Expanding our "Abilities"

“We want you to do whatever we ask of you.”  What parent hasn’t heard this?  I think I used to say to my mother, “I am going to ask you to do something and you can’t say ‘no’”.  We know right away James and John are up to something and it isn’t going to end well for them.  “Grant that one of us can sit at your right hand in glory and the other at your left.”  Well, of all the things they might have asked for, I have to admit I didn’t see this coming. 

Perhaps James and John were thinking about the man who ran up to Jesus in last week’s lesson.  Remember him?  He wanted to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life.  Maybe that got them to thinking about their place in the life to come.  Most commentators see their request as hubris: the desire to be esteemed higher than the others.  While this may be part of what is going on, I see something else. 

Most likely James and John were the youngest of the disciples.  When Jesus calls them we are told they are the “sons of Zebedee” – perhaps an indication they are not adults. Perhaps you picture all the disciples as grown men, but with James and John it might be more accurate to think of them as being in the early teens.  They are young and impressionable and Jesus has made quite an impression on them.  They deeply admire him and want to pattern their lives after his.  They think they know what Jesus is all about, but their question and Jesus’ response suggest there is much they don’t understand.

Maybe I see this in James and John because I relate to them.  From time to time I am asked why I decided to go into the ministry.  Now, I have several stock answers, each varying in length and depth.  The most succinct is the one I offer most often: “I was very involved in my church growing up and admired my youth minister.  I could see myself doing what he did and so I chose this path.”  Short and sweet, right!  Well, the irony is my life as a priest bares little resemblance to what I imagined the work of my youth minister to be.  I saw only a small slice of what he did and that slice was what my young eyes deemed most “glamorous”.  As I look back, the things I saw him doing that I wanted to do – like leading a Junior High youth group – I don’t do now.  But all the other non-“glamorous” parts of the ministry fuel my spirit and make me thankful for my calling.

So here are James and John, young and impressionable and ready to be like Jesus.  They imagine it to be a straight, safe path to glory.  Jesus is about to set them straight.

Listen to the three verses that fall after last week’s lesson and come before today’s reading: 

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.  He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”

Three times in Mark’s gospel Jesus engages in what biblical scholars label “disclosure discourses”.  Each follows a consistent pattern:

First, Jesus discloses how he will die.

Then, one or more of the disciples responds inappropriately.

Finally, Jesus corrects the disciples’ response with a paradoxical teaching:  

· “Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it” and whoever loses his life shall save it” (8:35).

· “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all” (9:35).

· “Whoever wishes to become great . . . shall be a servant” (10:43-44).

More than a desire to occupy positions of honor and prestige, I think James and John just want to be close to Jesus wherever he is going and wherever he ends up.  Even though Jesus has described it for them three times now, the brothers simply do not understand what Jesus will have to go through and why he will have to go through it to get to a place of “glory”.

“Are you able to drink the cup I will drink or to be baptized with my baptism?” Jesus asks them.  “We are able” they respond.  Oh, they have no idea, do they?

How do we become ‘able’? 

I remember being intimated at the prospect of becoming a father for the first time.  We weren’t ready financially and it was hard to imagine how a newborn was going to fit into our busy, complicated, and unpredictable work schedule.  I remember one wise, older church member saying to me, “No one feels ready for parenthood.  If you put it off until you felt ‘ready’ it will never happen.  But look around, we all had parents who figured it out.  You will too!” 

How do we become able?  I think it involves a willingness to engage life and to see it through.  Ability is developed over time through spurts and sputters and often is something you do not realize you have obtained until one day you recognize you have had it for some time.

That day on the road to Jerusalem James and John did not have the ability to do what Jesus had to do.  At that moment, they could not have stood up and endured persecution or died for him.  But they set themselves on a path and to a way of life that would get them there.  James was the first of Jesus’ disciples to be executed for the faith.  John was the only one to avoid martyrdom, but spent his final years in exile on the Island of Patmos.  They achieved “greatness” as Jesus envisioned it by giving of themselves to others in his name.

“Whoever wants to be great must be a servant.”

