Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 20, 2009
Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
Our scripture lessons today seem to have a lot to say about God’s expectation for us as his children. They tell us much about right thinking and good behavior. For example, in our reading from Proverbs we hear a catalogue of qualities for being a good wife. Most of all, a good wife is a Godly wife. She is a virtuous woman with intelligence and skill for being a homemaker. She takes care of the needs of her family, but she also cares for the needs of her friends and neighbors and she provides hospitality to the stranger. A good and godly wife is kind and generous and giving in all that she does, and all that she does reflects her love for the Lord.
Well, fair enough. I think it would be hard to quibble with these standards for being a good wife and homemaker, even in our modern world where men increasingly take on the role of homemaker themselves. These are high standards for a woman or a man who is in charge of caring for a household, but the writer of proverbs believes such high standards can be met by those who seek to serve God’s purpose for our life.
But that’s the hard part, isn’t it? It’s difficult to seek God’s purpose for our life and to serve that purpose when our own self-centered desires and self-serving needs get in the way. Then our life becomes about me, what I want and what I need, and how I can manipulate others and control my circumstances to serve my own agendas. We have all been there, haven’t we? And all of us have suffered the consequences of our selfish and foolish ways. One good thing which can come from the consequences of our bad behavior is that it can make us realize how human we are, how broken we are, and how separated we have become from our better selves, from our God and from each other. But as a people of God we always have a choice. And today our psalmist tells us what that choice is. We can continue down paths of our own making, believing in our own self-righteousness, or we can find our way back to God’s righteousness and seek to become the person God would have us be.
The Book of Proverbs serves such purpose in scripture. It was used as a manual to teach young men and women how to serve God’s purpose for their life. The standards set forth for the good and godly wife in today’s lesson are a way by which the homemaker can measure how well she is serving God’s purpose for her life. But, in fact, all of our scriptures serve the purpose of helping us measure our life by God’s standards. And wisdom is God’s highest standard of measurement.
Now we all know what makes us wise; experience. Good experiences and bad experiences, and how we learn from them. But wisdom requires us to do more than just learn from our experience. Wisdom requires us to understand our experience and be changed by it. Wisdom is what helps us step back from difficult situations and let go of toxic ones. Wisdom gives us the humility of knowing we might be wrong, or that we don’t have the whole truth. Wisdom helps us know the right thing to say and the right thing do to bring a bad situation to a good end. I am reminded of the wisdom of the serenity prayer which is spoken by people who have put themselves and others in difficult and dangerous situations because of their addictions: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” But any addict, or any co-dependent person will tell you that saying this prayer is not enough; it is only by practicing its standards for serenity that they find serenity and it is only by practicing the standards set forth in the 12 Steps that they find the wisdom and courage to make their way back to the life God gave them to live.
Today we are inundated by standards for checking our behavior in our scripture lessons, and wisdom is their goal. James seems terribly concerned about the bad behavior of the people he is writing to in his congregation. In his frustration, James writes, “These conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?” You want what you want and you covet everything, and if you don’t get what you want you become bitter with envy, and you will do anything you must to get your way. It is envy and self-ambition which creates conflict and disorder in your life and leads to the wicked things you do against each other. Then James issues a challenge. “Who is wise and understanding among you?” Show your wisdom and understanding by living a good life and doing the good works born of wisdom. James goes on to share some of the qualities of wisdom which serve God’s purposes for good in us. They are the willingness to make peace, the ability to be gentle and yielding in the midst of anger and self-righteousness. Wisdom shows itself by our ability to listen to people who don’t agree with us and honor their point of view. Wisdom shows no partiality or hypocrisy, says James. Most important, wisdom always bears good fruit by bringing good outcomes out of bad situations.
