Jack McKinney

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

September 24, 2006 – Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost/Alliance of Baptists Sunday

Text: Mark 9:30-37

Servants of All

I begin with a confession. I am a competitive person. I don’t know if it is because I grew up as the youngest of three brothers. I don’t know if it is because the culture I was raised in is addicted to athletic competition. Maybe it is just one of those things that got imprinted in my DNA. All I know is that occasionally my competitiveness comes out in a strange and infantile way.

Take, for instance, the worship planning session that the ministers of your church engaged in this week. As is our custom, we gathered on Monday to make plans for upcoming worship services. And as we did so, we started talking about something that was so important that I can’t even remember what it was now. All I know is that as soon as we got on this forgotten topic I sniffed a good debate about to erupt. So I came out with one of my typical grandiose overstatements to see if anyone would take the bait. When the response was surprisingly tepid, I found myself jumping over and arguing the opposite point. When that didn’t get a rise out of anyone, I made a third point that didn’t exactly jibe with either of my first two statements. In a matter of minutes I had argued three sides of a debate that no one wanted to have with me. Like I said, there is something strange and infantile about my competitive nature.

All of which brings me to the disciples of Jesus, President George W. Bush, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. All of these characters, in their own inimitable ways, revealed this week that I am not only one with an infantile competitive streak. The disciples show up in our Gospel lesson from Mark 9 arguing with one another over which one is the greatest. At face value this is such a silly argument that it seems hard to imagine adults talking like this to one another. Well, I felt that way until the leaders of our world made speeches at the United Nations this week. There was President Bush insisting that America will continue to fight the extremists everywhere around the globe, not once realizing the irony that most of the rest of the world, including our allies, sees the United States as the most dangerous extremist these days. Then there was President Ahmadinejad insisting that his country will continue to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, even though he has previously alluded to a desire to see Jerusalem go up in a mushroom cloud. Finally, President Chavez used his opportunity on the world stage to make jokes about Bush being the devil. After watching these great leaders of our world act like they were fighting over the shovel in the sandbox, I realized the disciples arguing over who was the greatest isn’t just plausible, it is downright tame.

But why? Why do we act like this? Maybe our competitiveness and posturing are the result of our fears. I certainly think fear is what is driving America’s foreign policy these days. I also think these behaviors are an attempt to cover up feelings of inadequacy that reside in all of us. Whether it is two preachers comparing the size of their congregations, or two students comparing their SAT scores, or two salespersons comparing their monthly totals, it seems we try to compensate for what is missing in us by drawing favorable comparisons that make us appear superior to others. Like I said, strange and infantile.

Jesus had a problem, though. He was on his way to Jerusalem where his life and ministry would end. Time was short and he couldn’t afford for his disciples to get caught up in silly narcissistic arguments. He needed them to see something very important before he was gone. He needed them to understand what his movement was all about. So he says bluntly, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And then, like every great teacher does, he illustrated his point in a way that his disciples would never forget. He held up a child.

To get the significance of this act we need to know the status of children in the ancient world. The status of children in the world of the Bible was that they didn’t have any status. They were often treated as though they were invisible. The problem of abandoned children was chronic. Postnatal abandonment of infants was an accepted form of birth control. In order for these children to survive they had to depend, as Blanche Dubois once said, “on the kindness of strangers.”

So, Jesus tells his disciples if they want to be great they must be the servants of all. And if they want to know what that means, it means caring for children in a world that so often didn’t. The disciples knew exactly what Jesus was doing. In the Roman culture of the day if a man picked up a child it was a declaration of adoption. In a world where 90% of the population lived in abject poverty, for a family to take in one of these abandoned children was an act of great generosity. And if you wonder whether or not Jesus’ disciples got the importance of his message, it appears that they did. Historians note that the early Christians gained a reputation in the Roman Empire for taking in abandoned children. (See John Boswell’s The Kindness of Strangers for more on the treatment of children in the ancient world)

But what does any of this have to do with us? Well, like the disciples, it is essential that we understand the importance of being servants of all. In a world where statesmanship has been reduced to threats and name-calling, where religious violence dominates the daily news, where a consumerist mentality has taken over our national soul it is critical that the church point to a different way. And that way is the way of the man from Nazareth who could care less about being the kind of Messiah the people wanted. He could care less about being the greatest, or the most powerful, or the most loved. His way is not the one of chest- thumping patriotism. His way is not the one that says take care of me and then see what is left over for the rest of the world. His way is not the one that says the church is for those who look a certain way, or believe a certain way, or use a certain religious code language. His way is simple but hard. Be servants of all, especially those who are invisible and forgotten; especially those who are despised; especially those who are called abominations.

And that is why I believe the vision of this church has never been more important than it is right now. That’s not to say we are anywhere near perfect, or that we are the church that is clearly following Jesus’ call to serve all, but from its beginning Pullen Memorial Baptist Church has stood for a vision of the church that says all are welcome and all are loved. And in a world seriously divided by religion and class and nationality such a vision needs to live. And so the question I want to raise this morning is how will that happen? How will we as a congregation continue to live out Christ’s calling to be servants of all? I believe a big part of the answer has to do with the partnerships we have formed and are forming to make this vision live.

Twenty years ago the Alliance of Baptists was formed by several congregations, including Pullen, as a result of the Southern Baptist holy war that had created so many casualties. The Southern Baptist Convention prided itself on being the biggest Protestant denomination in this country. It boasted of the number of missionaries it sent around the world, the number of baptisms its churches performed each year, the number churches it started on an annual basis. And while the SBC continually argued that it was the greatest, a handful of Baptists came out from that ego-maniacal setting and said, “Why don’t we create something different? Why don’t we start a group that isn’t about the numbers and the power and the money?” And so the Alliance was formed as a safe haven for those maverick Baptists who believed Jesus actually meant what he said when he called us to be servants of all. And now, twenty years later, the Alliance is still small, but it has become a distinctive voice on the American religious landscape because it has had the courage to stand by those the rest of the church has deemed unclean. And day by day more strange Baptists are finding their way to the Alliance.

I believe with all my heart the Alliance has been good for Pullen, and Pullen has been good for the Alliance. And I also believe that if we want this “servants of all” vision of the church to thrive we need to look for more partners with that same commitment. Our partnerships do not have to be based on power or money or heritage. Our partners don’t have to be Baptists, or even Christian. We just need to keep finding people and groups who care about what we care about. Not so we can be more powerful. Not so we can prove we are right and others are wrong. No, we need more partners simply because being servants of all is a big job and nobody can do it alone.

“Menachem Schneerson, the famous Lubavitcher rabbi from Brooklyn, used to stand every week for hours as thousands of people filed by to receive his blessing or his advice about matters great and small. Once someone asked him how he, who was in his 80s, could stand for so long without seeming to get tired. The rabbi replied, ‘When you’re counting diamonds you don’t get tired.’” (Joel Marcus, “Counting Diamonds, Christian Century, August 30, 2000)

The world is filled with diamonds covered by so many layers that most people, even religious people, can’t see them. Those who are worried about who is the greatest can’t see the diamonds. Those who need to posture and make infantile gestures can’t see the diamonds. But for those who are committed to seeing the diamonds among us—whether those diamonds are abandoned children, or sanitation workers, or maybe even our own loved ones—they are fulfilling the call of Jesus to serve all. May we continue to fulfill that calling as a church; may we find more and more partners who will fulfill that calling with us. And may we know the joy of giving our lives to that which truly matters.