A typical spirituality holds Jesus went to the cross to die for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to pay the price ourselves.  But this thinking is hard to square with Jesus’ teaching to pick up our own cross and follow him.  It becomes difficult to reconcile with his call to serve as he serves.  These teachings don’t hold Jesus went to the cross so we don’t have to, rather they convey he invites us to follow him all the way to the cross – to that place where we die to ourselves so we might live for others.

Are you able to do that? 

If I am honest with myself, I have to admit I am a lot like James and John who say they are “able” but have no idea what it will take.  If I am honest, I will admit that I don’t know exactly what it means to die to self in order to live for others.  But, if I look back over my life, I can see how any number of events and decisions and actions have made me more able than I once was.  They have moved me from self-interest toward servanthood, but it is a process I am in, not a destination I have reached.

Being a part of a church should be many things for us.  It should give us a place to pray and to connect with God.  It ought to support us when we need help.  But more than anything, being a part of a church ought to challenge us to follow Christ by advancing our ability to serve others.   

Today is Commitment Sunday.  It calls each of us to consider what this place means to us and what we are willing to give to it as people who want to follow Jesus on the way.  The money we commit provides funds for payroll, utilities, building upkeep, and resources for various ministries.  The time and the talents we offer give life and vitality to the basic essentials our money supports.  Where would we be without a choir, volunteers in the Sunday School, people helping in the Food Pantry, and the dish or dessert you brought for today’s Pot-Luck Lunch?  There are so many ways we invite you to let go of self-interest in order to serve others.

Today we add a new opportunity.  I invite you after the service to come to the Parish Hall where you can assemble a Blessing Bag or an Agape Bag.  It consists of 15 non-perishable and hygiene items you put into a gallon-sized zip-lock bag that you can keep in your car and give to person you see in need.  It is a tangible sign of God’s love and our love for all people and it does not equate love with a dollar.  It gives you a different way to respond to the person at the traffic light looking for cash.  It challenges you to find a way to express verbally God’s blessing for every person you meet. 

My hope is that it will expand our “ability” to love as Jesus loves.   My hope and prayer is it will, in some small way, help us to take up our cross and follow Jesus.   

What is the One Thing You Lack?

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing.’”

What do you lack?  It is a great question to ponder.  Type it into Google, click to search, and you will find a plethora of articles about lacking energy, motivation, direction, self-confidence, sleep, Vitamin B… the list goes on and on.  What is the one thing you lack, the one thing that would make your life complete?  Maybe you doubt such a thing even exists.  Sure, there is stuff you may want and outcomes you may desire, but some magic elixir to address the one thing you lack?  What could that even be?

I enjoy reading Mark’s gospel while keeping in mind it was the earliest to be written.  I try to block out everything I know about the bible and read as if it is the first time I have heard the story.  I try to allow the narrative to unfold before me.  It is a particularly helpful way to approach today’s lesson, which is so often referred to as being Jesus’ encounter with the ‘rich, young ruler.’  Mark does not use any of these words and it is only at the end of the encounter we are told the man has “many possessions”, which is a far cry from being rich.

Look at the passage with fresh eyes and notice Jesus has set out on a journey.  Other translations say he in “on the way.”  If you remember last week’s reading (which takes place just before this one), you will recall Jesus was in a house.  He was stationary, but now he is moving, he is going somewhere, he has a purpose, he is on a mission.  Notice too that unlike the Pharisees who came to Jesus to ‘test’ him, this man runs up to Jesus to ask a deeply personal question.  His is not a technical concern about various interpretations of laws, but something he must have answered for his own personal sense of well being and peace: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

The most obvious response is no one earns an inheritance.  Either you are in the family or you are not.  Jesus seems to pick up on this because he tells the man he must demonstrate he belongs to God’s covenant people by adhering to God’s commandments.  The man confesses to following all of them since the age of accountability.  With this, he might reasonably expect Jesus to assure him he has eternal life.  We, the readers, hearing the story for the first time, might expect it too. 

What happens next no one expects.  The text says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  At this, the man is “shocked” and leaves “grieving”, because, we are now told, he has many possessions.  Imagine how you would react to this if you had never heard the story before.  And imagine how you would react to what Jesus says next:

“Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

Did you catch how Jesus switched the focus?  The man wanted to know about eternal life, but Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God.  The first is something that happens only at the end of this life, the second is a possibility here and now.  But being a part of the here and now kingdom of God is an impossible task, especially for the rich. 

