The Might of the Mite (Mark 12:38-44)

The “widow’s mite”—it is a fairly well known story to long-time Christians.  The old widow joins the crowd standing underneath the banner “Sunday School Stories Annual Reunion”. It’s that place within our memory where we keep those beloved stories from religious education and Vacation Bible School long ago.  The guest list is a veritable “who’s who”: the Prodigal son looking sheepish after hitting rock bottom and starting his career as a feeder of pigs, the rich young ruler still hoping he can bend the rules and still take his overstuffed backpack wedged somehow through the Pearly Gates, and just for old times’ sake, the shepherds from the Nativity narratives turned up, bleary eyed from staying up to watch their flocks by night.  (Conspicuously missing are the three kings.  They said they were coming, but they’re running late. You know what they say, wise women should have been sent out to seek the baby Jesus.  After all, at least wise women know how to stop and ask for directions.....).

            The widow’s mite doesn’t sound that exciting of a story. A poor woman gave two coins, which does not sound like much, yet it is said these two coins are the sum of all she owned.  Standing there at the annual reunion of the stories learned in Sunday school, the rich young ruler sees the widow with her two coins and looks away.  Doesn’t look like much, what she has there, just holding the coins.  Why, money should have a fine purse if you’re going to carry it around!  He shifts the weight of all he owns on his back and wonders why he has yet to find the path to eternal life.

The prodigal looks at the two coins and starts weeping.  He had great wealth—half his father’s estate and yet he spent it all living the high life.  He ponders whether he’ll ever be welcome at home again…. (For the record, remember, the prodigal is always to be welcomed home.) 

The shepherds look at the widow and nod.  They understand her predicament.  More often than not, shepherds are lucky to have much money on them.  You don’t make much working the shepherd third watch shift.  You’re more likely to be serenaded by angels than make a decent living in this work….

            As grownups, the widow’s mite is heard around stewardship time. The widow is celebrated as a sign of all that is good about giving to church:  give with a sense of sacrifice, give to God with glad hearts, and the like.  The “Widow’s Mite” becomes a phrase, sort of churchly “code language” for someone who has given generously, sacrificially even, “out of very little”.

            For American Baptists, the “widow’s mite” is recalled by our denomination’s pension board.  Each year, churches give to a “thank you!” offering to retired ministers and missionaries and their spouses who have served our denomination.   The American Baptist congregation that gives the most, despite being one of our smaller churches, receives an award for their generosity.  The award remembers a time back in the early days of the Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering (RMMO), commemorating

the anonymous gift in 1981 of a Vietnamese refugee woman worshipping with the First Chinese Baptist Church in Fresno, California.  Not knowing the full intent of the offering, but understanding the words ‘thank you’ printed on the offering envelope she slipped off her wristwatch, her only possession of value, and placed it in the envelope”.  (MMBB press releases)

            A wristwatch does not sound like much, yet it serves as a reminder of the sort of generosity that has made many of our denomination’s institutions possible.  Over the years, American Baptists have supported seminaries, care homes, neighborhood centers, and regional and national programs, thanks in part to donors who give out of their love for Christ and their desire to promote the gospel.  Our denominational history sometimes gets told as a cavalcade of the big name donors, yet a true history also remembers the witness of the multitude of donors who have made our denomination’s past possible and provided for our future through their generosity. 

Recall the witness of the Love Gift, a historic ABWM initiative, started out when the Great Depression was underway and our denomination’s national offices were in critical need of financial support.  To this day, the Love Gift boxes are still providing to help our denomination.  In 2009, the Love Gift, again just from the “spare change” and devotion of ABWM groups and individuals nationwide, provided over $400,000 as of September 30, 2009, to United Mission support—pretty impressive feat for a little cardboard box that sits on the end table, collecting coins one by one. Indeed, before the name “Love Gift” came into widespread use, the little boxes were called “mite” or “might” boxes, recognizing the humble gifts making big things possible.

            I note these stories of “the might of the mite” with due thanksgiving.  I also note that the story of the widow’s mite often gets taken a bit out of its context.  While upheld as a model stewardship lesson, the actual story within Mark’s gospel has a rather disturbing “rest of the story”.  The story appears in Mark and Luke as part of Jesus’ criticism of the corruption within the Temple.  Reading the story in the midst of its appearance within Mark’s gospel, one realizes the story has a tragic dimension.  As one scholar notes, “Although Jesus praises [the widow’s] generosity, the tragedy of her desperate situation remains. Her house has been completely devoured [by the scribes].”  (Harry Fleddermann, “A Warning about the Scribes”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1982: 67)   

The widow comes to the Temple treasury and gives her two coins. Jesus observes this act and recognizes her devotion. He extols her faith while exposing the corruption of Temple.  Reading Mark’s gospel, the reader discovers that Jesus sustains an ongoing critique against the religious establishment.  Read onwards in Mark as the religious establishment will collaborate with the Roman local government to get rid of Jesus.  This story of the widow’s mite comes after the “cleansing” of the Temple, where Jesus declares the commerce of the Temple improper worship.  And just after the teaching about the widow’s mite, Jesus claims the grandeur of the Temple will not last, predicting its destruction later in the first century.  The widow is a model of faithfulness in the midst of a place where organized religion has become a racket.

