Peace on Earth?

               Good Morning!  This year seems to have just whizzed by hasn’t it?  Indeed, every year I find the months seem to go a little quicker and the days fly by just a little faster.  And, in all honesty, though, ladies and gentlemen, for every year that goes by I wake up and find the world is just that much harsher, and the people in it just a little more cruel.  This year was certainly no exception, was it?  In 2015 so many names were brought to our attention, names like San Bernadino, Umpqua Community College, Planned Parenthood at Colorado Springs, and Charleston, North Carolina.  2015 also brought up other names, names like Islamic State and Boko Haram, the latter an African Extremist group who proudly proclaimed that they would marry nine-year olds, abducted some 270 school girls and forced them into marriages.  While we got those children back, our 6 month response time to that kidnapping was of little use to the young women who were victimized and the vast majority of whom are now pregnant.  And indeed, adding to this list that is already too long, we find also the names of Kim Davis, Missouri University, the Baltimore Riots, and finally Paris France.  It makes me just want to hide.  Yes, when confronted with the shear immensity of how violent and ugly our world is becoming it is easy to just want to lose myselves in the holidays, to envelope myselves in Christmas lights and tinsel, in presents, and carols – anything really.  Anything so I don’t have to admit to myself that this day there is not peace on earth and even on Christmas there is no goodwill toward men. 

                But in light of all the conflict and ugliness we have experienced this year, be they racial, religious, or otherwise, there is hope for all of this.  The good news is the world doesn’t have to be this way.  It doesn’t have to be angry, hurt, and confused and we do not have to respond to hate with hate, and in these regards I want to introduce you to someone.  He is not here right now, though I keep him with me.  You see, as I mulled over all that the world has been through this past year, my thoughts kept returning to my old mentor in seminary.  Now, as your pastor I want to affirm again that for us as Christians the answer is still Jesus, but I think there is a place for the people God puts in our path, and that our teachers and fellow humans often have important lessons to teach us about Him.  My mentor, as he referred to himself, was the right reverend Dr. Wilbur P. Stone.  He was a farmer, a businessman, a missionary, a pastor, and a professor.  He was a self proclaimed Congregationalist Baptist Pentacostal who also enjoyed the occasional Roman Catholic Mass. We didn’t agree on a lot theologically, but the loving heart of this man always struck me to the core.  As a Baptist minister he did not think a number of things were proper, homosexuality and homosexual relationships being one of them, but his response to his brother when he came out of the closet was just phenomenal.  When his younger brother told his family he was gay and in a gay relationship, much of his family left the dinner table never to speak to him again.  Wilbur just sat there, and in his fifties no less, as his brother turned to him through terrible tears. He asked Wilbur, “Aren’t you going to disown me too?  Aren’t you going to tell me what a sinful human being I am and tell me I’m going to burn in hell?” Wilbur turned to his brother and said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, that is not for me to decide.  But I do know this, I am never going to abandon you, and wherever you are bound there will not be a day when you are not tripping over my love for you.”

                After my own study of the Scriptures and the history of the church, I disagreed with him that homosexuality was a sin.  Indeed, there is no evidence the church had much to say on the subject for its first 1100 years and had no problem producing wedding liturgy for same-sex couples.  But while we disagreed in theology we were in one hundred percent agreement over how that theology ought to be applied.  However, this is not the story I want to tell you about the man.  The story I am reminded of in these turbulent times is the story of Wilbur at one of his yearly Peace talks with Muslims in Eastern Africa.  While Israel and Palestine get most of the news coverage for peace talks in that part of the world, the fact is, as Wilbur and many others have found out, other places need them too.  And for many years Wilbur participated in these talks, addressing Muslim peoples pushed out of their homelands by their own Islamic brothers and pushed into tents where they had to rely on other peoples for food and water.  These talks of course had varying degrees of success but the time Wilbur remembered the most was one of the most recent. 

