Sermon from Sunday, October 18, 2015

Reading:  Mark 10:32-45
Sermon:  We Are Able

There is good purpose in all of us. 

This is one thing the sacrament – or the ritual – the sign – of baptism is about.  In baptizing Ryker with water – the water of life and of deliverance and of cleansing, this morning we have joyously declared that he is a beloved child of God, born as we all are to good purpose – to live in this world as God does, loving it for what it is, caring for it for what it is meant to be, taking conscious care of the web of life that God has called into being and called Earth. 

With oil we have anointed Ryker with a sign in the shape of a cross – an affirmation that he is part of the community that Christ calls together, and a prayer that he will feel this call upon him, and grow into this identity and this way of being in and through his life – that in himself, he will come to claim the way of Christ as a way of real life. 

And with our hands we have held and blessed him – asked for God’s blessing on him and through him – asked that a holy spirit will grow within him – that he will be blessed all his life in different ways with spiritual company – and that he will be good company, support and encouragement to others in return. 

There is good purpose in all of us, and it’s both harder and easier to live out, and live into, and live up to than we sometimes think. 

It’s harder than we sometimes imagine and count on, because sometimes – maybe often, maybe even always, it runs counter to the way of the world in which we live.  The world does not always live by the values and priorities of the kingdom of God.  It does not always choose what’s best for its own largest well-being.  We live in ways and with goals and priorities that are selfish, short-sighted, fearful rather than faithful and loving and bent towards the good of all life on Earth. 

As Jesus lived his life in the way he felt led and called by God – God above, God within, God all around, the best God of his people’s tradition – he could see where it was leading him.  He began in Galilee – teaching and preaching, healing and feeding, forgiving and gathering people into new and good community, meeting needs and empowering people of all kinds to stand up and live together the way they were meant to in peace and with compassion and with an eye towards justice and the well-being of all.

In Galilee, people responded.  Disciples gathered.  New kinds of community began to form.  As well as opposition to it.  Fear about it.  Hostility against it. 

And as Jesus turns his steps from Galilee to Jerusalem –to the holy and the royal city, the seat of religious and imperial power in their world, he sees pretty clearly just how this will turn – how it will have to turn out – how it always turns out.  How does he put it? 

       See [he says], we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man [the real human being, the one who shows what human life is really to be], will be handed over to the religious leaders, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Romans – the imperial and imperious power of our day; they will mock him, and spit on him, and flog him, and kill him … and we will have to trust that if this is really of God, somehow and in some way he will rise again  … that this will not be the end … that there will never be an end of what it is really true.

But the way to get there is the cross.  That’s the consequence of living towards a better, alternate world and of helping to create it and call it into being.  The disciples imagined they were on their way to Jerusalem to take over – that somehow because they were in the right and God was on their side, there would be a coup or revolution or miracle of some kind that would suddenly put Jesus and them in charge of things, to make the world right. 

But that’s not how God works, is it?   

And that’s what makes it hard to really follow Jesus, to live in his way all the way through, to be the kind of people God intends us to be on Earth. 

But on the other hand, it’s easier than we usually fear.  To take up our own cross and follow him doesn’t mean being crucified ourselves the way that he was.  It doesn’t mean literally losing and giving up our last shred of dignity and our final breath on a lonely hillside surrounded by our enemies.  Jesus was clear about this, and when he was arrested he did and said all he could to ensure his disciples got away and were not arrested with him. 

Jesus says, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”  But what this means – how it’s lived out and experienced in each of their lives, is different and personal and unique.   

To put it in modern terms: Mother Teresa was a daughter of God who lived out her calling as she was meant to; but we are not Mother Teresa, and the place of her calling and her life of faithful following is not ours.  Jean Vanier, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and Gandhi are saints and spiritual heroes of our time who inspire us and help us to catch a glimpse of what good and holy life is about today; but we are not them, and the call upon each of us is unique and personal to our own situation and circumstance. 

And we don’t have to be the best in order to hear it and follow it.  We don’t have to be rich or powerful or have a privileged position to be able to live it out.  We don’t have to be on top of the world, or even on top of our game, to be of meaning and purpose.  We don’t have to be most of the things the world tells us we need to be, in order to count and be important and worthwhile. 

It’s a matter of accepting, first of all, that there is good purpose in all of us – in me as well as in you, that comes from outside us, but lives at the deepest part of who we are.  And then it’s a matter of listening – of opening ourselves to the call and good will of God, of seeing how the Word and Way of God intersect with where we are in the world, of letting ourselves be part of a community that seeks to live in the world by faith and hope and love, and learning to recognize and follow the movement of God and God’s spirit in our own heart and at the real heart of the world that we live in. 

And whether that’s easy or hard, and just how hard or easy that is at different times of our life and in different situations of our living, is up to us. 

Andrew King, who describes himself in his blog as “a 60-year-old ‘customer service worker’ for a fast-food restaurant in Oakville, Ontario” and is also a member of Maple Grove United Church in Oakville, posted this poem this week in response to the reading today from the Gospel, and I’ll end with this.  I’ll give Andrew King the last word to us this morning, as we seek to know what it means to drink the cup that he drinks, and be baptized with the baptism with which he is baptized: 

NOT TO BE SERVED BUT TO SERVE
(Mark 10: 35-45)

Is that you, Lord,
changing the diaper in the nursing home,
holding the spoon for the woman in her wheelchair,
wiping down the toilet and the floor;

is that you
serving the dinner at the homeless shelter,
sorting the cans at the food bank,
mowing the aged neighbour’s lawn;

is that you, Lord,
bandaging the wounds of the bomb victim,
erecting the tent for the refugees,
handing out the water and the food;

is that you
driving the patient to the treatment center,
sitting through the night with the family,
making the call to the forgotten friend;

is that you, Lord,
lighting the candle in the darkness,
keeping vigil for compassion and justice,
loving in us and through us and with us

until the world that you love has been changed?