This time*, as Jesus’ core disciples miss the mark again, Jesus has been offering some of the deepest wisdom he has to convey. They need to really understand that the powers of this world, when confronted with the fullness of God’s love and justice, will so much prefer to keep their power that they will exercise lethal violence to maintain their dominance.
But more than this: Jesus wants to reveal to them, so that they’ll know to look for it, that the sacred force of Love and of Life would be made fully manifest in the very moments where it seemed that the worst had happened and that all was lost.
To the extent they take in Jesus’ teaching at all, they seem to take it as a signal that there’ll soon be a job opening at the top. So they spend their journey back to Capernaum arguing with one another over who among them was the greatest.
For the apostles and for all of us who are living in a culture deeply obsessed with how we are succeeding or falling behind on a whole range of measures, Jesus offers this teaching: he puts a child in our midst, and then embraces it fully. This little one is very likely a street kid—unclaimed by their family, unkempt, and unneeded by anyone: the very definition of a “Nobody”– powerless, voiceless, undefended.
The spiritual force of Jesus’ presence was the unspoken part of this teaching. Jesus’ deep acceptance of this nobody street kid is his full union of spirit with the child. The teaching gives them is their experiencing the flow of Jesus’ sacred unconditional love as he cradles the child.
From the intensity of his love, Jesus saw clearly what is so hard for us to see for ourselves. It’s hard to see that our judging, comparing, ranking, and claiming superiority inevitably separate us from each other, and also from our own deepest selves.
When I was not quite 30, I had risen rapidly to a senior-level legal position in state government. Then I was influenced by Henri Nouwen, a Catholic theologian who wrote movingly about the gospel teaching on this kind of downward mobility. My decision to walk away from this brisk climb up the hierarchy, and from this bright sign that I was a winner felt like radical psychic surgery: Who could I be without my certified success?
Born as I was into a culture that is all about judgment, comparison, hierarchy, with winners and losers everywhere, this one bold-hearted decision was hardly enough to disentangle myself from its web. But Jesus wants us to assure us that if we can be okay being the least and the servant of all, then we can be truly free in our spirit.
For me, at least, that’s a lifelong process.
I had a mentor who used to ask, “Would you rather be right, best, the most successful, or would you rather find joy?” It’s another form of the question Jesus is raising here, and I suspect most of us share the problematic blessing of having ample opportunity to explore this question every day.
I offer it as this week’s reflection question: use it as often as you find your spirit constricting and suspect that a judgmental thought might be in the mix.
-Jeanne Marcus, Alumna member of CoS communities
*Mark 9:30-37
