Sixteenth after Pentecost, 2009

16 Pentecost (RCL Proper 20B)
Proverbs 31: 10-31; James 3:13 – 4:8; Mark 9: 30-37

The second section of the reading from Mark this morning is just such a perfect candid-camera snapshot of our whole crazy human condition. We always hope the photographer will catch our good side, maybe knock off 10 pounds and fill in that receding hairline, but most of the time that doesn’t seem to happen.

I mean, Jesus has just opened for his disciples in that conversation outside of Caesarea Phillipi and then as they continue to walk down the road this window onto the deepest mystery of God’s action since the creation of the world, the sacramental depth of reconciliation and restoration happening right in their midst, before their very eyes, in the life and death and resurrection of the eternal Word of the Father.

And by the time they all get home to Capernaum our esteemed Apostolic Fathers are squabbling amongst themselves about whom Jesus likes best and who gets the corner office on the top floor of Kingdom Center and which of them should sit at the head of the Kingdom banquet table. Certainly I have earned that parking place next to the elevator. Again, just kind of crazy. We think, “aren’t these guys paying attention?” And of course the answer is no. And no big surprise to us actually as they show the symptoms all to familiar to us as we look into the mirror of this deeply ingrained attention-deficit disorder at the heart of our human condition.

We can stand at the mountaintop of vision and purpose, and fifteen minutes later we are scuffling along daydreaming about—I don’t know, wealth and power, prestige, and importance—all which we know we certainly deserve in this universe that revolves so clearly around us. The refrain of the George Harrison song, “I, me, mine; I, me, mine; I, me, mine.” (And by the way, I’m looking forward to hearing all those Beatle classics on the new remastered CD’s . . . . But that’s off-topic.)

Again, anyway, a snapshot of our self-centeredness. Every generation the Pepsi generation. In the end, it’s all about me, me, me. Our generational anthem, but of course transcending any particular generation.

Which then Jesus of course turns on its head with the sermon illustration of the child. Doesn’t communicate immediately to us. The child essentially a non-entity in the culture. First century Palestine not a place where Mr. Mom imagery a home. Children are for women and slaves to attend to. Not quite even fully human beings. And here then the startling moment, perhaps something we can only appreciate today by an effort of will—how breathtaking it would be to see the Rabbi Jesus himself picking up the child. Crashing through all kinds of barriers.

An image of humility, even somewhat shocking: the opposite of prestige and power. What is going on here? Turning things upside down, challenging us to think again about what’s important, how we see and understand ourselves.

I know you see this, and I find it just very helpful to have this imagery set for us this morning in the framework and context of these wonderful readings from Proverbs and James. There are aspects of both of these readings that are culturally conditioned, of course, and people sometimes get a little reactive especially about the reading from Proverbs, because the images of the ideal wife here push up against some of the issues about gender equality and so on that are a little closer to the surface still for us here at the beginning of the 21st century.

But if we could put some of that in suspense for a moment, what I’d like to pause over for a moment is not the way the roles of husband and wife are distinguished, but how when they are taken together they reflect a view of human life and an expression of values that are presented as a way to understand what kind of life God intended for us, what kind of world we might live in when we are walking with him.

And I want to name some themes that I hear in this passage, and would just suggest that in hearing these themes we might take time if not here this morning then maybe later on to re-read it and hear it again as a word for us, and a good word. In fact, if there is a particular word, it is a Hebrew word and idea that is particularly a favorite of our Presiding Bishop’s, as she has often written about it. “Shalom.” Which is in Hebrew a greeting, and which is most often translated as “peace.” And so, when Jesus begins to speak he often says, “Shalom aleichem,” –“Peace be with you.” But to note that this “peace” is not simply about, let’s say, the absence of armed conflict and international warfare, though that could be a part of it, but it is instead a reference to a state of being reflecting the true and deepest contentment of life, not just in the human sphere but in the whole created order.

Shalom , the Wisdom from on High, as we see in Treasured Wife with her family in the reading from Proverbs, is a condition, a state of being, a way of life based on trust and integrity, on a balance between work and leisure, on a healthful abundance of the material necessities and pleasures of life, on wholesome prosperity, on creativity and enterprise, on orderliness and self-restraint, on an interdependent and accountable place in the community, on an absence of anxiety about the future, on self-respect, strength of character and personality, on a deep-down sense of personal dignity. And all this grounded in a natural spirit of kindness, gentleness, self-control, hospitality, and generosity.

Shalom is not about me, what “I have,” but about us, what we have and who we are. About individual moral character inextricably bound up with the integrity of the family, the neighborhood, the community, and the nation. About being a blessing: to a spouse, to children as they are shaped in this cluster of value, to friend and stranger. It is even an environmental ethic. Perhaps much in the spirit of St. Francis, “Brother sun, sister moon.” A sense of the family and household of the whole world, all of us together. So I’m sure we would pray for a spirit of “shalom” to gather the leaders of the G-20 nations as they come to Pittsburgh this week.

Of course it is an ideal. Always incomplete here, yet something that can be true in part, even in large part, and that can point us toward the future for us prepared by our heavenly Father. The ethic of the Kingdom, already coming to life here and now, in and among us.

Which is why, by the way, a quarreling church, a church framed by self-interest, individual claims, personal interests and ambition, a spirit of self-righteousness, is always such a critical problem. Whether the twelve walking with Jesus along the backroads of the Galilee, or in any time and place. Always uncomfortably a familiar story. St. Paul says in First Corinthians that the mark of the healthy church is that we wait for one another at the table—nobody starts eating until everybody’s there, and until we can see that there’s enough for all of us.

James calls the church to shalom, at the 17th verse of the 3rd chapter, which might be the background music of our lives as we come forward for communion this morning: “. . . the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

As the heavenly Bread is broken for us, the chalice filled, his Body and Blood eternally for us, we would pray to become a part of him and of his peace, the shalom that passes all understanding.

Bruce Robison