A good place to begin as we think of this pilgrimage or journey model of our faith is to reflect on your own personal journeys; to think of the people and experiences that have been part of your faith development. Where did your faith come from? Who were the significant models early on? What was or were the experience or experiences that have in fact made you a practicing Christian today? What have been the converting moments for you? The Acts of the Apostles talks of the early Christians as those “who were being saved”, that is, those who were caught up in the process of salvation; whose lives were being transformed by the activity of the Holy Spirit; those who were embarked on the journey of faith. This is a very different approach to that which is presumed in the question “Are you saved brother or sister?” Our confident answer to that question should you be asked it is “Yes I am being saved.”

Today’s Gospel passage from Mark is about a journey of the disciples with Jesus. Its context is clear but at the same time it speaks to us because we can identify our own experience with it. We read much about the public ministry of Jesus: Jesus preaching to the crowds; Jesus healing hosts of people; Jesus feeding the 5000; Jesus teaching in parables and the like. But every so often we are given glimpses of Jesus’ personal, devotional life with reference to Jesus rising early to go out to some quiet place on a mountain or in the wilderness in order to pray and commune with his heavenly Father. But we are also given glimpses of Jesus’ life with the disciples, those who had been called into the inner circle. Today’s gospel speaks of one of those times when Jesus is focused on the disciples alone in a period of intense teaching. So much so that he keeps a low profile and moves about the country in order to maintain some privacy. There are times when we all need to go apart for some intentional time together. The word retreat is much used in the organizational world these days. Boards, committees and vestries spend some time a day or weekend together in order to do some in depth work. This is precisely what Jesus is doing here. “For he was teaching his disciples”. You could say that is the purpose of Adult Christian Education each Sunday at 10. It is a serious attempt to help a group of disciples deepen and strengthen their faith. It is a learning journey.

But Jesus was not the easiest of teachers. He taught those disciples some pretty tough things among which was the prediction of his forthcoming Passion and Death. “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” This is not the first time Jesus had taught them about this. You will remember he said the same thing to them on the road just before the Transfiguration. Nevertheless Mark comments baldly “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” Does that sound familiar? Have you heard priests and others say thing about the faith over the years not only which you did not understand but were too embarrassed to ask questions? None of us like to show our ignorance or our incomprehension. How many times have I heard people say in private, often after a drink or two at a wedding reception, “Father can I ask you a silly question?” As if any question about matters of faith can be classed as silly! Like those first disciples on the road in Galilee we are often too embarrassed to ask questions of thing we do not understand. That is not to say of course that there are always easy answers. There are many things that I do not have an easy answer for chief of which is the human suffering and anguish we meet every day. Why does God allow good people to suffer? That is a question which does not have a simple answer. And it is one of many. But the important thing here is that Jesus keeps journeying with the disciples. He does not dismiss them. He does not give up on them or indeed they on him. That fact gives us heart. Yes there are many things we do not know or do not understand like those first disciples but we do not give up on that account.

But Jesus perceptive as ever knew that the disciples were having there own discussions which were not especially creative or fulfilling. I guess he could read their faces; those averted, embarrassed eyes and when he asked directly their silence. Somehow he guessed that they were consumed by issues of rivalry and status. “For on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” Of course some were more senior; some more long-standing than others; some were probably more intelligent than others. We can read our own script into that one. Sounds like the average parish in the Episcopal Church. But Jesus the ultimate teacher does not scold or redress them but patiently goes on with his teaching. And as any teacher can see, what method he employs. “Jesus sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them and so forth. It is brilliant in its simplicity. In a way he shames them by demonstrating a radically different approach from the worldly wisdom we hear of in the first two readings. That worldly wisdom is to do with status, ambition, power and possessions; it is the approach that makes these ends in themselves to be defended at all costs which then results in disputes and conflicts, selfishness and envy and jealousy. Jesus takes a little child and uses it as a way of demonstrating God’s wisdom, a wisdom that James reminds is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” The little child in its innocence and openness to people and the world around models that wisdom from above. And Jesus adds “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” This teaching is mirrored in the Parable of the Great Judgment in Matthew 25 when Jesus says “as much as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters you did it to me.”

Jesus teaches and models the servant ministry which he is soon to demonstrate for all time in the foot washing, at the Last Supper and in his death on the cross. He is to be the ultimate servant of us all and a model for all our ministry.

How appropriate this teaching of Jesus to those disputateous disciples long ago is to his contemporary church. Here we are in a time of major dispute in both our Episcopal Church and within the Anglican Communion let alone the smaller disputes and divisions that so easily consume parishes. Some times it is easy to feel like washing your hands of it all and abandoning ship. But the Lord of the Church says to us, to the Episcopal Church, to the Anglican Communion and to all Christians: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all”. It is the servant ministry which in the end teaches us what is at the heart of our faith and that is the Death of Jesus, the ultimate act of service, from which comes Resurrection and New Life and indeed a New Creation. It is this ministry which is a positive antidote to all our arguments and contention. I have always been impressed by the example of the Salvation Army of “roll up your sleeves and do something.” Through the initiative of Jenn Onofrio and Rick Robyn we are being given an opportunity to do just that in New Orleans in January. But the teaching of Jesus and his modeling with the little child is for each of us and is applicable in our every day lives as we seek to journey on with Jesus and to become more like him.   Amen

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