                These peace talks were always respectful, always non-violent, but this particular time a hard lined conservative Muslim imam found out about the talks and he butted his way in.  He was rude and he was quarrelsome.  He interrupted Wilbur’s points constantly, seemingly having a quote from the Qu’ran for everything Wilbur had to say.  At the end the imam got up and made a speech to Muslims in the crowd.  The word of God in the Qu’ran was clear, he said.  Wilbur and these Christians were infidels and even simply sitting here listening to them was nothing less than a show of disloyalty to Allah.  He called on the Muslim men listening to repent, to rise up and denounce these Christians as the faithless deceivers that they were.  Within moments some the Muslim men arose from within audience.  Steel in their backs and righteousness in their eyes, they stood up before Wilbur could even react.  Boldly they rose up and pointed their fingers at the Imam and said, “would you please just shut the hell up.”  They got up and told him that after being chased into the wilderness so many years ago by their own supposed Muslim brothers and sisters that they now knew why the Prophet himself sought refuge with the Christians when he was chased away by his own people.  Ugliness and hate in fact did NOT win that day, and years of hard work building peace amongst two very different peoples was not undone by one man’s self-righteous bigotry.  There was Peace on Earth in that little corner of the world and it was there because there was good will toward men.

                Our gospel lesson today is found in John, but today I want to talk about Luke’s gospel.  I want to talk about the Christmas story that tells of censuses and inns; of shepherds and angels.  I want to talk about that gospel, because in that gospel goodwill is absolutely the point.  When we hear Luke describe Caesar Augustus’ decree, we hear merely words of history, of a man just chronicling down facts as an accountant crunches numbers.  But what Luke’s gentile audience would know that perhaps we would miss is that the Jews revolted at every census.  Unwilling to be tracked by their government and unwilling to be recorded so they could be taxed, the Jews would be stirred up in Judea and would engage in violent riots.  As a Gentile Theophilus, a gentile friend of God, you would be constantly confronted with the often deadly actions of God’s people.  And while yes the Caesars and Rome were hardly above critique, that tax money supported the country in ways that people really benefited from.  It went to roads that kept trade healthy, it went to the courts so people could submit their pleas, and it kept the lands policed and crime down – in all except Judea.  That is why the story of Joseph and Mary obeying the census would be so shocking and yet so very vital.  Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus commented that the Jews considered all the world an enemy, but not these Jews.  These Jews did not revolt, they did not make war, they did not turn to violence.  For a Gentile believer in God this news was the world to you, for the long foretold and awaited Messiah did not come through the self-righteous and the war mongering, but through the peaceful and the obedient.  It came from Jews who obeyed the edict of their country, risking not only estrangement from their fellow kin, but risking their own lives and the life of their child in traveling the dangerous Judean countryside.  This was the Holy Family, the family that bore you as a gentile no ill will and was willing to burden itself, even endanger itself, for your benefit.

                And we find as we read into Luke’s story further that the goodwill shown by Mary and Joseph that day God would simply outdo.  We find that though His own people were typically inhospitable, that though none would share or even give up their own room for a pregnant woman and her family, that though it was amongst a people who had no more room for their king than a stable and a feeding trough, God bore them no ill will.  He came anyway.  Though the Jewish faithful had been groaning for centuries for a return of the Davidic King, it is both shocking and despicable the only honor reserved for those of the line of David was apparently that of a shut door.  But when God sent his angels it was not to punish, it was not to rebuke, but it was to proclaim the coming of the Messiah with Joy.  And the shepherds, unclean vagabonds and thieves to a proper Jew of the city, it was to them that the angels came.  Those who had been ostracized, those who were looked down upon, they were not missed.  In fact they were given a special invitation.  Though there was many a reason for God to be angry and incensed, rightfully indignant and in a mind to punish, it is the Incarnation, the birth of God as a human being, that we find God’s true character – Love.  God bears mankind no ill will, it is we who bear ill will for one another.    

         And so our gospel is like our lives this Christmas season.  We too live in a world that chooses to be harsh and inhospitable.  We too live amongst an unforgiving people who seem to always find a reason to have no goodwill for their fellow man, people who see the lives of their brothers and sisters as worth so much less than even the briefest false feeling of righteousness.  These people are absolutely in the world, but the good news is that we don’t have to be like them.  Just as God chose not to make mankind his enemy that fateful night 2000 years ago we can do that too.  We can choose to be like God, we can choose to leave the world of anger and fear and pride behind, we too can enter our suffering world with both love and joy.  We can choose to love people different than us, to respect and show kindness to people with whom we do not agree.  Through this we can have Peace on Earth!  This is not merely a numb and impotent phrase we tell ourselves this time of year.  It is not a set of tinsel-colored blinders we put every December the 25^th, it is a promise made by the Maker.  Peace on Earth is not only possible, but because of the work of Christ it is the inescapable reality. 

