Upside Down Ambition
James 3:13-18; 4:7-8a Mark 9:33-37
Where does the wind come from? How can these things be?
Children can ask some wonderful questions sometimes. They are the kind of people who study a caterpillar crawling along the ground wondering 10,000 things about her. Where is she going? Why does a caterpillar need so many legs? And Where’s her family? and Is she hungry? Such curious creatures… the caterpillars and the children!
At a children’s camp several years ago… In a rare, quiet moment during a weekend of swimming, canoeing, crafts, and gaga ball, the children were asked to write out a prayer to God. They took it very seriously. They were thoughtful. Some wrote short prayers. Some took their time and wrote longer ones. Some of them folded them up tightly when they were done and placed them in the basket. One precious Kindergartener began her prayer with a question, “Dear God, (it said with a big backwards G) Am I special? I ask this because I made many mistakes… like, getting homework wrong and bumping into people. Love, Helen.” We have an adult version of this prayer, don’t we? It’s the kind that starts out, “O God, why do these things only seem to happen to me?” Making mistakes and bumping into people is still a problem for a lot of us and with a much higher price tag.
Truth is, sometimes we get it wrong. Whatever it is. Like the Disciples. Case and Point. In Mark 9, Jesus continues instructing the disciples about his betrayal, death, and resurrection while they continue to misunderstand his meaning and are too afraid, it says, to ask more about what he means. Afraid of the truth or afraid of Jesus’ response. Last week, after all, Jesus called Peter “Satan” in the midst of a conversation about such things. Their fear paralyzes their otherwise wagging tongues.
The disciples keep their mouths shut when they should have asked more questions. One commentator said he would call a sermon on this text, The Tragedy of the Lack of Curiosity. In the church, too often, if we don’t understand a discussion, a decision, a policy, a practice…, we are willing to let a matter go and keep our mouths shut. Don’t want to offend anyone, we say. I wonder… if that’s one of the reasons Jesus cajoled a child to come stand among them. There he was, dirty feet and sweaty hair, beloved in the eyes of Jesus with a head FULL of questions just waiting to be asked….People of faith are supposed to be good at asking questions. And that’s who is welcomed by Jesus. A child full of questions and wonder, not afraid to ask. When we don’t understand what God is up to - Get curious! When the people of God confound us – Ask. Inquire. Wonder! It is fear that makes us go silent sometimes. It is fear that invokes silence from the disciples. So, they revert to what they’re good at… talking about themselves and one-upping each other.
On the way to Capernaum – the place one might call Jesus’ headquarters, or as one person said, the “center of gravity” where Jesus started teaching with authority – the disciples are having a disagreement. Jesus inquires about the nature of the conversation they were having on the way. What were they talking about while he was teaching about his own death and resurrection? What could possibly be more important? The same is true of us. Sometimes we are talking when we should be listening. Wonder how their comprehension of Jesus’ life would have been different if they had been listening rather than arguing. Possibly embarrassed at what they were talking about, they didn’t respond, but Jesus… He knows. They are arguing about who is the greatest. Their focus is on position and status rather than the vision Jesus has for ministry among the least of the least. “Despite their being witnesses to Jesus’ life activities,” – among the outcasts of society – it seems they gravitate to the ideas of power and recognition as a benefit of their proximity to him (Jesus).[1] Friends with benefits. What would they merit for their role as the chosen twelve? Surely there would be seats on Jesus’ cabinet they would occupy, but which seats? Perhaps talking about themselves and one another’s greatness is a more familiar topic, easier to discuss, and digest than the costly road of discipleship that Jesus keeps reminding them they are on. And so, Jesus turns the common notions of greatness upside down. In God’s kingdom, leaders are the lowest on the social ladder.[2]
It’s truly a sign of how little they do understand about Jesus’ vision of an upside down Kingdom he keeps talking about where the last shall be first and the greatest among you will be the servant of all. They don’t understand that they are looking at Greatness - standing in front of them. [3]
I love the way Courtney Bugg says, “As is common for the Teacher, Jesus doubles down with an object lesson. Mark 9:34 says, “Jesus reached for a little child, placed him among the Twelve, and embraced him.” Jesus uses one who is considered property, or possibly nonhuman in the first century—a child—to demonstrate the waywardness of the disciples’ contemplations.” Children in the first century had hard, and often short, lives plagued with disease and violence. My, isn’t this still true for children in Palestine… (and Israel); those caught up in adults’ wars – in the Ukraine; and most certainly in places in the US - along the southern border, among the urban poor, and certainly in rural America where education and health care are inadequate to meet the needs of our children. “Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me…” It is a word of wisdom for adults in this day and time, too. In essence, to follow the way of Jesus is to receive children as human—that is, to treat the most marginalized with care and respect. To minister to the least of these.