            Here Jesus singles out the scribes, religious authorities Jesus describes as the well-dressed, pious, high society types. Throughout Mark’s gospel, the scribes appear as the challengers to Jesus’ authority.  When Jesus begins his ministry, it is said he taught “as one with authority”, affirming Jesus’ status as teacher and healer. In the same breath, Mark notes that as Jesus is recognized, he is not decidedly nothing like the scribes.  Jesus criticizes the scribes for the limelight yet keeping some pretty shady practices.  The scribes are unveiled as pious and predatory. 

            Read any passage in Mark where the scribes are mentioned, and you find in the scribes’ behaviors and practices the opposite of Jesus’ teachings on discipleship.  Jesus tells his disciples to be servants, stating the first is last and the last is first.  The scribes maneuver for “first place”. The disciples are told to go out with few supplies and clothing to proclaim Jesus’ word.  The scribes wear long robes to signal their status to any onlookers. The scribes pray and then prey on the vulnerable.  Jesus’ prayers turn his followers back to the needs of the marginalized.  The widow gives modestly, the scribes devour immodestly.  (I am indebted to the Fleddermann article for his reading of the contrary witness of Jesus’ way versus the scribes’ ways.)

How do we rightly read sacred text?  The same scriptures that Jesus stood upon, those we call the “Hebrew Scriptures”, called for the faithful to protect “the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner in your midst”.  The scribes claimed expertise in these same texts while creating exploitative systems of religion. Standing upon the prophetic tradition, Jesus envisioned an alternative to the Temple, a community of humble servants given to a new understanding of authority and abundance where the widow is not least.  In her, the fullness of the gospel is made known.

From time to time, I recall in my sermons the witness of Baptists who identified strongly with this facet of the gospel.  I note that the great “social witnesses” of Baptists (folks like Walter Rauschenbusch, Clarence Jordan, Martin Luther King, Jr.) heard the clear call of Jesus to wed “gospel” with “justice”, only to experience many a cold shoulder from other Baptists who considered work among the poor and advocacy for social concerns to be less important, if at all, to the “real” work of the church. Jesus cared passionately about those who were forgotten, and yet the Church tends to keep the fuller gospel at arm’s length.  The widow’s mite challenges us to speak with humility about our stewardship and our religious ideals.  How do we live out the ways of Jesus, given as they are to humility, service, and care for the least of these? 

The widow walks through the midst of the Church. Some look at her with nostalgia, fondly remembering her giving but neglecting “the rest of the story” of the harsh life she lived.  Others yearn for her to tell us anew the might of the mite, how to give to God with integrity and hearts open to the gospel. What lessons still await us in the pondering of this teaching about the widow’s mite?

      Old widow, take us by the hand. Teach us your ways. Show us in the midst of the hardships of life the faithfulness that keeps you close to God.  Help us give of ourselves, so that we might draw closer to the One who gave away his very life.

A People of the Last Word (Revelation 21:1-6a)

A People of the Last Word

        The book reviews keep coming in.  Reviewed in last weekend’s Bennington Banner, or perhaps you read about it in the New York Times, Slate.com, or on NPR.  A “graphic novel” (comic book) of The Book of Genesis, readers might be surprised to find out the illustrator is the “underground comic” artist R. Crumb, whose body of work makes an odd statement indeed to add the title of “bible illustrator” to his resume.  Crumb spent the past four years drawing the book of Genesis, taking care to read biblical scholarship to develop his take on Genesis.  Surprisingly, for such an iconoclast, Crumb offers a fairly earnest depiction of Genesis, demonstrating his skill as an artist as well as the complexities of the actual text of Genesis.  For a book about God, creation, and humanity’s “origins”, Genesis does not R. Crumb’s help being controversial.  On its own, Genesis is a challenging set of tales replete with human failings, violence, and an “R” rating.  Sacred stories are closer to our lives than we sometimes want them to be.