You may be familiar with a couple of ways commentators have tried to soften this teaching.  Some point to a low gate in the wall of the old city of Jerusalem known “The Eye of a Needle.”  The only way to get a camel through this gate was to unload it and make it crawl – a difficult and arduous task.  Another suggestion is to change one letter in the Hebrew word for ‘camel’ so that it becomes the word for ‘rope’.  Again, getting a rope through the eye of a needle is no easy undertaking.  Each variation makes it difficult to be a part of the kingdom of God, but neither seems to fit well with the text because the disciples are “greatly astonished” when they hear Jesus’ teaching.  Jesus himself says of our own doing it is impossible for us to be a part of God’s kingdom.

What is the one thing you lack?

Based on his question to Jesus, this man – if we could ask him – would say he lacked assurance he would gain eternal life.  Jesus sees something different.  He sees a person who can gain the kingdom of God by following him on the way.  The only thing holding back the man is his possessions.  They present a logistical challenge: how do you carry all that stuff with you on a journey?  But even more, they present an emotional and perhaps spiritual challenge: they matter too much to him.

Social theorists are divided as to why human beings are materialistic.  One school holds having more stuff provided an evolutionary advantage and thus, over time, we have been hard-wired with the need to acquire things.  Skeptics point out for much of our evolutionary life humans have been hunter/gatherers – a lifestyle not helped, but hindered by excessive possessions.  Another school proposes our hunger for material things results in the evolutionary advantage of alertness.  It keeps us constantly on the lookout for ways to improve our chances of survival.  Again, skeptics point out many specious have done quite well while being at peace within their environment.

The psychologist Steve Taylor suggests a third possibility.  He holds that within each one of us there is something he calls “psychological discord.”  It is a phrase he uses to describe our inner discontent.   We deal with this internal lacking through external acquisition.  If this is the root of our materialistic urge, the question needs to be asked is it effective?  Do more things equal greater contentment?

Research across the board has been clear and consistent.  People focused on materialistic values actually have a lower sense of personal well-being than those who hold it as relatively unimportant.  In fact, people focused on material pursuits are more prone than those who are not to unhappiness, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, anti-social behavior, and health concerns.

Researchers studying how the brain functions have established that thinking about purchasing a new item – say a car – increases electrical activity in the brain’s pleasure center, releasing large amounts of dopamine and other ‘feel-good’ chemicals into the body.  The study also found that the same brain activity decreases shortly after a purchase, thus leading to all the negative experiences chronicled in earlier studies.

If researchers have found that materialism does not lead to happiness, can they point us toward what does?  According to Taylor, findings indicate “that true well-being does not come from wealth but from other factors such as good relationships, meaningful and challenging jobs or hobbies, and a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves (such as a religion, a political or social cause, or a sense of mission)”.

All of this ought to give us reason to pause.  Might Jesus say to you what he said to the man in today’s reading?  What is the one thing you lack? 

I like Taylor’s image of psychological discord or inner discontent.  At some level it resonates with who we are and how we live.  There is a void in us.  We feel there is something we are lacking.  The questions are these: “What is it?” and “What do we need to do to fill it?”  The world may give us a newly shaped toaster and more powerful pickup truck, but Jesus says what researchers now demonstrate: the pursuit and preservation of possessions is a hindrance to happiness.

A particular phrase in today’s text keeps coming back to me: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”  It suggests another question to ponder: Who looks at you and loves you?  I am not talking about romantic love and I am certainly not talking about lust.  I am talking about the deep love another can have for us that is absolutely unconditional.  I am talking about the kind of love that, even if you receive it from only one or two people, it assures you of your own value and worth and place in this world. 

What is the one thing you lack?  My hunch is if we pondered this question long enough and if we thought about all the implications and benefits, many of us – perhaps most of us – maybe even all of us – would say the one thing we lack is people who look at us and love us.