As I wrote this Friday afternoon, the children from Weatherly Heights Elementary are getting out of school. A group of them come to play on our playground every afternoon. Their parents meet them here in the parking lot rather than face the carpool line. It’s a win-win. The kids get to burn some energy before going home. The parents chat with each other. As it happens on Friday afternoons, I’m sometimes the only one here (finishing a sermon) and one of the kiddos comes to the office door to ask to come inside and use the restroom. Today, he said, “My sister said there was like a doorbell. I didn’t know a church had a doorbell.”
“It’s like an office doorbell,” I said. “It rings in my office and I know someone is here. You push the button and I can talk to you through the intercom.”
“Oh” he said. “I thought it would sound like a real doorbell, but it was just you.”
Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her book, Leaving Church, “The way many of us are doing church is broken and we know it, even if we do not know what to do about it. We proclaim the priesthood of all believers while we continue living with hierarchical clergy, liturgy and architecture. We follow a Lord who challenged the religious and political institutions of his time while we fund and defend our own. We speak and sing of divine transformation while we do everything in our power to maintain our equilibrium.” [4] (to remain right side up!)
Jesus’ call to the church today is to practice an upside-down ambition where we embrace the least of these among us, first. The most vulnerable, the one who is barely considered human, is worth our answering the door. In bringing the child to stand among them, Jesus wasn’t exactly saying, I want you to be like a child, He was saying, I want you to create welcoming spaces where people, such as these children will know they are wanted and valued. When they ring the doorbell… let them in… no matter how ‘very busy’ you are.
The verses we heard from the book of James that Lucy read for us tell us how we create spaces – not of selfish ambition, but of welcome and upside-down ambition. James writes:
With wisdom from above… First, [be] pure, and then peaceful, gentle, obedient, filled with mercy and good actions, [be] fair, and genuine. Those who make peace sow the seeds of justice by their peaceful acts.
Robi Damelin is doing this through an organization called The Parent Circle. Madison shared an interview[5] she had heard with Robi this week. She has sown seeds of peace her whole life. Her son, David, was killed by a Palestinian sniper back in 2002 while serving in the Israeli army. That is when she got involved in The Parent Circle. October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, felt like a major set-back to the Circle’s work on reconciliation and peacemaking among Jewish and Palestinian families. The families involved have all lost a child - on both sides - in this ancient conflict. They are seeking ways to listen and learn from one another so that they might put a stop to Israeli and Palestinian children dying. It is remarkable to think that someone like her - and all these other families – can channel their inconsolable grief of losing a child to peace and action. They are working tirelessly to impact public and political will to choose reconciliation and the path of peace over violence and war.[6]
When children see us working for peace in our communities, we are sowing seeds in them that will go on to grow gardens of Justice.
When we…
● trade mercy for power
● Curiosity for judgment
● Grace for grit
● Kindness for success
● Gentleness for ruthlessness
…then we turn the world, as we know it, upside down.
[1] Buggs, Courtney V. Working Preacher commentary Mark 9
[2] CEB Study Bible Mark 9
[3] Sermon Brainwave podcast, Working Preacher Lewis, K., Moore, J., Skinner, M.
[4] Taylor, Barbara Brown Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith
[5] https://www.holypost.com/
[6] https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/about_eng-2/vision_eng/