        On the other end of the Bible, we encounter a story of “the End”.  Ironically, some folks tend to sugarcoat Genesis, yet people tend to remember the Book of Revelation more for its violence than its scenes of great hope.  I grew up in Kansas churches that loved the rainbow over Noah’s ark yet lived in fear of Revelation’s scenes of “the End Times”.  (You would not believe some of the books I found in shopping mall Christian bookstores growing up out in the Midwest….)   The book of Revelation is filled with stories of the nations of the world going into disarray, armies battling, and Evil’s forces battling it out with the heavenly powers.  To say the book of Revelation tends to be inscrutable and difficult to understand is an understatement.  Nonetheless, if you read the whole book, you see a different story at work, not like the version of Revelation you might hear preached about on many AM radio stations in parts of the Midwest and the South.  The violence, the battle between forces above and below, all of this is in the text, yet a powerful theme resounds throughout: not of fear, but of hope.

        The end vision of Christianity is hope.  In the End God shall have the last word.  After much tumult, suffering and pain, the world described by Genesis shall pass away and a new heaven and earth, a new frame of reality, shall take its place.  Reading Revelation, the careful reader recalls T.S. Eliot’s poetic line:  “In my end is my beginning”.  The book of Revelation unveils the brokenness of our world and the transformation, the magnificent future, God alone shall bring about.  Revelation is a passionate book, calling the reader not to live in fear or speculation.  Rather, the Christian is encouraged to live in anticipation and hope.   We live as a people who already know what the last word shall be.  It will not be “anxiety”.  It will not be “fear”.  It will not be even “death”.  In the end, we shall hear “Behold, I make all things new”.  This is the story that Christians live by.  You cannot understand us without it.

        Stories have a powerful way of shaping our lives.  Over the years, I still remember my Grandmother Hugenot reading the story of “Stone Soup”.  I have the book among my books, and I will never part with it.  The physical book is precious to me.  The story of “Button Soup”, a tale of a miser who learns to be generous by sharing of his abundance with his neighbors, is one that I claim as a “core story” I retain from my childhood.  I remember with great fondness my grandmother reading me many stories over and over, yet that particular story, a variant of “Stone Soup”, is the one that nestled down deep within me.  The story makes sense of the world, or the way the world ought to be.

        As a grownup, I find myself telling people another story, one that I find deep down in my bones just like “Stone Soup”.  You heard Marion tell that story to you a bit earlier, as told by the book of Revelation.  Where I tell this story is less a matter of standing in a pulpit and more when I stand on a hillside.  It’s a quiet time when I tell this story.   It’s time for that final ritual up there among family and friends.  We have been telling stories already, sometimes told with rollicking detail during an eulogy delivered by a friend (clergy sometimes blanche at the stories of the deceased that get told at funerals).   Now it’s approaching time for that last word.  What will it be?

At the graveside, I tell one story.  It’s really the best one for times like these.  As the liturgy draws to a close, I am nearing the amen, but I still have this story to tell.  I say in the midst of the sadness and as that sense of finality hangs a bit thick in the air:

“We look forward to that time, when the one who has made us shall not leave us in the dust.  For as scriptures promise, there shall be an end to death, and to crying and to pain, for the old order has passed away”.

The Christian cannot speak of any other last word.  We sometimes forget when the anxieties of the day make us think things are otherwise contrary to our knowledge of the promised End.  Indeed, there are times when we lose sight of that which is promised, or we let another story take precedence.  Those who are able to stay the course, those who are able to keep “their eyes on the prize”, we have a word for these sort of folks:  saints.   The book of Revelation mentions saints quite frequently, the people who live a faithful witness on the earth, even in its broken down state, and once up in the heavenly choirs, just can’t stop praising the Lord. 

The saints are those who live in this world with the same frailty and fallibility as any other human being, yet they are able to live a faithful and unshakable witness to Christ.  It does not happen overnight for these folks: the process varies, yet the result is the same:  people who are able to be the faithful and beloved of Christ.  They take the long view, knowing that God will have the last word, not the powers and ideologies of the day, or the belief that things will end in disarray or without meaning.  They see the world as a place where the gospel can indeed take root, no matter how tough and stubborn the soil appears to be.  The Baptist saint Clarence Jordan lived through the difficulties of mid-20^th century racism as a witness to racial reconciliation and peace.  Only a saint could take the long view, despite the many forces against him.  Jordan spoke prophetically when he observed, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change”.  In other words, God shall have the last word, and it shall be one that is glorious and just.

Now the Church has various traditions and practices about counting the saints.  Some parts of the Church have quite a process to declare a person officially a “saint” of the Church.  The New Testament, though, takes a fairly broad definition of the term, depicting the saints of the Church as those who live a faithful life, one testifying to the gospel.  In other words, no list shall be ever exhaustive of the saints.  Saints are great and obscure alike.  Saints are plentiful, yet not all of them can ever be named adequately.  So, I want to make sure that we remember “All Saints” aright this day.  We are not just looking at the people known far and wide.  I ask us to enter into a time of recalling those saints who made the gospel come alive in your witnessing of their lives.  Let us remember “all saints” this day, those who know how the story shall end, and remind ourselves that we are likewise called to be a people of the last word.

