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| The Status Game |
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(Please feel free to email a response or a question.) Sept. 20, 2009 James 3: 13-4: 3, 7-8a; Mark 9: 30-37 Let your word be a light in our lives, O God, as we ponder what it may mean as we walk along the paths of our world. Amen. Those of you who have been looking around the sanctuary this morning may have noticed a couple of things that seemed curious to you. The cloth covering the communion table is not the normal smooth, colorful kind of cloth that we often have there. No, it’s a rough piece of burlap, the kind of cloth that might be used for a bag of potatoes … or for a cloak for someone who couldn’t afford a trip to Target to get a fall jacket. And then over there near the baptismal font is another table, with strips of burlap just sitting there. I’ll get back to those a little later. But you can pretty well guess with a Gospel reading in which Jesus talks about how we all need to be servants rather than jockeying for the best position that all this burlap somehow connects to that. Of course, the image of burlap is a lot rougher than that gentle image of Jesus embracing a child at the end of the Gospel. That’s one of those classic images that have been memorialized in countless pieces of religious art, particularly in a society like ours that honors children. It wasn’t like that in Jesus’ time. Children were essentially looked on as property, having no more status than that of slaves. So in calling a child forward to embrace, Jesus’ message to his followers might be translated as “Whoever welcomes those with no status and no rights welcomes me.” You can hear an echo of that in another Gospel. It is at the end of Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus talks about when you feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit those in prison, you are encountering him. It’s a call to set aside privilege and status and power and to identify with those living on the margins of society. That, then, is what makes Jesus’ words today so uncomfortable for people who live good, respectable lives. People like me, for instance. I try not to use myself as an example in sermons very often, but I think this is one time when it might be appropriate. Living in the world of journalism for most of my adult life, I learned to pay a lot of attention to status, to who was in and who was out. I also learned the status that comes with being a journalist. Now I know that the public opinion of journalists is not very high, but that’s not where status comes from in journalism. It comes from access. As my status at the newspaper increased, so did the attention I would receive from public figures. It is very seductive to think that they actually wanted to talk to me, Phil Haslanger. But what they really wanted was to talk to the readers I write for, to make sure I thought well of them so I would convey a good impression. So when I would take my kids to Washington, it was relatively easy to get some time with a senator or congressman just to chat. Ordinary constituents don’t get to do that. Editorial writers for newspapers do. Being a pastor has its own kind of status, of course. So there are seductions to fame and power in a job like this as well. So I figure it is pretty important for me to reflect on these words of Jesus today with some regularity. Come back with me and look at the three parts of this story again. It starts with Jesus for the third time telling his closest followers that this adventure they are all on is going to hit a very difficult time. He is going to be arrested and killed. This is not something they want to hear. Then he reminds them that he will rise again. That is something they could not understand. Rather than trying to figure that out, they walk along and eventually get into a tussle about who among them is the greatest. Who has the power? Who has the status? Who is the most important? When Jesus catches the drift of their conversation, he reminds them that in his world, the way you rise in importance is by serving others. In his world, embracing a child – the one with no status, no importance – that’s the key to success. I think for me, it’s often easier to do the dramatic thing that might help someone – and for which I might win some praise – than it is to do something that might risk my status. In Jon Krakauer’s new book, Where Men Win Glory, he writes about Pat Tillman, the professional football player who out of sense of duty to his country, gave up a promising career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2002 to join the military and serve in Afghanistan. He was killed there in 2004, an accidental victim of friendly fire. And then the military tried to cover up what happened, tried to turn him into a hero beyond the heroism he had already showed. When Krakauer went to West Point recently on his book tour, he reflected on the culture that grows up around officers in the military – or that can grow up around any of us in any organization. “There are a lot of officers who will risk their lives for their country,” Krakauer told Charles McGrath of the New York Times, “but few who will risk their careers.” Giving up status is a very difficult thing. Jesus’ closest followers struggle with it throughout the Gospels. So do we. And it’s difficult because our choices are not always simple. Think about Bono, the rock star who leads the phenomenal rock group known as U2. You can’t be a global superstar like he is and not pay attention to status and power. Yet Bono has chosen to use his position to gain access to those with wealth and power and get them to focus on the horrifying poverty of so many on the continent of Africa. Think of Jimmy Carter, who as a former president, knows all about status and power. Yet he is willing to risk that status to speak out on behalf of the occupied lands of the Palestinians, to challenge America on the simmering racism that still bubbles up in our society. These are not things that enhance his status in many quarters, but he is trying to use his position to serve those who are dispossessed. Let me take us back to Luke House again, something I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Those of us who work to serve meals there arrive early, work in the kitchen, we are on the inside. The guests coming to dinner have to stand outside, waiting in line. For all the efforts to help us all share a common meal, there still is a sharp status difference. So what if some night, when no one you know was there, you came to eat, you stood in line, you gave up your status? Gordon Cosby helped form a community in Washington DC many years ago known as the Church of the Savior. Over the years, its members have gotten engaged in all sorts of service to alcoholics, addicts, single moms, abuse victims, homeless people. So I found Cosby’s reflection on Jesus’ call to servanthood particularly pointed. When you encounter the abandoned, crucified Jesus, Cosby writes, and when you feel his life and message grabbing you and not letting go, something odd happens. “Wherever you are in privilege and power and status and opportunity, you start the movement down, not up. And you go down and down and down until you are powerless, except for his power; you go down until you find yourself with the riff-raff… One keeps going down and down until one is identified with the victimized poor wherever they are scattered throughout the earth. Wherever you see them and hear about them, you know that your lot is cast with them, that they are your people.” The idea of going down and down and down in status is not a great selling point for drawing people to church. It runs at odds with the ethic of our society – with society in Jesus’ time as well, for that matter. But that’s the challenge of today’s Gospel. I don’t have a handy blueprint to offer about how you make the words of today’s Gospel come alive in your own lives. If you are in a position of status and power like Bono, you may do more to be a servant, to identify with the poor and oppressed, by leveraging that status. Or maybe someone like Gordon Cosby offers another kind of path – giving up comfort and security and living among the poor. All I ask is that each of us spend a bit of time thinking about what being a servant looks like in our lives – what it looks like now, what it might look like in our future. And that brings us back to that pile of burlap on the table. Some of the members of our worship committee cut these strips of burlap into prayer stoles. They are something you can take home today to use in whatever way makes sense to you. You might put your somewhere in your house as a tangible reminder of the call to service. You might put it over your shoulders now and then when you pray. You might stretch it across a table now and then, connecting our time around this table here with your table at home. Or you may well have other, even better ideas. It’s just a simple piece of cloth that hints at that loose translation of the words of Jesus -- “Whoever welcomes those with no status and no rights welcomes me.” So as Kristin and I pass these out, would you please join in singing #539, “Won’t You Let Me Be Your Servant”? |