STONES IN OUR MATTRESS

 

Usually around this time in our liturgical cycle I find it doesn't hurt to pause a moment and remind ourselves that this part of the church year focuses on the subject of discipleship. For the first part of the year--roughly Advent through Pentecost--our focus is on God's coming to us, his saving acts in Jesus, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. This season--the long ordinary time after Pentecost--looks at our response to the Good News we heard in the first half. Now, I'll admit that this is a little over-simplified, but it's basically what we do. We hear the corpus of the Good News in the first half of our year, and spend the next half exploring how we should live and move and have our being in response. First we learn of the nature and character of God; next we learn the nature and character of Christian Discipleship, and the lessons we read, especially the Gospel, are selected to explore those characteristics.

Several years back I heard a story of how one man learned the lesson we just heard in this morning's Gospel. Bishop Mark Dyer of the Diocese of Bethlehem (PA) tells how he began his religious life in a Roman Catholic Trappist Monastery. Now Trappists, you may know, are strict observers of the Benedictine Rule and keep an especially rigorous rule of prayer and silence. You have to be pretty dedicated to be a Trappist. Then Novice Dyer had been at the monastery for several months and burning with a strong desire to become especially holy, presented himself to the Abbot with a request: "Fr. Abbot", he said, "I have read that certain saints, to purify themselves and to reflect the suffering of Christ used to sleep with rocks in their bed. I've prayed about it and believe that I am called to do that also. I'd like to have your permission."

The Abbot said that he would consider the request but that he had a request of Novice Dyer. The Abbot had noticed a neighboring farmer hard at work clearing a field. The farmer was a good friend of the monastery and needed help. Would Novice Dyer go help him for a few weeks? 

Mark, of course, said yes, but went away saddened and discouraged that his ascendancy to holiness would be put off for a while. He had wanted to find a special, unique glorious way to become very noticeably holy and instead of being rewarded for his passion, was asked to go help a neighbor.

Obediently, he did as he was asked, and spent the next three weeks working from sunrise to sunset clearing a field of tree stumps and large rocks. It was hard, backbreaking work in the hot sun. Each night, after Compline, he would collapse only to wake tired and sore very early for Matins and more field clearing. Finally the field was cleared, and Mark returned to his cell and a much needed rest. When he got there next to his bed was a small pile of stones and in the middle of it one of the large rocks he had cleared from the field. On his desk was an bible, opened to this passage from The Gospel According To Mark we just read. Nothing more was said of the matter around the monastery, but Bishop Dyer says that moment was when the lesson Jesus was trying to teach James and John began to really sink in. It is, he says, the lesson of true discipleship.

James and John have come to Jesus with a request. A friend of mine says that they remind her of kids behaving badly.   You know, the kids sidle up to mom and say, “Mom, we love you.” “Mom, can I have a kiss?” “Mom, can I have a hug?” “Mom, I really need a jet propulsion back pack so I can swoop over the school and smack the playground bully.” Kids, behaving badly. They all do it, and so do some adults, like James and John.

But Mom’s never fall for it, and neither does Jesus. Instead he teaches them what discipleship is really about, which is  Servanthood. Servanthood is the cup that is drunk. Servanthood is the baptism that is offered. True greatness is found not in lording over others but in serving--in serving God, in serving God's people. True greatness is found, not in rising to #1, but in putting one's self behind the Good News of God's love for his people. It means, Jesus says, doing as he does, "coming not to be served but to serve."

One commentator has said that he has heard it argued that in the Kingdom of God there are only "Lateral Relationships".  He disagrees with that, for Jesus implies that there are levels. However, the levels are not those that the world assumes, but the inverse of those the world assumes. Greatness is found in being a servant. The highest calling is to be a slave. The highest calling is to give one's self up.

When we hear that, we need to remember that while Jesus is redefining greatness, the pattern of his life redefines Servanthood.  

The self-giving Jesus points is not subservience. Jesus does not have his life dictated to him by someone else. He claims his own life and he claims the manner of his death. We see in his life that Jesus is no pushover. He is not invisibly efficient and retiring. He is a servant, but not sub-servient. Until his arrest he never took any guff off anyone. Even through his trial and crucifixion, he maintains his sense of purpose and dignity. Whatever he means by servant and slave, he does not mean that one should belittle or demean one's self. But he does say you must give yourself away.

In that he takes the concept of greatness further. "I came not to be served but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many." That word ransom can be heard in all sorts of theological ways, but in its simplest meaning it is to give something to set something free. To ransom something is to set it free, to loosen it, to unbind it, to release it. Jesus does that by giving his life, but who is he releasing and freeing us from?

Well, some would argue, it is God he's releasing us from. In effect that's what that horrible substitutionary atonement theology says, that Jesus releases us from the wrath of a God who wants nothing more than to collect on a debt. What rubbish! Some might say, he's releasing us from Satan and all Satan represents. Well, I can see that, except that's what baptism does and this is about life after baptism. I think the best answer, the one that comes closer to the heart of the matter, is that he frees and releases us from ourselves--from our ego-centric longings to make ourselves the center of the universe.

            A former classmate of mine, The Rev. Susan Bock, wrote in a recent newsletter: "The urge to power, and glory, and status, and honor, and rank, and greatness and firstness are all around us everywhere. [Humorist] Dave Berry writes how Washingtonians know whether a person whose title is Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary is more or less important than a person whose title is Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary or Principal Deputy to Deputy Assistant Secretary, or Deputy to the Deputy Secretary, or Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary, or Chief of Staff to the Assistant Assistant Secretary. All these, he says, are real federal job titles! It’s in the Church, too, with Reverends, and Very Reverends and Right Reverends and Most Reverends and wardens, senior and junior. A priest tells how he traveled to Africa to speak or teach or something of honor. An impoverished porter picked up his heavy and expensive suitcases and struggled toward the line of taxis. The priest was fuming that no one had met him at the airport, when the porter turned and introduced himself. He was the bishop.