                Ladies and Gentlemen, the world is in turmoil.  It is suffering and in despair.  The violence and the hate of this past year have made it forget the very real hope we have for a better tomorrow.  It threatens to turn the Peace and the Joy of this Day into a mockery.  It will not succeed.  It will not succeed because we know of a better way, a way that answers anger with kindness, hate with love and fear with Peace, a way that began with God extending a hand of friendship and goodwill to an undeserving people that 1^st Christmas morning.  May we inject the world with that same Christmas grace every single day of the year.      

Amen and Amen.

The difference between Loving and Legal

Good Morning!  As many of you know I have worn a number of hats in my short time on this earth.  I have been a construction worker, a law graduate, and now a pastor, but in this particular instance I was a security guard.  I was the night lead for that particular property and I was the first responder for my shift.  We worked in what was essentially a factory setting and as 1^st responder that meant I received special medical training above and beyond first aid in order to deal with the injuries that would happen on site.  My job was to lead my other officers in the case of an emergency and no matter what we were to keep the injured person alive long enough for the ambulance to arrive.  So you see as a man trained in law, theology, and emergency response you might just be the first congregation to hire a truly full service pastor.  I can bring you into this world, keep you in this world, see you off joyfully into the next and even help you with your estate after you’ve left.

                There was a lot we did at that job, we helped people with chemical burns, diabetic issues, nasty cuts and even strokes, but all that didn’t phase me.  The building could burn down, a tornado could come by, a can of experimental chemicals could spill and turn everybody into a flesh-eating mutant, I could handle it.  What I hated about that job was midnight.  I hated midnight because midnight was shift change and shift change meant that HE would show up.  Now I had nothing against this particular HE but from almost the very outset he had something against me.  I remember when he first came there; he didn’t talk much.  I made sure to be polite and tell a few jokes, but soon afterward, let’s call him Tom, Tom became very belligerent.  He didn’t exactly say nice things, things I wouldn’t dare repeat in a sermon, and he made it very evident he didn’t like me much.  One night when he came in I was sure he was in fact going to hit me.  He took an intimidating stance, was a foot taller than me and twice as wide, he stood inches away from me, and looked me in the eye with his fists clenched.  I looked him in the eye also, but gently, and kindly gave him plenty of room to put his stuff down on the security desk.

                Quite frankly the situation confounded me.  Literally having said only a handful of words to the man, words of such nefarious intent like, “Hello and how are you” his anger, no his hatred was simply inexplicable.  I decided to make the best of the situation, however, and so every day he came in I decided to shower him with kindness.  I gave him his space, told him what he needed to know from the previous shift, and made sure to wish him well every time I left.  His attitude didn’t change toward me, in fact it made it worse, but I made it out the door without any violence to my person either.

                Now, many of you might be wondering, Keven, why didn’t you tell your supervisor about it?  Oh, I did.  But we were inevitably the only guards when he did these things and he was always very sure to stay off camera, so whatever I said was always a he-said-he-said kind of a thing.  And while he was intimidating, belligerent, and abusive he also did so in ways that never technically broke the rules, at least in a way that anybody could prove.  This information would turn out to be very important.  You see, after months of this kind of abuse, little things could and would slip out.  Tom, you see, was an ex-cop, and not only was he an ex cop, he was a self-righteous ex cop who, as it turned out, had a passionate hatred for not only attorneys, but also for clergy.  How does the saying go, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all,”?  To Tom, the Bible was written in Plain Language and the nonsense that someone would have to be trained to understand it so they could perform the duties of God’s religion was simply of the devil.  To him, I was the worst sort of shyster and a charlatan, more crooked than the mafia itself.  The fact that I had graduated law school, and was going to seminary, only cemented in his mind that I was the worst sort of person imaginable.

