Mark 9:30-37; James 3:16-17; September 22, 2024; Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and willing to yield.” – James 3:16-17
Willing to yield…
…As far as I can remember, when I was about ten, my father asked me the question every kid can’t wait to answer: “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Do you remember the first time that someone asked you that question? Do you remember what you answered? And, did that answer back then come to match reality today?
Want to know what I answered?
I remember saying… Dad, I don’t want to be a lawyer. A doctor. An astronaut. No, I just want to be like that old man on our corner, who sits in a chair all day long when the sun is out, who waves at cars as they pass by, and who says hi to the neighbors on the sidewalk, making people smile. That’s all I want to be…
You can just imagine his reaction.
But I distinctly remember thinking, especially as I watched my father’s face twist into a tree root: “well, Dad, in Sunday School, we learned about Ecclesiastes which commends the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad…”
So, I thought, perhaps too literally, “why be too ambitious then? Why be anxious about achieving a set of goals at the risk of being disappointed? Why focus on things that in the end might not matter at all? Why can’t I just do the simplest thing of all, like sit in a chair, and grow old and wise, and be glad?
See, my friends, be careful with Ecclesiastes. My favorite book. As well as the other wisdom texts too. For they can indeed become more precious than jewels…
But what do you think? Was I a nut or what? Would you be horrified as a father or mother if you heard that same answer from your child? Or, perhaps, would you applaud them? …Is ambition something to actually be wary of? Something that could lead us astray?
Well… wisdom above wisdom, Radiohead, gives us an answer today. Oh yes, my friends, Radiohead, the greatest music band of all time, tells us on their hit song, Paranoid Android, which comes off the greatest record ever made, “OK Computer” (whose album cover is featured on our bulletin this morning), that “Ambition makes you look pretty ugly // Kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy.”
Ambition makes you look pretty ugly, like a kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy. … I mean, how can you not love these guys!?
“For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind,” James reminds us. Wickedness and disorder. And indeed, ugliness too.
Neel Burton, a philosopher and psychiatrist who writes for Psychology Today, says this:
“Ambition, often confused with aspiration, might be defined as striving for some kind of achievement or distinction… but not for the sake of achievement itself, but for the sake of distinguishing oneself from others.”
“In the East,” Burton continues, “ambition is seen as a vice that holds us back from the spiritual life and its fruits of virtue, wisdom, and tranquility. So perhaps, the highest understanding, born out of humility, is that it is not necessary to be ambitious to be high-reaching, or indeed to feel alive.”
Perhaps it is not necessary to be ambitious to be high-reaching, or to feel alive.
See, Dad… I was right. May we all aspire to sit in sunlit lawn chairs warmly greeting our neighbors!
But judging by our text today, it would seem the disciples would also twist their face into a tree root hearing that…. For here they were, in the company of the Prince of Humility and Understanding himself, and yet all they could set their sights on was the question: “who amongst them would be considered the greatest?”
And they argue about this, literally right at the same time that Jesus is laying before them exactly what was going to happen to him…that he would suffer and die and rise again… and there, faced with the gospel itself, all they could concern themselves with was who would be considered numero uno. Who amongst them would rise above the rest to be considered first.
In other words, they were like Paranoid Androids, full of envy and selfish ambition, and looking pretty darn ugly for it. And Jesus, rightly, doesn’t let them off the hook. He rebukes them and tells them something that they had heard before but needed to hear again. That if they really wanted to be ambitious, and look better in the end, they should place themselves last. In service to others who should go first before them.
And illustrating that point further, he takes a child from the crowd, into his arms, and says…see…this is what it’s all about. To be great is not only to be small, but also, how often you are willing to yield your own desires for the needs and welfare of others. For this kid and all those like him.
And this was pretty radical stuff, my friends. Especially in an honor driven society, where fame and greatness were often judged by whose company you kept. Where respect was bestowed upon those who surrounded themselves with rich and famous people… instead of, say, bringing into your circle the likes of needy, helpless, and dirty little children.
And that this story happens in Capernaum, of all places, makes it all the more powerful.
Capernaum… anyone here know anything about it?
It is often venerated as the home place of Peter. If you go there today you can receive a guided tour where they’ll show you ruins of what some believe to have been his house. Which honestly, must be incredible to see in person.
Now was it actually Peter’s house? Hard to say… But, Capernaum, all the same, can be confidently labeled a fisherman’s city, and Peter was a known fisherman. So perhaps. Maybe.
But as a fishing-city, especially during the time of antiquity, one could expect that back then it would have been filled with quite a stench. With a prevailing odor. Full of hard-working, sweaty people, just trying to make a living working in and around lots of dead fish.
Archaeologists have found no hygienic facilities or drainage in their excavations. And most rooms and streets were considerably narrow.
So just picture (and smell) the scene as Jesus was passing through there with a crowd behind him. And then imagine Jesus taking a little child from that crowd, from those streets, into his arms and saying… see…this is who you need to welcome if you really want to be considered great!
Not a kid decked out in their cutest, whitest, and Sunday best. No… but a filthy, smelly, covered-in-fish-guts kind of kid. … And yet, a kid, all the same, who deserves a chance to sit in a chair, out in the sun, near the light, and be glad and happy too.
—–
You know, in ornate English there is a word called “capharnaum” — which comes from the city we are discussing today, Capernaum; and Merriam Webster defines this word to mean: “a place with a disorderly accumulation of objects.”
Or in other words, a place where we have tried to distinguish ourselves from others, built out of unhealthy, if not ugly, ambition.
My friends, James and Jesus are telling us today, in both wisdom and plain old English, that the simplest way to be glad, to become both wise and great, is achieved by letting go.
By letting go of all the junk (our stuff, ideas, and ambitions) that we have accumulated in our lives in a paranoid attempt to not only keep up with the Jones’ but to surpass them… and to be willing to yield it all for the sake of Him and a higher calling.
A higher calling which, ironically, calls us to lower ourselves. Putting our interests behind the needs of others, into last place, so to be in service to those who deserve some time in first place.
Amen.