Sappy religious sentiment bellows that Jesus loves us, this we know, for the bible tells us so.  It is such a common expression that most often the words float out of our mouths and into our ears.  But, if we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge the message never actually makes it to in that deep place of psychological discontent.  For those of you with a good memory, it is the same reality I explored this summer in the sermon about “Did you get communion?”  It seems to me that the genuine and desperate religious pursuit is a desire to experience Jesus looking at us and loving us.  It is to be a part of a community of faith where people look at one another and love one another. 

I think Jesus was right.  It would be easier to get a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for us to find the kingdom of God, primarily because, as the old country song says, we are looking for love in all the wrong places.  But never forget that Jesus also said what is impossible for us is not for God.  May God look on you and love you.  And in that moment, may you have the grace to let go of every thing that gets in the way and holds you back.  May God’s loving gaze let you know your own value and worth and place in the world.  And may you carry this with you as the kingdom of God for the rest of your life, even to the life to come.

 

Jesus on Divorce

Well, we may have dodged a hurricane, but there is a storm brewing in the gospel reading we cannot avoid: the topic of divorce.  This can be a sensitive subject in a church setting because for those, like me, who have been divorced, it touches on powerful and (often) painful memories.  All things considered, perhaps it would be easier to deal with a hurricane than this text.  But let’s throw caution to the wind and set our faces into the stiff gale of Jesus’ words to see what we can learn.

The first thing to notice is Jesus was not teaching a group of students about the theology of marriage. Pharisees seek him out because they want to test him.  They don’t want to learn, they want to trick and trap and so they pick one of the thorniest issues they can find – divorce.  It is not Jesus’ subject.  It is theirs. 

Notice next how they phrase their test: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  The Pharisees are not interested in the spiritual nature of a marriage relationship.  They are not even pondering its social value.  They are asking a legal question. 

The first four verses of the 24^th chapter of Deuteronomy comprise the main Old Testament teaching on divorce, but all they say is if a man divorces his wife for a “great scandal” and she marries a second time and then is divorced again, the first husband cannot remarry her because she has been “defiled”.

Over the centuries different schools of interpretation emerged and by Jesus’ day the issue was deeply polarizing.  One school followed the thinking of a rabbi by the name of Shammai, who taught that a man should not divorce his wife, except where he has found her committing a “great scandal”.  Another rabbi by the name of Hillel had a different take on the same law.  He said a man may divorce his wife for doing something as scandalous as burning his supper.  A third rabbi – Aqiba – was even more lenient, teaching a man may divorce his wife if she has “lost favor in his eyes” or if he finds another woman who is “more becoming.” 

The Pharisees are not just testing Jesus for his thoughts.  They are testing to see which group he supports around this divisive issue.  His answer makes clear Jesus adheres to Rabbi Shammai’s teaching, the most conservative of the three positions.

Notice something else about the Pharisees question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  The ancient world was patriarchal and wives were regarded to be the property of their husbands.  Marriages in these times were based not on a love between two people, but on property, status, and honor considerations between two families.  Marriage did not provide a woman with a soul mate, but rather a place to live and a role to play.  For women, marriage was little more than a social safety net.

So in this setting, given this understanding of marriage, some Pharisees come to Jesus to test him.  He asks them about Moses’ teaching.  They note Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal to his wife.  We have several examples of these documents.  Many are as simple as “This certificate dismisses you and you are free to marry another man.”  More typically, after divorce, a woman either returned in shame to her father’s house or became homeless.

Jesus states emphatically that Moses allows for divorce because of our “hardness of heart.”  He is saying divorce is a part of the human condition, but not a part of God’s design.  God’s intention is for a man to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and that the two become one flesh.  This joining, he holds, happens by an act of God and is not to be undone by humans.

Through his teaching Jesus opens several new doors and possibilities.  First, the idea of two people becoming one flesh sounds like something way more significant and much more mystical than a simple legal transaction.  It gets at the heart of our humanity.  There is incompleteness about us as we exist unto our selves.  We need to be in relationship with God to be complete.  And we need to be in relationship with others to be complete.  And we need to be in a unique, special, life-long relationship with one other person to be complete.

This relationship is a union of two people in heart, mind, and body.  It is involves a deep intimacy manifested emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, socially, physically, and sexually.  It is a relationship that mirrors the love Jesus has for the Church.  Just as his love enables the Church to transform the world, the joining of two in one flesh creates a potency neither person has as an individual.  It is a relationship not to be separated.