                Despite his actions and overall terrible attitude, that is not really what I remember him most for.  What I remember most about Tom are the stories he would proudly tell of his days on the force, stories of dragging and roughing up suspects who hadn’t even been found guilty, and his hopes and dreams of what he’d do to criminals if he were only allowed, things that, by the way, would have killed them or left them horribly, psychologically scarred. These were the stories of his own endless righteousness.  It was a world of light vs dark, good versus evil after all, and he knew that he was God’s shining sword.  I have never met a more compassionless man.  A man who knew every rule, followed everything to the letter and knew every loophole to get what he wanted.  A man who saw righteousness in rules, and despised anybody who had the authority, legal or spiritual, to contradict him.  He was a holy bully.

                Now, you may wonder, saying this all well and good Keven, but what does this have to do with our gospel text?  In reality, everything.  You see, we are a culture of rule lovers.  We read everything with an eye for some new law, some statute that we can gleefully pin others under – the reality is I’m afraid that people like Tom do not spring from a vacuum.  They learn our culture’s obsessions with laws and the power they grant very early on, and some learn its lessons very well indeed.  You see, we read this text hungry for new rules.  Look! We say, Jesus is going to hand down a new rule.  Moses gave one rule, but Jesus is giving us the REAL one.  The reality is, however, rules were never really the point; it was the people that really mattered.

                Our story begins with the Pharisees and they pose to Jesus a question of the law.  “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” they ask, a topic that for its day was a woman’s rights issue.  Jewish law, as it had been interpreted and enforced, said a man could divorce his wife for any and every reason, leaving his partner and the mother of his children on the side of the road to essentially all but starve.  A woman’s only means of survival in that day was the men in their life; a divorced woman would be very unlikely to remarry and her only hope would be if her father would retake her back into the family, which not every father did or even was alive to do. 

                Jesus, however, as he is apt to do, changes the tone of the entire conversation.  Rather than entering into a quagmire of laws and their interpretation he relates the entire issue down to a person.  He answers their question with a question of his own.  “Why are you asking this?  What did Moses command?”  Well now that we know what Moses commanded; did you think to ask why he commanded it?  Was it because Israelites are so righteous?  Is it because their hearts are in line with God?  No, Jesus tells them, Moses wrote this rule because your hearts were hard.  Instead of asking about rules, why not ask about God’s intentions for human relationships?  Was God’s intention to have people use each other and throw them away?  No!  God’s intention was for you to find your other half, to enjoy a life of partnership and intimacy.  Yes, you can call yourself law-abiding if you divorce your spouse, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being faithful.

                Now, I think it important to say at this juncture that I don’t believe Jesus intends to be exhaustive here, either about marriage or about divorce.  I don’t think he intended to cover every possible coupling and uncoupling that would occur in human history.  Indeed, given that Paul feels free to recognize an exception in the case of a partner leaving their spouse, it tells me that Jesus was far less concerned about creating a rule to fit every situation than he was in raising up a compassionate people able to handle every situation faithfully.  I don’t think Jesus intended to be convenient for us, and so I think we must take Paul’s example when it comes to marriage and divorce, that we must realize exceptions to what we think is ideal exist and we must be compassionate and gracious in the very real brokenness of our relationships.

                But it is precisely this compassion the disciples do not get, this difference between what is loving, and what is legal.  They ask him again when they get a moment and again Jesus discusses the matter not in terms of rules and laws but in terms of the damage being done to another person.  A person who divorces their spouse for any and every reason, because that was the law of their day, they are not just committing adultery, Jesus says, they are committing adultery against a person, a real human being.  Listen to Jesus words, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her”. This is not some mere rule violation, a traipsing across arbitrary boundaries, it is taking your life-mate and dashing them against the rocks and trying to look holy and justified as you do it. 

                But the disciples still don’t get it, and when we see them again they are still enforcing society’s rules, keeping pesky children away from the rabbi.  “Our master has more important things to do then entertain your little brats,” they say and it is here at this juncture we see Jesus does something very rare.  He is indignant toward them and tells his disciples “Don’t you dare.”  Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, my disciples, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

                Children, you see, are wonderful little learners and take what they are taught on faith, but even more so have a very unique understanding of the rules.  Children are very concrete thinkers and do not understand rules as we do, they do not think in terms of breaking some abstract precept but rather they understand broken rules in terms of the people they will disappoint or the loved ones they might hurt. Amongst children, people are always the point and Jesus says that his disciples need to think that way, too.

