September 22, 2024 Sermon
Sermon title: “Blessed are the Vulnerable”
Scripture: Mark 9:30-37
(Other lectionary suggestions include Proverbs 31:10-31, Psalm 1, and James 3:13- 4:3 and 7-8.)
Mark 9:30-37
Jesus Again Foretells His Death and Resurrection
30They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Who Is the Greatest?
33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
It is always nice to go away on vacation, but it’s even nicer to come home! And the older I get, the more I appreciate the coming home part! The sermon title, “Blessed are the Vulnerable.” was given to Tami before I left town - but sometimes God works in mysterious ways. Let me explain:
On our trip Harlane pointed out to me how nice so many people were to us. We took the train from SoCal, but we rented a car in Kansas City in order to see some people we knew but had not seen for a long time. At a motel in Champaign, Illinois, I needed a razor, and I asked the clerk at the front desk if I could buy one. A guy checking in heard me, and he said, “I think I have an extra.” I tried to pay him for it, but he refused payment, and then said, “You know, we’re supposed to be nice to people and help out when we can.” I said, “You’re right,” and I thanked him. The night before, in our Des Moines, Iowa, hotel, we were put in a room where the TV didn’t work. We really wanted to see the debate between Harris and Trump, and the young lady at the front desk said her tech guy had gone home, so she tried to make the TV work. When it didn’t, she put us in another room, where the TV DID work, and we got to see the two presidential candidates square off. True, she was trying to be a good employee - but she didn’t really have to move us. But she did.
That wasn’t the last time we witnessed good things happening. Everybody on our trains was nice, and the dining car steward invited a hungry person on the train to have a meal - for free! (Years ago, Harlane and I were riding with a single mother who had not brought any food or enough money to buy food. Some people travel without realizing that you need more than your ticket, especially when you’re going a long way.) It was so nice to see an Amtrak employee respond to human need.
Finally, as we rode in a cab from the Chicago hotel to our train, the driver didn’t even start the meter, and I said, “How much do we owe you?” He said, “Whatever you’d like.” I said, “Okay, NOTHING!” Seriously, I gave him a nice fare. The previous cabbie did not WANT to take us such a short ride to the station, but this guy DID, and he didn’t even start the meter! (I should have said, “Go show that other driver what I gave you!” But I didn’t.) We experienced lots of nice people on this trip. And do you know what I think?
What I believe is that people are taking it on their own to be nice. That may sound naive, but I wonder if all the bad stuff and bad feelings we have been experiencing in our country for the past several years is having the effect of making people think something like this: Maybe the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, but at least I can do SOMETHING. And do you know what? That may be what Jesus had in mind: you can do something, and I can do something, and pretty soon, maybe a LOT gets done because we all did a little something! That may have been what happened when Jesus fed the five thousand: we’ll take this little bit from you and THAT little bit from somebody else, and before you know it, we have over 12 baskets of leftovers! You never can tell what will happen if you TRY. Maybe YOUR being nice makes somebody else think, “Well, I can be nice, too.”
To put it in different words, each of us can be a SERVANT every now and then! In today’s Scripture reading, the disciples still didn’t get it. They were talking about who was the greatest, and Jesus was trying to get the idea into their heads that true greatness involves SERVING. I kind of think it’s funny that politicians are called “public servants.” They do serve us, but maybe not in the manner that they SHOULD! Don’t get me wrong: as Winston Churchill pointed out in a moment of frustration, our form of government is the worst there is.....EXCEPT for all the others that have been tried from time to time! And think about it: what is a better way of governing ourselves than what we have now? There is an organization called Run for Something, and the idea is, if you don’t like the way things are going, Run for Something! I have said before that personal relationships can be hard work, and it DOES take some hard work sometimes. Well, the same is true for our democracy: it takes hard work to get something done.
But what we are called to do is SERVE, and there are lots of ways to do that. Pastor Steve Timm is a Lutheran minister in Barton, Wisconsin, and he says this: “Worry about being a servant instead, not for the sake of currying favor with the powerful, but simply for the sake of serving other people. ALL other people.” And Pastor Steve goes on to say this: “Christ came for the first and the last, and everyone in between....{{we should}} just be at peace, as servants, together with a God who became a servant for us.”
That’s what Harlane and I experienced on our vacation: people willing to be servants, not for their own glory, but for our comfort. Do you know what I think? We were helped by servants of God, regardless of whether they acknowledged Him or not! Thanks be to God! Amen.
Pastor Skip