Does this mean the Church should never allow for divorce?  Does it mean that every divorce is wrong?  Is every divorce a sin?  Here are three typical scenarios.  None is fictional.  Each describes at least one couple whose marriage I officiated. 

Two people come together for reasons that mystify most who know them.  Whatever attracts them to each other and whatever they offer to each other and whatever they commit to each other is not at all congruent with Jesus’ thinking of marriage.  Their relationship lacks depth and breadth and maturity. One person is physically and emotionally abusive of the other and therefore the marriage lacks the essential element of mutuality.  Does God want two people to stay together in a destructive relationship?  Does God desire to separate what humans wrongly joined together?

A second scenario involves two people who become one flesh, but over time, through neglect and distraction the marriage dies.  There is no longer a flame.  There is not even a spark to rekindle what once was.  The children are raised and out of the house.  Both parties are gainfully employed and can survive without the other.  Does God, who desires two people experience fulfillment and completeness by coming together require them to stay together when the only thing left between them is a legal document?  What are we to do when a marriage expires long before the two people who entered into it?

A final scenario involves two people who are in a marriage that exhibits all of the characteristics it should, but one person forsakes it.  There is a breach of fidelity.  That person wants something else, or maybe even want what he/she already has, but with someone else.  What should the Church say to this person?  And what should the Church say to the person left behind?  What if both parties forsake the marriage in lieu of something else?

Here is what I think.   Every divorce is a part of the brokenness of the human condition.  Some are more egresses than others, to be sure.  To label divorce as “wrong” or as a “sin” misses the point that there is life as a God intends and then there is what actually happens (a reality not limited just to marriage).  Much of the brokenness that happens in marriage can be healed.  Some of it cannot. 

There is a tendency by some to look at today’s gospel reading through the lens of reduction.  “Jesus says, ‘no one should get divorced.’”  “Jesus says a marriage is between a man and woman.”  “Jesus says if you remarry you commit adultery.”  Yes, these words are there and you can reduce down what Jesus says only to this.  But as I read his answer to a very narrow question about divorce rooted in polarizing interpretations of a single Old Testament phrase I hear a very expansive response.  Jesus is trying not to narrow down our thinking to a right and wrong, black and white understanding.  He is trying to open up our thinking to a much broader subject that revolves around God’s intention for relationships. 

It is hardly a secret that the bible does not speak about marriage with one single, coherent voice.  Paul, for example, says that marriage is reserved only for the weak who cannot control the burning in their flesh.  His thinking is hardly rooted in Jesus’ understanding of “from the beginning of creation God created them male and female so that the two can become one flesh”.  Any person – including me – who tells you what the bible says about marriage is only telling you how he/she interprets what the bible says about marriage.

Here is what I see as I survey our congregation.  There are some couples who have been married for a long, long time.  There are fruits that come from this kind of relationship that can be grown no other way.  There are some couples who have come together in a second marriage (or even a third).  For some, the first marriage ended with the death of spouse.  For most, it came only after the end of a previous marriage.  No matter what the circumstances, you find in your new relationship exactly what Jesus describes – one flesh, completeness.  And then there are some who are like me – single after a divorce, a death, or the end of a relationship that never attained legal status.  While we may not know the joy of “completeness” with another, we find how relationships with family and friends and with God make our lives rich and rewarding. 

Whenever we engage in interpreting what the bible says about marriage we must make sense of what we see and know.  What I see and know from knowing all of you is that while divorce may not be a part of the world as God intends, like death itself divorce is not a barrier to God’s love and grace.  God does not forsake those who are divorced, but rather offers new life.  It may be life with another or it may be life on ones own, but the offer is always given abundantly and freely.

At the Mercy of Things which Matter Least

Jesus said, “If a part of your body causes you to stumble, cut it off.  It is better to go through life maimed than to be thrown into hell, where the worm will not die and the fire never be quenched.”

