Learning to Line up

Text: Mark 9:30-37

As most of you know by now my daughter started school this month for the first time. Tomorrow she actually begins attending classes all day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Alternating Fridays. Over the past week, they have been doing what they call “graduated entry.” We talked with her new teacher. We saw the classroom, while a teaching assistant asked Megan to play with a number of different things. Being the son of teachers, it was obvious that they were trying to figure out where Megan is developmentally… but to Megan, she was just having fun. Our teacher shared with us that much of the early part of the school year is simply getting the children used to the routine. Not the least of this is the whole idea of lining up… waiting one’s turn… A lot of this stuff we tend to take for granted, but in order for the class to work, these basic skills are needed from the get go.


It’s amazing how quickly we forget. Maybe because as adults we look patronizingly on children having to learn quaint rules… and yet we forget how valuable these rules are. I am amazed sometimes at how childish adults can be… but honestly, I don’t think even calling them “childish” is fair to children… because let’s be honest, sometimes children in Junior Kindergarten show more maturity than some adults!


Mark tells the story of the disciples travelling with Jesus, having some sort of argument just out of his hearing… although Jesus had heard enough to figure out what was going on. They had been arguing amongst themselves as to which one of them was the greatest of his disciples… they were ashamed, not because of what they argued about but that Jesus had caught them at it.

Quickly Jesus puts them in their place by reminding them that “whoever wants to be first must be the last of all and the servant of all.”


We know from experience that little has changed. Scholars point out that Mark may have recorded this story precisely because there was a similar dispute a generation later in the early church communities over issues of prestige…


…and how little things have changed. I have a family story that enough time has passed that I believe I can share with some degree of impunity.


This is a story about St. Andrew’s United Church in Sydney, Nova Scotia. This is my extended family’s home congregation. Most recently I was there for my grandmother’s memorial service in 2007. Prior to 1925 it was St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and after church union, my Dad jokes that all that happened was someone went outside and spraypainted “United” over top of Presbyterian, and nothing else changed.


For many years, my great-great Uncle George Fulton served as the Clerk of Session… Particularly in that day and age, this was a position of prestige and influence not only within the church, but within the city and community as well. Yet from what stories I have been told, George carried out his duties humbly and faithfully… but then there was his wife: my great-great Aunt Belle. Where George set about his work, and never really made a big deal about his position, Aunt Belle did… at every possible opportunity. It’s why I never hear stories about my Uncle George, but I often hear stories about Aunt Belle.


I really don’t need to go into a lot of detail… but most of the stories revolve around Aunt Belle was very much about keeping up appearances, and certain examples of how those instances fell apart. Belle was well known for circling dates on a calendar. Particularly the day that was nine months after the wedding of a couple in the community. If a child was born after that circled date, all was right with the community. If a child was born before… well… that wasn’t right! While Belle wasn’t the only one who circled dates on the calendar, as the wife of the clerk of session, she was the self-appointed judge of morality in the community!


On more than one occasion, this holier-than-thou attitude came back to bite her. We often tell the tale of how her own daughter gave birth to her grandson one day before the date circled in red… she nearly died of shame and embarrassment… nevermind the variables of biology… that never even entered into the equation. As those who knew her tell me, this come-uppance was well deserved and very telling.


I find it somewhat ironic that Jesus had very distinct and rather negative opinions of those who would seek power and prestige… particularly when it comes to the church. One of the external criticisms of the church has been about how it is so much like other organizations, where the human need for power and prestige seems to go unchallenged, despite the opinions that Jesus very clearly shared. Jesus took a dim view of this, particularly because it really showed how much we have missed the point. Instead of taking in the wonders of God’s world, we become mired in human pettiness.


Jesus calls the disciples on it. First he tells them that line that we included in the bulletin:

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” -Mark 9:35


Then Jesus makes the brings ultimate demonstration. He brings in a child among them. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.” –a lengthy way of saying that we can learn so much about God from the innocence and awe of children.


I think too often that we take this to mean that we must be simple and unquestioning in our faith of God. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not sure about you, but my personal experience over the past few years is that children question everything. They want to know why, they want to know how something works, they want to know... and learn. Moreover, they have this sense of awe and wonder about the world that drives this want to learn and question.

Watching my daughter has been particularly revealing... not so much because of what she observes about the world around her, but realizing how much I have personally forgotten. Some of you might remember my story from several months ago, where I saw dust floating in the sunlight, and she saw sparkles. At the beginning of this school year, Megan is helping me refresh my own memory of that sense of awe and wonder... and to really begin to appreciate what Jesus was getting at.

As it also happened this past week, I heard something on the radio that was speaking to this text... not just once but twice. Monday night I was on my way home from a meeting. As I often do, I was listening to the radio... CBC in particular... “Ideas” is a program that runs from 9-10pm. Monday’s episode was called “Walking at the Edge of Reason and Awe.” I can’t summarize it well enough, but it touches on elements of reason and faith... and this sense of awe and wonder that reason alone cannot touch. The following morning, there was a segment on “The Current” on research on how children are hard-wired with a sense of awe and wonder of the world around them... which drives their natural curiosity about the world. Well... guess what? Jesus knew that 2000 years ago, and we have more often than not ignored that... being more like the disciples in their arguments as to who is the big fish.


Maybe this is the lesson that we need to hear. As I watch Megan learning to line up for her first full day of school tomorrow, maybe I need personally recapture that sense of awe, wonder, and curiosity as part of my faith. Maybe that’s our moment of Biblical wisdom for today, realizing that in many ways children have a far greater sense of faith than we do. Maybe that’s why we need to go out of our way to be genuinely welcoming to children, because we can learn so much from them.

Amen.

Sermon preached Sunday, September 30, 2009; Mississauga, Ontario

Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church; The Rev. John Crowdis

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