The Invisible Man and the Impaired Church (Mark 10:46-52)

      The trip into Jerusalem was crowded and noisy.  Hundreds of people were coming into the holy city for the Passover. 

The chatter of dozens of conversations

 the cry of merchants hoping for pilgrim seasonal business,

the arguments of misunderstandings

and the laughter of people giddy with joy that they have finally arrived.

      In the midst of the cacophony, can you hear it?

      “Alms!  Alms!  Alms for the poor!”

      In the midst of the crowd, you could almost miss it, that voice trying desperately to be heard above the din of pilgrims.  In fact, the one trying to be heard is fairly desperate himself.  He is off to the sidelines, sitting along the road, barely visible there on the ground with the sea of humanity passing by.  The blind man cries out, hoping to be heard, but knowing that he’s likely ignored by most. 

            In the New Testament, disability carried a great deal of stigmatism.  While such attitudes still exist today, we consider such ways discriminatory.  In our North American context, we work to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.  Our culture is predisposed to improve the lives of those with disabilities.  In fact, First Baptist is home to a non-profit organization, the Vermont Center for Independent Living, who works to advocate and empower persons with disabilities.  Each week, persons come to First Baptist for one-on-one counseling and benefit assistance, support groups, and other opportunities.  In addition to this non-profit, our building upgrades have made First Baptist a more accessible place for all persons.  The additions of a handicap accessible bathroom and the lift, which was installed just about a year ago, increase our “welcome” to our community. 

            In the world of the New Testament, such a culture of support and most certainly the “religious value” of disabled persons were largely absent.  It was an incredibly difficult life to live if you were a person who was hearing or visually impaired, persons with chronic diseases, persons with some sort of physical challenges, and the list goes on.  This blind man sitting by the side of the road suffered a religious element to discrimination.  He was considered lesser because the prevailing religious worldview placed high value on full physical ability.  Great emphasis was placed upon a person’s gender, ability to keep ritual purity, and lack of physical impairments.  Thus, at the very center of the religion of the day is the observant male, who was fully able bodied and kept purity laws.  If you are a woman, if you are purity challenged (due to a whole host of caveats), if you are a Gentile, if you are physically impaired in some fashion, the further away you are from the heart of religious righteousness.  The blind man sitting by the side of the road was pretty much about as close to the Temple, the heart of his religion, as he would have been on the religious worldview map we just sketched out.  Here was a person that society and religion opted to write off, and with no great irony, his name was Bartimaeus, which means “son of Timaeus”.   In turn, “Timaeus” means “unclean”.  There is no irony lost here:  the crowds bustle by in search of the Temple, ignoring “son of the unclean”.

            “Alms for the poor!”

      You have heard this voice, haven’t you?  You hear it in many places: walking into a shopping mall and there’s the faithful volunteer for the Salvation Army, ringing a bell, saying “bless you” or “happy holidays” to persons, even those who just keep walking by.  Or, when you are at a store and a group of high school students are selling baked goods for humanitarian organizations or service projects.  You hear it when they offer you some homemade banana bread for $5 bucks.  There’s that voice as you walk down a crowded street in just about any major city street of the world:  “Hey! Can you spare some change?”

      On the latter count, it’s often a time for judgment calls.  Do you stop and give this person money, a person who appears out of nowhere, an old Styrofoam cup with loose coins, maybe a dollar or two at best, standing there in an old ball cap, unkempt hair, perhaps a slight odor.  For some, it’s an immediate response.  The sort of response differs for folks:  some reach into a pocket for whatever coin you have, or just as quickly, some keep walking, trying desperately to avoid eye contact.

When Bartimaeus hears Jesus is on his way, the blind man starts making some noise.  He cries out for Jesus:  “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  He keeps crying out, uncertain where Jesus is in the crowd, but he cannot risk being ignored by this man.  He knows that Jesus is someone who stands out in the midst of the world, one whose name stirs up a hope within Bartimaeus.  The name of Jesus has gone out among the villages of rural Galilee and word must be reaching the city, not only among the powerful who wish Jesus ill.  The great teacher and great healer is here!  Bartimaeus begins to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

What happens next is telling.  The crowd tries to silence the beggar, pushing him back to the margins.  For Bartimaeus’ life, that is exactly where he has been told to stay put.  Out of sight, out of mind is what he is told.  Bartimaeus, like so many told to be silent, to be content with the margins, knows that sometimes you have to “holler to be heard”. (See Brian Blount and Gary W. Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices).  Bartimaeus had heard of Jesus’ goodness, his reputation, his compassion for the least.  He could not be silenced.  He could not contain the hope he felt deep within.