                Friends, let us learn these lessons and learn them well.  Our society is already one that produces rule mongers and legalized tyrants, people who have a rule for every situation so they might prowl around as a roaring lion, looking for another to devour.  Let us not participate in a bankrupt world that sees no difference between immoral and illegal, but rather let us claim the freedom that Christ promises.  Let us joyfully enter the kingdom of the compassionate where the only law is Love.  Let us be citizens of heaven and have little regard for earthly rules and the hellish sorts of people who revel in them. Let us live as a people so good and so obedient that no crime could possibly be charged against us and let us not think in terms of rules but in terms of people.  Amen.

God Turns What is Bad Into What is Best!

It was about five years ago now, when I received what would turn out to be the most fateful phone-call of my life, though I hardly knew it at the time.  Our long time friends Michael and Michelle Rogers knew of a particular Lutheran Church – Eastside Community Lutheran I believe was its name (you may have heard of it) – and this Lutheran Church was in need of a preacher for a particular Sunday.  It was late summer and a Wednesday when I was put in touch with now Pastor Emeritus Horner those many years ago and he told me he was going to be out of town fulfilling his duties in the air force reserve.  We chatted, we got along pretty well, and we agreed that I would preach on that particular Sunday.  Boy, did I have no idea what I was signing up for. 

Having a few preaching classes under my belt by that point, I prepared the only way I knew how.  I looked up the text in the lectionary, read my books, prepared my sermon, and showed up as rehearsed as a man halfway through seminary could be on that particular Sunday.  Upon entering the door, however, I was greeted by a stern looking gentleman with black horn rimmed glasses.  He greeted me in a strangely gruff manner, introducing himself as Pastor Richard Hodges, and quite soon afterward he began speaking in a curious language, uttering strange esoteric sayings like “Call to Worship”, “Prayers of the Day”, and most horrifically “Which do you want to take?”  My mind now like an office where the copier had just exploded, I tried to find a very polite way to say that Pastor Don had only requested that I do the Sermon that day and as I was not given a bulletin I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking on any more than that.  That’s what I wanted to say, what actually came out was closer to “Sure, I can take half the service.”

I remember Pastor Hodges smiling; it was a wry sort smile, the same smile you see that swimming teachers get when they wait to see if their students will do the backstroke or simply sink unceremoniously to the bottom of the pool.  A bulletin magically appeared in my hand and suddenly I found myself thrust into the sanctuary and strangely pining for one of Dr. Gurtner’s Greek exams.   I’m not sure what I did for most of that service, I’m sure I spoke once or twice; Deer caught in the headlights don’t retain a lot of knowledge about the oncoming truck after all, BUT I do remember that when the time came to read the gospel actually nobody told me I had to bring my own copy of it to the pulpit.  The gospel hymn was sung, the congregation rose expectantly, and I had absolutely nothing in front of me.  Searching around frantically I found this large white book with the words Holy Bible written in Golden Filligris, and it was as if a chorus of angels had erupted in the background.  I plopped that large book on the podium, its echoes reverberating through the church for several minutes as I searched for Matthew’s text, turning pages back and forth, because that’s just so encouraging for you guys in the pews, right.  I located the text at last, read it, had you all sit down, and now, completely flummoxed gave I think the most mediocre sermon I had ever given.  The good news, however, the one bright spot in the entire affair was that I found out that no one turned on the microphone on, so thankfully very few of you actually heard it.

And so, feeling like a cat caught in a constantly flushing toilet, I left the service that day feeling like I failed some very nice people, but, at the very least I felt we could all take some solace in the fact that I’d never be asked back here again.  For those of you wondering whether or not your heavenly Father has a mirthful sense of irony, I ask you to please wonder no longer.  But that is the life of faith, yes it is messy and humbling in every sense of that word, but it is also grace-filled and never dull.  It is a life where things may seem bad at the time, but as it turns out, those events are really just good news in the waiting.  Such is the nature of our God, who turns bad to good and dries every single tear, taking what is broken in our lives and turning Bad News into the best thing we’ve heard all day.

