Last of All
Mark 9:30-37[1]
We don’t much like not being first. For most of us, there seems to
be some situation or other where not being first gets under our skin. And we
certainly don’t like being last. That can be downright humiliating. It’s
embarrassing. We associate being last with “losing,” and most of us don’t like
to lose at anything. Some of us really don’t like losing! We associate being
last with being worst, and that really gets under our skin. In the right
settings, the ones that really push our buttons, being last can seem like a
threat to our very sense of self. That kind of threat to our well-being is
something that many of us will actually fight to avoid. Being last of all is a
bitter pill to swallow for most of us.
I think one reason for this is we are such a success-oriented
people. The very idea of being last just doesn’t make sense to us. We assume
that those who are last in this world got there because they never really tried
hard enough. By contrast, most of us spend our whole lives trying to be first
and best. We’re a “go big or go home” kind of people. It feels powerless to be
last, and we don’t like feeling powerless. It strips us of our self-worth. It
generates shame, which is more intense than guilt. Shame is the feeling there
is something wrong with us at a basic level. It calls into question our very
existence. Being last equates in our minds to the feeling that we’re just not
good enough.
Our Gospel lesson for today brings together several episodes that
may not seem to go together. It begins with Jesus, whom Peter has already
confessed to be the Messiah, telling the disciples that he is going to be
killed. In their minds, Messiahs don’t get killed; they conquer and liberate
their people from their oppressors. The idea of a Messiah being killed simply
made no sense to them. Messiah’s don’t get killed; they usher in the Kingdom of
God on earth. I think when the Scripture says, “they did not understand what he
was saying” (Mk. 9:32), it may be an understatement!
Hence the fact that in Mark’s Gospel, right after Jesus gives his
disciples this somber news, they are engaged in an argument about “who was the
greatest” (Mk. 9:34). In this context, the Scripture doesn’t specify the
greatest at what. It simply says they were arguing about who was the greatest.
Set alongside Jesus’ prediction of his impending death, that in and of itself
seems odd. Matthew’s Gospel brings the disparity into sharper focus: there they
asked Jesus outright, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God?” (Matt.
18:1). It seems clearly implied that they thought the “greatest” had to be one
of them! More than that, it illustrates their total lack of understand about
what Jesus was trying to accomplish.
Jesus’ answer to them makes it clear that they had missed one of
the most important lessons he tried to teach them: “Whoever wants to be first
must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). And to emphasize the
point, Jesus seeks to correct his disciples’ misguided ambition by embracing a
child, and saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and
whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (Mark 9:37). We
might see that as a “cute” or “warm and fuzzy” experience, because that’s the
way we see children. But for most of human history children have been seen as
having no value in society. They were simply mouths to feed and were put to
work as soon as possible. They were the least and the last of all in that day.
But Jesus not only said to embrace the children—who represented
the least and the last of all. In Matthew’s
Gospel, he told his disciples they had to become
like children in order to enter the Kingdom of God (Matt. 18:3). Again, we make
this “sugary sweet” by thinking he’s talking about the trusting nature of a
child. But the disciples would have not found the idea of becoming like the
child very inviting. The role of a child was one that was precarious in the
ancient world. A child was someone to whom an adult could do just about
anything and get away with it. They had no recourse, because they had no legal
rights. They were the most vulnerable, the weakest, the lowest, and the last of
all in the world of Jesus’ day.
In holding out children as an example for his disciples to follow,
I think he was saying the same thing he had tried to teach them in many ways. I think he was telling them that if they
wanted to follow him they had to become the least, the lowest, and the last of
all. That’s about as contrary to our way of life as you can get. We praise
ambition and we honor those who are “winners” and those who are first. These
attitudes are woven into the very fabric of the way we live our lives. But
while we spend our efforts seeking to be “on top,” the “best,” and first of
all, Jesus calls us to a very different path.
Jesus calls us to
a path of self-sacrifice, a path of making ourselves vulnerable, a path of
giving up the ambitions that call to us from this world. Instead of pushing and
shoving our way into first place, Jesus calls us to a path of taking last
place. It’s a path that not only leads us to care for those who are most
vulnerable in society. It also leads us to take our place alongside the
weakest, the lowest, and the last of all. Although it goes against the grain of
everything that is instilled in us from childhood, that is the path Jesus calls
us to walk if we would follow him. It’s a path that leads us to give up
striving to be first and best, and instead take our place with him as servant
of all, and last of all.
[1] ©2018
Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/23/2018 at Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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