Back in Kansas City, an American Baptist affiliated ministry serves an inner city neighborhood.  We call them “NAPs”, or Neighborhood Action Programs.  This particular NAP, Bethel Neighborhood Center, has been serving the urban poor for decades, providing a safe place for children to learn and grow, hospitality to seniors, and providing a spiritual presence in a part of the metropolitan area often ignored or underserved.  A few years back, Bethel received a special award for its service.  A seminary student was on the staff at the time, and he recounted the experience of going to the awards banquet with the executive staff and a few consumers, aka those who utilized the center’s ministries.  When the award was given, one of the consumers, a boisterous elderly woman, came up front with the rest of the crowd and just started shouting excitedly about the award.  It made quite a spectacle, as a woman could barely contain her joy at this place that made such a difference in her life, was receiving recognition from the greater community. 

Throughout Mark’s gospel, many people approached Jesus, seeking his wisdom, yet most could not embrace the costs Jesus assigned to true discipleship.  The man of means approached Jesus, bringing along a lifetime of diligent piety, yet the great privilege he enjoyed kept him from following Jesus. The disciples followed Jesus and learned many things about the kingdom of God, yet they fought among themselves, hoping that they would be the greatest or the most favored.  Jesus could not get them to listen attentively enough.  They still thought power was where God’s glory would be revealed.  This cross looming large over Mark’s latter chapters still goes unnoticed and misunderstood.

Bartimaeus, the unclean, Bartimaeus the blind, Bartimaeus the forgotten—here was a complete stranger, unknown and obscure, who names and knows Jesus correctly.  When Jesus encounters Bartimaeus, it is a tender exchange, encumbered not by pretense but faith.  After reading of people who come to Jesus with pretexts and caveats, it is amazing to witness this trading of words.  Jesus needs no great gesture to heal this man.  Bartimaeus’ faith has created his own bridge to healing.

Bartimaeus models a maturity in his discipleship that the man of means could not accomplish after a lifetime of piety, a faith the disciples could not accomplish after accompanying alongside Jesus through the villages of Galilee.  Bartimaeus leaves his cloak, his only “possession” aside.  He risks the scorn and ridicule to get closer to Jesus.  He cries out Jesus’ true name, even as the story prepares to tell of the haunting days ahead when even the disciples shall scatter, trying to hide their brave, yet fragile allegiance to Jesus when the tides turn against them. 

In the 1984 film Places in the Heart, John Malkovich plays a blind man named Mr. Will.  It is said that Malkovich learned how to play a blind man through an unique method.  He did not close his eyes or walk around blindfolded to learn the part.  Instead, he claimed that he learned his part by looking within himself at the places where he himself was blind. 

The story of Bartimaeus offers an opportunity to examine ourselves.  Are we too much like the inner circle disciples, so close and comfortable with “the faith” that we miss the non-conformist message of the gospel?  How can we be like those in the crowd, who in our own haste to be religious, we walk by or ignore those in the margins?  How do we see those our culture or other Christians might label as “unclean” or “not like us” as persons capable of great faith and of sacred worth to Jesus?   Bartimaeus is out there, in the midst of the world, pitied and misunderstood by most, yet the one whom Jesus would claim as one of his own.

Measuring Our Worth (Mark 10:17-31)

You may have seen the commercial on television during primetime or while surfing the ‘net.  It depicts a man in a baseball cap and jacket running around the front entrance of a skyscraper in New York.  He stretches police tape across the grounds, as if securing a crime scene.  Guards from inside the building look nervously at the camera crew following this man around, trying to politely remove the man from the premises.  The man holds up a bullhorn to his mouth and announces he is “here to make a citizen’s arrest of the directors of A.I.G.”

            At home, some viewers watch the commercial and chuckle.  Others get the remote and turn the channel with disdain.  Like it or not, audiences at home or in front of the screen are getting the word.  Another film is coming from the controversial documentary director Michael Moore, whose films are geared to critique the political and social issues of the day.  His new film is entitled “Capitalism: A Love Story”.  Hailed by some, scorned by others, the film represents Michael Moore’s perspective on the ways that the U.S. and global economy have been handled, the federal bailout efforts, and the political finger pointing that goes along with it.

            Stepping aside from the headlines and the cinema box office, do you know where the word “economy” comes from?  The word “economy” comes from the Greek:  Oikos (house) and nomos (rule), quite literally, an economy deals with how a household is structured or organized.  And just as we struggle with 21^st-century ideological differences regarding the structure and stability of an economy, rest assured, talking about the economy was just as volatile and ideological in Jesus’ day.  The first century economy of Palestine differs remarkably from our present-day U.S. context.  Nonetheless, talk about money long enough, and there will be strong disagreements arising.  Talk about money and religion, and well….