In Jesus’ day, hell was not a theological concept nor was it located in the center of the earth.  It was a specific place known as the Valley of Hinnon, which is located just outside the walls of the old city of Jerusalem.  Hinnon is a very deep, narrow ravine with a horrendous history.  The bible records that some of the ancient kings of Israel used it as a place to make sacrifices to the idols of Moloch and Baal, including slaughtering and burning their own children.  The prophet Jeremiah held these practices invoked God’s wrath and judgment, leading to the ruin and downfall of the nation.  After Judah’s return from exile, the valley was used as a trash dump where, among other things, human corpses were brought to be incinerated. 

It is easy to see how such a site came to be associated with great pain and suffering.  It was a place to be avoided at all costs.  Just like a professional athlete does not want to end up on the Injury List, so too people in Jesus’ day did not want to end up in the Valley of Hinnon.  It makes sense to do whatever is necessary to avoid such a fate.  If sin destines you to this place, do what you have to do not to sin, plain and simple.

Episcopalians, as a rule, don’t warm up to such negative thinking.  If we wanted the hell scared out of us we would be Baptists, right.  So let’s flip this coin around and look at it from the other side.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe puts Jesus’ teaching in a positive context: “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Have I told you about the successful businessman who bought a 2015 Ferrari 458 for $250,000?  The first day he owned it he pulled up in front of his business, parked the car, and opened the door to get out.  Just then a bus came barreling down the street and tore off the car’s door.  The businessman was livid that his beautiful Ferrari had been damaged and was distraught with the knowledge that no repairs would ever make it like new again.  He was screaming at the moon when a tow truck arrived.  The operator jumped out of the cab and listened to the man rant and rave on and on.  Finally the operator broke in and said, “I can’t believe how materialistic you are.  You are so wrapped up in your possessions you don’t notice anything else.”  The businessman was indignant, “How can you say such a thing!”  “Well,” the operator replied, “you haven’t even realized that your left arm is missing.  If must have been torn off by the bus.”  The man looked at his arm, saw that it was gone, and screamed out loud, “Oh no.  Now I’ve lost my Rolex too!”

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

What are your priorities in life?  Listen to the counsel a veteran priest gave to a group of seminarians just prior to their ordination:

“There will come a day when you will stand before our Lord and Savior to give an account of your personal record as a priest. 

First, Jesus will ask you to report on your relationship with your spouse.  What did you do to add to your spouse’s joy, how did you provide help and comfort in prosperity and adversity, and how did you participate in nurturing your children in the knowledge and love of the Lord?

After this, Jesus will ask you to provide in-depth information on each of your children in order to determine the amount and quality of time you invested in them.

Next, Jesus will ask how you have developed and used the talents with which God gave you from birth.

Fourth, Jesus will ask about the churches you served.  He will not be interested in their wealth or size, but will want to know how you cared for the people while you were there.

Fifth, Jesus will not ask you how much money you earned or how much money you saved.  All he will want to know is if you were honest in all your dealings.

And finally, Jesus will ask for an accounting of what you did to make your community, your country, and the world a better place.”

Now, for you, the list of priorities might be a tad different, but not much.  These are the things that matter most.  How and when do the things that matter least get in their way?  What do you need to do to cut them out of your life?  Gandhi said that actions express priorities.  What do your actions say about you?

Perhaps Jesus uses imagery as shocking as self-mutilation and eternal torment to get our attention, to impress upon us the need to identify what is important in life, and to force us to deal with all the lesser stuff getting in the way.  Victoria Moran, in her book Lit from Within, writes this:

“A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with—that’s poverty—but how efficiently we can put first things first…  When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these, whether it’s clutter in your cabinets or commitments on your calendar.”

Lest we think of this as a private and personal exercise intended to give each one of us a better and more rewarding life, notice what Jesus says about the millstone.  Your priorities, when they are solid, are like stepping stones others can follow, but when they are skewed they become stumbling blocks that cause others to trip up in life.  In other words, your actions (which reflect your priorities) affect others.  If all you care about in life is getting ahead in your career, your partner and children will suffer.  Your community will be a poorer place if all your free time is spent with a remote control in your hands.  You cannot be the blessing for others God intends for you to be if your priorities are all out of whack.   

