statement. "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." That set their world of values upside-down. But the real shocker comes in a visual sign. Jesus puts a little child in their midst, then takes the child in his arms and says, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Looking at the scene through our modern eyes it seems innocuous enough, even warm and sentimental. But how would first century Galileans look at the scene? In the larger Roman world infanticide was common. Unwanted children, more often girls than boys, were put out on the trash heaps where they either died or were picked up to be raised as slaves. Jews had no such practice but children had no claim upon adult recognition. After all, a child had no track record. To be a child was to be a nobody. Jesus had executed a blockbuster sign in the midst of a group of pious social climbers. Did they get the point? Not really. John changes the subject (Mark 9:38). The next time people brought children near him, the disciples shooed them away (Mark 10:13).
Matthew's favorite word for the followers of Jesus is the Greek word, microi, "the little ones." The little ones are the poor, the outsiders, the lame and the halt: the nobodies. This is the burden of the meaning of the child as a metaphor for the community around Jesus. To become a child is to become as one without any claim to any sort of recognition or privilege. Becoming such a child is what John called "being born from above" (John 3:7). Do we get the point?
The first sign of a serious problem of communication between Jesus and his disciples arose at Caesarea Philippi in the open conflict between Jesus and Peter. Stern words were exchanged (Mark 8:32-33). Our awareness of the comprehension problem of the disciples is heightened in today's lesson. Personal power and prestige remain the priorities on the agendas of the disciples who screen out the cross talk of Jesus with its strenuous call to self surrender and personal risk.
It is important to keep Mark's concerns in mind, for his gospel addresses the church of his and every day. Keep your sermon within Mark's field of meaning and probe for the cutting edges lest we also fail to hear. I have heard enough sermons on Jesus and little children to convince me that it is easy to miss the shock tactic of Jesus if the preacher does not do some homework.
The words of James remind us that personal agendas and selfish ambitions can still wreak a destructive influence in church and society. But then, we do not need James to tell us that. We just have to watch the daily newscasts. The ode to a capable woman which is the Old Testament lesson provides an entirely different set of suggestive thoughts for the preacher.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Proverbs 31:10-31
This ode to a capable woman indicates that women were not without some standing and influence in patriarchal Israel. The woman in this portrait is economically active. She runs a cottage industry, buys and develops agricultural property, and has a keen business sense. She is praised for her compassion for the poor, her strength and dignity, her sense of humor, her kind and wise words. This is quite a tribute. We note that she and her husband are affluent, a circumstance to which she makes no little contribution. Her servant girls no doubt find their own possibilities more curtailed.
The capable woman is not quite out of the shadow of her husband, however, and her area of operation is primarily domestic. But this goes with the times. Might the writer not give us license to do some amending here and there? Today his wife might own her own real estate agency, or be more at home with computers than spindles, and have her own career track. But the heart of the portrait involves character: qualities like social compassion, kindness, wisdom, dignity. When our models of the new person, man or woman, exclude these then we are in trouble as a people.
James 3:13--14:3
Envy and bitterness were certainly in the hearts of the disciples of Jesus as they wrangled with one another about positions in the new kingdom they expected Jesus to establish. Greed and selfish ambition certainly are in the air around us. James says, "You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder." That sounds extreme. Yet even as this column is being written two brothers are on trial charged with conspiring to kill their parents for the insurance payments, and associates of an Olympic skater are being arrested and charged with carrying out a vicious plan to incapacitate another competitor in the skating competition. Well, winning is everything, isn't it?
Mark 9:30-37
As they continue their journey to the next destination, Capernaum, Jesus continues to challenge the understanding of his messiahship that prevails among his disciples. He continues his cross talk. Mark tells us they still do not understand and are afraid to ask any questions. Maybe they were afraid of getting verbally zapped as Peter did at Caesarea Philippi. Maybe they just did not want to hear what they were hearing.
As they walked along there were times when they had conversations among themselves to which Jesus was not privy. He did evidently discern that whatever the subject it involved them in an argument. When they arrived at the house in Capernaum he asked casually, "What were you arguing about on the way?" Their sheepish silence spoke volumes. Jesus called a special meeting of the 12. It was time for shock treatment.
If any of the 12 thought it was promotion time they were jolted by the opening statement. "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." That set their world of values upside-down. But the real shocker comes in a visual sign. Jesus puts a little child in their midst, then takes the child in his arms and says, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Looking at the scene through our modern eyes it seems innocuous enough, even warm and sentimental. But how would first century Galileans look at the scene? In the larger Roman world infanticide was common. Unwanted children, more often girls than boys, were put out on the trash heaps where they either died or were picked up to be raised as slaves. Jews had no such practice but children had no claim upon adult recognition. After all, a child had no track record. To be a child was to be a nobody. Jesus had executed a blockbuster sign in the midst of a group of pious social climbers. Did they get the point? Not really. John changes the subject (Mark 9:38). The next time people brought children near him, the disciples shooed them away (Mark 10:13).
Matthew's favorite word for the followers of Jesus is the Greek word, microi, "the little ones." The little ones are the poor, the outsiders, the lame and the halt: the nobodies. This is the burden of the meaning of the child as a metaphor for the community around Jesus. To become a child is to become as one without any claim to any sort of recognition or privilege. Becoming such a child is what John called "being born from above" (John 3:7). Do we get the point?