                The person who approaches Jesus is referred to as “the rich young ruler” in popular recollections of the gospel narratives.  The difficulty, however, is when we gather together the three similar stories told by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and combine them together.  We will look at the differences and similarities during Adult Forum after services today, but for now, note a key difference of Mark’s gospel.  Mark notes little about the man, saying only that he has many possessions.  Instead of thinking of this fellow as a rich young ruler, we will call him “the man of means”.

The man asks Jesus a question that sounds primarily theological (“what must I do to inherit eternal life?”), however, the question is aimed at sniffing out Jesus’ thoughts on the economy.   Just as the Pharisees and the Sadducees have come forward, asking questions to test Jesus’ teachings on religious orthodoxy, just as the Herodians will step forward to help entrap Jesus in a question of politics, the man of means appears on the scene as a representative of another sector of society unnerved by any upstart religious teachers:  the financial elite of the day.

            The gospels are told from the perspective of a limited good society.  Very few people owned land.  Very few people controlled the commerce of the day.  And in turn, many people lived under the rule (and whim) of the very few:  certain families inheriting great ancestral power and privilege, members of the ruling establishment, especially those in collaboration with the Roman Empire’s resident government.  The man of means who presents himself to Jesus wears the robes of the upper echelon, a far cry from most of the other characters who interact with Jesus.  Most everyone, Jesus and the twelve included, are part of the peasantry.  No “middle class” exists in the New Testament.  A select few enjoy the high life.  Everyone else scrapes by at the subsistence level, working day and night and having very little to show for it.  Some New Testament scholars would label the man of means kneeling before Jesus as part of the “elite”, one who keeps a style of life largely denied to anyone who is not already part of the power and financial base.  When one lives in a limited good society, a person with significant finance is a person not to be trusted.  There is a deep suspicion of the elite, as they have not evidenced anything less than self interest and self preservation at the expense of the multitudes. 

            The economic background is helpful, as we hear the exchange between Jesus and this man with a bit more barb to it.  The edge to this gospel story is economic and theological:  what is the measure of a person’s worth?   Who has the last word on economics?  Will the “house rules” be determined by the elite, the “powers that be” that work with Rome and the Temple, aka “the established powers that be”, or the Lord God whose kingdom Jesus is proclaiming?

            Initially, the man of means would claim “God” is the determiner of all things.  After all, he claims, the man of means is an observant man.  The commandments Jesus cites are all agreeable to the man of means, yet he does not realize Jesus has cited only part of the Ten Commandments, those focusing on those commandments dealing with one’s behavior toward others.  Like many opponents before him, the man of means has stepped into the snare awaiting him.  As New Testament scholar Bill Herzog notes, the man of means is “moral, but selectively moral” (Prophet and Teacher, WJKP, 2005, p. 138).  The man of means has been so vested in maintaining his own economic privilege that he has claimed to be observant of a religious faith steeped in traditions of protecting the poor from exploitation and decrying covetous behavior and been part of the effort to create a different economic reality that left most of the populace in systematic impoverishment. 

            There is a common myth that the New Testament has no use whatsoever for persons who are wealthy, and this story of “the rich young ruler” (as we tend to hodgepodge the three stories together) is cited as the final word.  In truth, the New Testament depicts the earliest Christians as socio-economically diverse, including persons who are well to do.  Nonetheless, the Christian teachings would side with those who are vulnerable and condemn those whose wealth has been attained by exploitative practice.   Thus, the man of means who kneels piously before Jesus represents a class of people who have not lost a wink of sleep over their exploitation of others.  

            Bill Herzog cites Jesus’ reframing of the commandment about covetous behavior.  Jesus slips it in the midst of the commandments, a sly word in Greek (apostereō) we would render in English as “do not defraud”.  The man of means has visions of the good life continuing in the life to come.  He is not bothered in the least that he has spent this life taking advantage of others.  He wants the free pass he has enjoyed since being born into the right family or being at the right time at the right place with the sweetheart deal that sets him up for life.  He claims faith, yet he does not know the economy (house rules) of God, the One whose law provisions for all persons as part of the most sacred covenants of God with the people Israel.  This man’s wealth is at the cost of covenant obedience.  His faith extends only so far.