I was in a grocery store on Friday.  Two very active boys were pushing a cart and ran into their mother.  “Owww!  #$@%!  That hurt.”  She screamed so loud I heard her clearly three aisles away.  Moments later we were in the same aisle when another incident promoted the mother to yell, “Leave the cart right there.  We are going.”  I don’t want to judge this mother.  Who knows what her day and her life are like?  But I can tell you if I had gone off like that I would do some serious soul searching to determine what I needed to change in order to get myself under control and in a position to be a loving, positive example for my children.  Jesus says the place to start is to orient our lives around the right priorities.  

It is an insight picked up years ago by a professor who stood before his philosophy class holding a cardboard box.  He set the box on his desk and removed from it a large glass jar and a jacket of golf balls.  He emptied the balls into the jar and they piled all the way up to the rim.  He then asked the class if the jar was full and they said it was.  The professor then took out a container of pebbles and began to pour them into the container where they fell into the open spaces between the golf balls.  Again he asked and again the students said the jar was full.  That is when the professor produced a bag of sand and poured it into the jar where it sifted into the cracks and crevices around the pebbles.  “Is it full now?” he asked.  “Yes,” the students said.  From the box the professor produced a bottle of wine, which he opened and poured slowly into the jar until all the sand was saturated. 

“This jar,” he said, “represents your life.  The golf balls are the important things like faith, family, friends, and health.  These are the things that make your life full and even if every else is lost you will still have great love and happiness.  The pebbles are other things that matter, but are not as important – your job, your house, your car.  And the sand is all the small stuff that fills up your day and drains your energy, but is not necessarily essential.” 

“Now notice,” he said, “If you put the sand in first and then the pebbles there would not be enough room for the golf balls.  The same is true with life.  If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important.  You must learn to pay attention to what is critical for true happiness.  Spend time with your children.  Spend time with your parents.  Visit with grandparents.  Take your spouse out to dinner.  There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.  Set your priorities on what matters.  The rest is just sand.”

With his point made, a student raised her hand and asked what the wine represented?  “I’m glad you asked me that,” he answered.  “It shows that no matter how full your life may seem, there is always room for a glass of wine with a friend.”

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.  Jesus reminds us to do whatever we must do to make sure we do not lose hold of this simple but essential principle in life.

The Boy on the Beach & a Child in Jesus’ Arms

Aylan Kurdi.  You may not recognize his name, but everyone with access to a news outlet or the internet knows who he is.  We have all seen the photograph of his lifeless three-year-old body lying facedown on a Turkish beach.  It is in a position similar to a napping child sleeping in a crib.  At least twelve Syrian Kurdish refugees, including Aylan’s older brother, drowned in an attempt to find sanctuary from their war-ravaged homeland. 

It is estimated the civil war in Syria, now in its fifth year, has claimed over 200,000 lives.  4 million people have fled the country and, like Aylan, some have died in the process.  While each death and each casualty is horrific, the photograph of Aylan’s body on a sandy beach has focused the world’s attention on this crisis. 

That picture – now referred to as “The Boy on the Beach” – sits next to today’s gospel reading from Mark where Jesus holds a child in his arms and says to his disciples, “Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me.” 

Jesus’ act is an object lesson that brings to a conclusion a conversation about greatness, specifically about what makes a person great.  In our day and age we might answer this question in any number of ways: personal charisma, incredible athletic abilities, fame, fortune, power, the capacity to impose one’s will upon others… the list goes on and on.  We, like those disciples, probably do not associate greatness with paying attention to a child.

This teaching, like much of what Jesus gives us, is deceptively straightforward.  It seems easy enough to follow the chain:

What does it take to be great? à

Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all. à

If you welcome a child you welcome me. 

But Jesus is no right-brained thinker who offers a step-by-step blueprint for us to follow.  He seems to prefer the abstract, which invites us to ponder, reflect, and converse with others in order to understand.  Over and over – in a variety of situations and settings – we must ask what it means to welcome a child.  Perhaps the answer eludes an essay or sermon, but is something you recognize when you see it. 

Roy Waller told me that several children in our parish have come up to him and given him a hug since Shirley’s death.  In my mind, this kind of intergenerational connection is one of the most important facets of our faith community.  It is a sure and certain sign that we are living a Christ-like life. 