Indeed, if I could sum up our gospel lesson in only a few words those are exactly the words I would pick, for today our gospel is chock full of the joys of terrible news.  Mark starts us off by telling us Jesus and his disciples are passing through Galilee, that section in upper Judea that might be considered their home base.  But Jesus is doing something strange here: he is making his disciples pass through secretly…whatever is going to happen Jesus does not want the general public to know about it just yet, and Mark doesn’t keep us in suspense.  The text says Jesus is passing through secretly “for 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." 

Well, Gee.  Why wouldn’t you want other people hearing that?  Betrayal, Death, and Rising Again?  Sure, that makes sense.  But that isn’t all.  If you think this would seem strange to us, imagine what it would have sounded like to his disciples.  Imagine being a fisher or a farmhand, a man or woman from a poor simple family gleaning whatever meager living you and your family could from a desert by the sea.  It is in the process of this daily business, however,  that suddenly something remarkable happens!  A rabbi, not traditionally schooled mind you, but a rabbi nonetheless, comes into your vicinity and the things this man says!  The wonders you see him do!  And after performing these incredible feats and teaching your own Scriptures to you in ways that you never even dreamed , this rabbi approaches you and asks you to be his disciple!  He wants to train you to be a rabbi just like him!  That’s what happens when a Jewish Rabbi comes up to somebody and says “follow me”.  They’re training people to be the next generation of teachers.  This man, this Jesus, He sees in you the ability to teach and to lead!  Of course you accept!

Now, we all have our romantic ideas about when the first disciples were called.  We typically picture them simply hearing the call of Jesus and having something very deep trigger inside of them, so deep in fact that they simply drop whatever it is that they they were doing and they go.   And to a great extent I want to affirm that.  I do believe that when Jesus’ disciples were called, just as when we are called, something deep within us moves in phenomenal ways, ways that are more felt and experienced than can be truly understood.  But discipling us humans is nothing if not messy, and while a goodly part of us answers that heavenly call earnestly, we bring along with us no small amount of earthly baggage.  So it would have been for the disciples.  While I have no doubt that something spiritually magnificent happened in those moments, the reality is in first century Judea accepting the call to be a rabbi’s disciple is about entering into agreement to not only serve a rabbi, a place of honor in itself,  but you would in turn also be taught how to be rabbi.  At the end of that relationship, you become entitled to a rabbi’s lifestyle, a rabbi’s income, and a rabbi’s status amidst a very religious Jewish community – and for the sons and daughters of farmhands and fishmongers that would look very attractive.  Accepting the call to be a rabbi’s disciple was not a completely altruistic act, and it is precisely those self-interests that get the disciples into trouble.

So you see, when your rabbi, the rabbi whom one of your number, Peter,  has called the Messiah, and whom you just saw on a mountaintop transfigured while talking to Moses and Elijah, when he takes you through your hometown secretly so he can tell you, “Yup, I’m going to be killed, isn’t that wonderful?” it’s going to be enough to give you pause.  It’s going to give you pause because, no, it is not wonderful news… in fact it’s the most horrible news imaginable, Jesus.  I love you Jesus, and I’m not ditching you because of this (and to their credit they don’t), but I entered into this relationship for a very specific reason: it was a means for me to move up in the world.  There is no honor in being the old student of a condemned rabbi.  Moreover… you have claimed to be Messiah, a king, and failed contenders for the crown are not only executed, but their supporters are usually killed too.  If you are handed over and killed I’ll be lucky if the only thing that happens to me is I return to the family business to be ridiculed for the rest of my life.  So no, this is terrible news.  And what’s this business about rising three days later.  I’ve seen you do some pretty amazing things Jesus, but I’m kinda sure you’re not going to be able to do them when you’re dead.

The disciples are rightly confused by this teaching, and would be very much afraid, but what do they do in response to it?  The text says that the disciples do what any other red-blooded human being would do when handed a teaching by the long awaited Savior of the world – they ignore it.  They change the subject, move on to something else, do anything really EXCEPT actually ask your teacher to explain what he means by that statement because if you do you might just find out he’s being serious.  That the stress and worry over their master’s death, and indeed what that death might mean for them. The fact that it  is causing them serious problems is obvious.  The disciples begin arguing amongst each other, and moreso, in light of their own possible upcoming shame; it is no surprise what they are arguing about: namely who among them is the greatest.  Amidst a ship that the captain has said he plans on plowing into the rocks, the disciples begin arguing who is the most worthy of their number, who among them is most able to survive the coming social storm and its fallout. 