            As for the disciples, their response to Jesus makes sense.  We usually stop with the incredible image of the camel squeezing itself through the eye of the needle and chuckle a bit.  (Indeed, this part of the story has kept me amused since third grade Sunday school!)  The disciples wonder how anyone can get into heaven.  Hear Jesus’ response again:

Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

The economy (house rules) that matter most to Jesus are the ones ensuring the covenant is kept:  no one is left out in the cold while others kick back and reap the benefits of kicking others.  The little people of the rural villages are not the lower rung functionaries of the elite’s monopoly or Rome’s all consuming empire.  Indeed, the economics of Jesus are astonishingly defiant of the way things usually work out with humanity.  We can craft our economic theories down the generations, yet we still have the all too human tendency to create chasms between the “haves” and the “have nots”.  The early Christians practiced a way of life that we still struggle to be at peace with and follow, for we are too much a product of the economics we devise, craft, and inhabit. 

The house rules set up by the gospel look out for those who are told to stand at the back of the line.  In fact, Jesus turns the order of things around, just as the covenant and the Ten Commandments described before.  Persons who are of means have their place in the kingdom of God, yet there are no “gold card level memberships” to be found in Jesus’ vision.  Persons of all means, great and small are welcomed into the kingdom, or as I like to say it, there are no second class citizens in the Kingdom of God.   The system that keeps elite elitist and the peasant majority invisible shall not stand.  The early Church became a subversive alternative, providing a place where all folks from all levels of socio-economic status learned to live together as a counter-testimony to the ways of Empire.  And indeed, those accustomed to being told they are the last will have the last word.

In the meantime, the followers of Jesus have to ask pressing questions of the economics of the day.  What should be the house rules of a country that consumes more than its relative share of the world’s resources?  What should be the house rules of a nation that can write a blank check for warfare yet balks at the provision of healthcare?  What should be the house rules for Christians who live in the “first world” while most others (even fellow Christians) live in the hell of the two-thirds world? 

My friends, the Church has much to ponder in the first century or the twenty-first.  What are our house rules?  Where does the economy we live under diverge from the economy of the gospel?  How do you get a camel to fit through the eye of the needle?   You cannot.

Open Source Theology (Mark 9:38-50)

            “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

            In three act plays, the first act sets up the plot and the third act brings everything to a conclusion.  The second act is a place where plays can founder, a bit of story padding to stretch the play or where actors can gain or lose steam.  The second act can be the transitional moment when a story can amp up the audience’s attention, or it can be a time when people start praying for the last curtain to fall, all while pondering why you said yes to see this play with friends.

            Mark 9 is part of the second act of the Mark’s gospel.  The third act is well known: the passion of Christ and the unexpected ending of the empty tomb.  You can see the third act begin in Mark in just a few verses.  After Mark 10:52, the narrative starts to move into very familiar territory: Jesus sends his disciples ahead for a colt so he can enter Jerusalem.  The shadow of the cross only grows over the story. 

            Mark 9 draws together the middle section of the gospel, demonstrating Jesus in his authority and power and the disciples learning of the gospel, yet not so secretively jockeying for authority and power.  While out on the road, Jesus hears them bickering.  It is similar to a parent who hears the kids arguing in the back of the van: when the parent asks what they are talking about, the kids suddenly grow quiet.  Jesus chastens them with a reminder of greatness in his sight, not theirs.  He places a child in their midst and says, “This one is the greatest.”  And the lesson is quite clear:  disciples on power trips are not.

            The “kids in the back of the van” analogy is handy to explain what happens next.  When called out on bad behavior, children often try to distract the parent with another matter.  The disciple John speaks up and notes a person unknown to him and the inner circle is exorcising demons in Jesus’ name.  While the inner circle feels jealous toward one another, they attempt to circle the wagons and keep out others unknown to them. 

            “Whoever is not against us is for us” is Jesus’ reply.

            As the story begins to shift into the third and decisive act, this scene of Jesus teaching his disciples about greatness is necessary.  Mark 9 shows how “the kingdom of God” is found among those who are otherwise marginalized and disregarded by society and the powerful. We also learn that even among the insiders, it is not an easy word to follow.  The jealousy of the disciples among themselves is disturbing, but understandable.  Human nature predisposes us to such behavior.  The sense of propriety among the disciples is quite familiar as well, deeming themselves judges of who is and is not a disciple of Jesus.  Stick around the church (upper and lowercase “c” church alike), and you will find the inner circle mentality still lives on.  The contexts change, but the impulse to behave this way has been within down through the millennia. As one wise preacher observed, “The Church is bigger than you think.”

            As for Jesus, he offers another reversal of the disciples’ expectations.  The disciples’ preconceived notions about power are unraveled by the child.  Their hunger for control (or perhaps certainty) is shown for what it is:  the circle is always bigger than we think it is.  Jesus invites more than twelve to follow him, gathering together a diverse group of people, not to be kings or high priests of heaven’s interests on earth.  Instead, he teaches of a way of life reordered to a different scale and scope, opening up the way of discipleship to all who believe and serve in his name.