Roy’s experience got me to thinking about the church where I grew up.  I knew the names of my friends’ parents.  I knew by last name the man who led the children’s choir, the woman who ran the Sunday School, and the Senior Pastor.  I knew nothing of their personal lives and never would have dreamed of making a gesture of sympathy to any of them.  In that era, children were to be seen and not heard… and, if truth be told, if we were not seen that was OK too.

Years later, when I was serving in a church in Ohio, a teenager in the community committed suicide.  That tragedy shocked every person in town.  Adults in the parish wanted to know what our young people needed from them to make sure it didn’t happen again.  I was tasked to discover the concrete steps the parish could take to let our teenagers know we cared about them.  I spoke to Jim, a young man with great maturity and insight.  “Do you know what is really important to me?” he said.  “When I am walking down the street and pass someone from the church and they say ‘hi’ to me… and if they say, ‘Hello Jim’ and ask me how I am doing, that is really special.”  It was the first time I began to think about the importance of intergenerational connections in a parish.

I remember as a child being terrified of the Senior Pastor of our church, even though I don’t have a single recollection of an interaction with him.  Now that I am “the Senior Pastor” I can see in the eyes of many of our children they are, if not terrified, then intimidated by the ‘Godman’.  I have a resource my minister did not.  I get to speak to each child each week at the altar rail.  Christ is in our midst as I share the bread or ask God’s blessing.  My aim is to nurture this connection as I interact with our children in other settings.

What does it mean to welcome a child?  At the very least it means noticing those easily overlooked or dismissed.  It means taking to heart the reality of another.  It means renouncing yourself as the center of the universe in order to discern the value of others. 

Once, when I was child, a thought occurred to me that I might be the only real thing in existence.  What if, I wondered, everything else is just a figment of my imagination?  What if I am the only thing that really matters?  Imagine my surprise years later, taking a college philosophy course, when I learned that in addition to being wrong, this thought wasn’t even original.  There is an entire group of thinkers known as metaphysical solipsists who maintain the self is the only existing reality and all other reality, including the external world and all other persons, is created by the self and has no independent existence.

Developmental theorists believe there is a period in our infancy when every child is a metaphysical solipsist.  At the time an infant becomes self-aware the child cannot differentiate between the self and non-self.  Theorists speculate this phase begins to end when the baby’s hunger cries are not meet with immediacy.  Embracing the notion that my actions don’t always bring the results I expect begins the next developmental phase.

It does seem something of that infant experience lingers with us throughout our lives.  It is so easy to see only what we want to see; to block out what we deem valueless; to ignore what we hold to be unimportant.  Somehow, someway, I think Jesus’ teaching about greatness embodied in the act of holding a child challenges us to renounce these tendencies.  In their place he invites us to an acute awareness of those around us, those whose lives we can touch, and those whose path, through circumstances, crosses ours.

Betty Anne Kyle was always pleased when I mentioned stewardship.  The heart of Christian stewardship is summed up by three imperatives: Work! Pray! Give!  The work part is what we do here in our community to foster intergenerational connections. 

Given the opportunity, there is not a person who saw the photograph of Aylan Kurdi who would not have done everything in his or her power to save him.  The best way I know to honor him and to help those still at risk is through a donation to Episcopal Relief & Development’s Syrian Emergency Fund.  Episcopal Relief & Development has been engaged in Syria for some time now, working with Anglican agencies as well as Jewish and Islamic partnerships to provide aid and support refugee resettlement assistance.

In closing, I invite you to join me in prayer using a litany developed by the Church of England:

A Prayer for the Victims of the Syrian Conflict

We pray for those damaged by the fighting in Syria.

To the wounded and injured:
Come Lord Jesus.

To the terrified who are living in shock:
Come Lord Jesus.

To the hungry and homeless, refugee and exile:
Come Lord Jesus.

To those bringing humanitarian aid:
Give protection Lord Jesus.

To those administering medical assistance:
Give protection Lord Jesus.

To those offering counsel and care:
Give protection Lord Jesus.

For all making the sacrifice of love:
Give the strength of your Spirit and the joy of your comfort.

In the hope of Christ we pray.  Amen.