Jesus sees this, however, and upon reaching Capernaum he asks them nonchalantly what it was that they were fighting over.  The disciples, of course, don’t want to answer him.   Having fought amongst each other, turning on one another like jackals over a fate Jesus never said was their own, well I’d be ashamed, too.  Jesus sees that they don’t want to answer him. I picture the disciples’ heads turned down and unable to even look their master in the eye, and so he calls the twelve to him.  He sits them down, knowing very well what this kerfuffle was about, and decides to solve the problem by giving them even more bad news.  In their hopes of honor, in their wishes to be something great amongst their peers he tells them to be the greatest; they actually need to be the least.  In fact he says that not only do they need to be least among their brethren, they must be diakonos – a waiter of tables and a filler of errands for all.  To bring home his point, he then brings among them a child, a person who goes back and forth performing menial tasks for others all the time and without complaint, a person of no social status –children were considered things and property until they came of age - and yet at the same time a person too busy trying to make the people he loves happy to really care.

So you see much like my first time preaching here, what should seem simple enough upon first glance turns out to be a lot more involved than you’d expect.  Indeed, the more we delve into our lesson and try to put into practice the more we find out just how bad at it we are going to be.  But if we take away anything from this passage it is that the best news is often misunderstood to be bad news, and what can seem like hardship at first can in the end become a blessing beyond our wildest dreams.  The disciples wanted only to move up in their own small little worlds, to be a respected rabbi much like those who visited them in their own places of worship, and yet what Jesus gave them was so much more.  They came in wanting to be teachers and Jesus made them into apostles, leaders of a fledgling movement that would cross ethnic, racial, and class barriers to become the largest religion in the world.  While Jesus telling them about his death seemed to at first to be bad news, in truth it was gospel, for by Jesus’ sacrificial death the world was reconciled back to God in ways before that no faithful Jew would even dare to dream.  And while the disciples did not respond to that news especially well, Jesus stayed with them and addressed their deepest concerns, giving them still a better way.  He said, “You joined me because you wanted to be leaders of a religious community, and oh, believe me you will be, but let me show you how you do that.  You, my disciples, are to lead by serving and you are to gain honor by insisting that you have none.  Do not play this world’s game.  You fight amongst each other hoping for a position other than the bottom, and in doing so you only sabotage yourselves.  Perhaps, you would say you are the best among your siblings because you are the brightest, but in saying you should be valued for your intelligence you are in fact devaluing all the other gifts God gave you.  Why say that you only have value because you are smart?  Perhaps you would say you are the best because you are the most pure?  Why are you setting yourself up to lose?  If you are only to be valued for your abstinence, what will happen to you when someone comes along that abstains better than you do?  Do not play this world’s game of conditional love, the game that says you only have value if…  You are each of you God’s children and are adored beyond measure and loved unconditionally.  You lose that when you fight amongst one another and insist that others have to be less than you.  THAT, my dear friends, is how you lose at life.  If you need an example of how to live you need only look to the children among you.  They serve without question, love others and seek only to be loved in return.  Be like them, and you will find you will be blessed in far greater measure. 

And so you see, ladies and gentlemen, friends, what at first seemed like bad news really wasn’t.  In fact, the more we look at it; it really was the best news.  As we all know, the world has it games.  It seeks its victims in a mad scheme, pushing people into the dirt in hopes it never winds up there itself.  We’ve borne the brunt of that in this congregation, haven’t we?  But today we turn a new page, a new page that by God’s grace still has all our favorite characters in it.  In that page is the story of a congregation who weathered the worst for the gospel, who knew well the selfish games of the world and wanted no part of it.  Let us continue that, let us resolve in this new page to carry forward those old values of love, service, and humility.  Let us follow our Lord’s teaching, to be as those too busy loving and serving others to care at all what the world concocts in its silly futility.  I say to you friends, Rejoice!  We have been through what is bad; it is now time to watch God turn it into what is best.  Amen!