Well, these are pretty high standards for human beings like us to reach for, wouldn’t you say? But James believes we can live by these standards, if only we will seek the wisdom from above—God’s wisdom which shows itself in the godliness of our own life by the good that we are and the good that we do for each other. Just like the standards for being a good wife in our proverbs for today, the standards for good behavior James sets for his community of faith are rooted in wisdom. God’s wisdom. Wisdom we can tap into anytime we are willing to let God enter into the messiness of our lives and the pain of our human conflicts. “Draw near to God,” says James, “and God will draw near to you.” Unfortunately, we don’t always remember God when we are stuck in our self-centered problems and our self-serving solutions. We don’t remember that God is waiting for us to draw on his greater wisdom and his deeper support.
In Mark’s gospel we encounter another self-centered human scenario where wisdom is sorely lacking. For the third time in this gospel account Jesus is telling his disciple that his purpose on this earth is to suffer and die in order to accomplish God’s purpose of salvation for his creation. But all his disciples can think of is which one of them will replace Jesus when he is gone. Once again Jesus is trying to impart wisdom to his disciples about the ways of God and all they can think of is how his leaving them might serve their self-seeking and self-serving purposes for replacing him. And once again, they don’t get it. They still want to believe that Jesus is the messiah of Hebrew scripture who has come to establish God’s reign on this earth. It only makes sense to them that one of them will have to represent God’s rule on this earth when Jesus is gone. As Jesus hears them argue who will be the greatest among them, Jesus has to remind them of the standard God sets for greatness in those who seek to lead. Great leaders are good servants, says Jesus, and they serve others with humility. And once again Jesus turns the standards of this world upside down.
In God’s wisdom human pride and boasting are replaced by humble service. In God’s wisdom, the first will be last and the last will be first. Those who are winners by this world’s standards are often losers by God’s standards. By God’s standards those who are considered least among his children become the greatest among them. Jesus goes on to illustrate the wisdom of his teaching by inviting a child who is standing nearby to come among them. He takes the child in his arms and says to his disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” And we can only imagine how difficult this teaching is for Jesus’ disciples to comprehend.
Why? Because children had no status in the ancient world. In ancient times children were not even considered people until they reached adulthood. Until then children had no value because they contributed nothing to society; all they did was take from it. Their status was much like that of a slave. Children were only valued because of their potential for becoming adults. Children were a family’s social security, and the most important function of women was to bear them to the world. We also know that not much had changed in the status of children during the middle ages. A set of instructions written by Thomas Aquinas dictates the order in which a husband should save his family should their house catch on fire. A husband was obliged to save his father first, then his mother, next his wife and last of all, his youngest child. It was not until the 20th century that children were given status and protection under the law. Anyone who reads a novel or sees a film or stage play based on the novels of Charles Dickens can testify to the use and abuse and neglect that children suffered even into the 20th century.
So you can imagine how shocked Jesus’ disciples might have been when Jesus gives such status to this child. Jesus sets the standard for valuing people who are the least valued in our world. And children are only one of many classes and categories of people who are little valued. But Jesus’ lesson is a great one for us to hear today, because today we welcome a person of great value to our church. And we honor Jesus and we honor the one who sent him by receiving her into our midst.
Today Kendal Elizabeth Robitalle will be baptized into the body of Christ in this congregation of St. George’s. And we are reminded that baptizing children who have done nothing to deserve status in this world are given the highest place of honor in God’s kingdom. And now we have a special role to play in her life. Kendal’s parents, her sponsors and the people of her church family must teach her the ways of the Lord as she learns the ways of this world. We must teach her God’s standards for wisdom and greatness and show her how to live by those standards so that she might grow into the good and godly person God made her to be.
In the meantime we must continue to become the good and godly people God created us to be. This is why we gather for worship each Sunday. Worship reminds us of the values the world would rather have us forget. Worship makes us remember that we only become great by serving a purpose greater than ourselves. Most of all worship reminds us that there is a wisdom far wiser than the wisdom of this world. And that wisdom can be ours; we need only to draw near to God, so that God can draw near to us.