            Mark 9 reflects a narrative strategy within Mark.  Note that when the gospel begins, John the Baptist sets the stage for Jesus.  In turn, when Jesus begins his ministry, John leaves the narrative.  Jesus gathers the disciples around him and teaches them.  Soon, as Mark comes to its end, Jesus will depart the narrative as well, leaving the story of “the kingdom of God” up to the disciples to continue.  For themselves, the disciples here in “act two” are not ready for the tumult of what is to come, only half-listening to Jesus’ predictions of what is to come when the Son of Man is betrayed, killed, and then raised from the dead.  The story will not end with Jesus’ death, as the empty tomb attests.  The story does not end with the eleven (one less with Judas’ betrayal of Jesus) being the only ones who can continue.  Teaching and healing will continue, thanks to the many, not the select few, who believe in Jesus.  The gospel shall be spread by persons who might not even know the twelve, taking the stories of Jesus to heart and giving their lives to share in his name.  The kingdom of God is bigger than the disciples think it is.

            Go back a bit in Mark 9, and you will note this whole scene with the disciples’ bickering, the greatness of the kingdom being found in the child, and the complaint about followers unknown to “us” (i.e. the inner circle disciples) comes on the heels of the twelve failing.  In the earlier section of Mark 9, some of the disciples try without success to perform an exorcism.  John and the others are irritated, rather than chastened, to observe a complete stranger succeeding where they could not.  Instead of marveling at the power of God being known in the world in unexpected ways, the inner circle falls prey to the temptation to restrict who speaks and ministers in Jesus’ name. 

            As I read this passage, I thought about the open source approach to software programming.  When a company designs a software program, the work can be deemed proprietary, restricting access to the inner workings of the software and protecting the right of the software owner to turn the most profit from the program without competition.  Over the past few years, there has been a growing movement to create “open source” software.  Open Source allows any person access to the software’s core programming codes, meaning the software can be developed through collaboration, sometimes by people who span the globe.  Open Source software trades proprietary secrecy for collaboration and creativity.  In theory, open source software allows more people to participate, and the software keeps developing, sometimes beyond the expectations of those who began laying out the code.

            Ministry in the name of Jesus is not reserved for a select few.  Over the centuries, individuals and groups have tried to say otherwise, seeking to construct structures of power and authority to keep control of the Church vested in the hands of a select few, keeping a tight rein on orthodoxy, and turning in some cases to outright persecution, claiming some as heretics and valorizing violence. 

For example, my family name is synonymous with a persecuted religious movement, the Huguenots of French Protestantism.  Our Baptist history and heritage is rife with accounts of Baptists over the past 400 years and around the globe being mocked, jailed, and martyred for preaching and mission work.  I know these stories well, yet if I choose, I could become just as hindering to the ministry and witness of other Christians.  So what does it take to be a follower of Jesus and welcoming partner of fellow disciples, near and far?  Here are some thoughts:

1)      To speak of the gospel as innately “open source”:  in other words, any person who believes in Christ has the ability to contribute something to the furtherance of the kingdom of God. 

2)      To live peaceably with Christians who seem to us only to embody difference to us because of theological, cultural, political, or economic differences between “them” and “us”.

3)      To speak of the Church as bigger than the four walls around us, bigger than our own convictional/denominational/tradition’s horizons.

4)      To live the gospel, knowing that Christ’s ways are delightfully contrary to the way the world works and even the Church in its “institutional” sense works.  In the end, Christ shall welcome all who believe in him. 

The cautionary tale of reading Mark 9 still holds up well:  do not be threatened by the reality that the kingdom of God is bigger than you think.  Rejoice in the many following Jesus and be at peace with one another, or to be worth our salt in faithfulness and openness to the wider gathering of disciples.  The use of salt might strike modern day readers as an obtuse choice, as we find salt plentiful and inexpensive.  To the first century disciples, salt was a commodity not to be wasted and certainly worthless if leached out of its saltiness.  What good is salt that is not salty?  In turn, what good is a disciple of Jesus if he or she cannot imagine the kingdom of God being capable of more?

This day is given to the observance of World Communion Sunday, when Christians are reminded, whether they partake of wafers and drink wine from a chalice, or take individual pieces of bread and individual cups, Christians partake in the same meal given to us by Christ.  Our theologies differ, our rituals diverge, our theologies vary, and yet we are likewise being obedient to the same Lord.  On days like this, indeed we remember with due humility, the circle is always open. The Church is bigger than we think.  The table of the Lord is open to all who call upon the name of Jesus and follow his gospel.  Take, eat, remember, and then serve in Christ’s holy name.