The Words We Do Not Want to Hear, Part 2

The following is part of the sermon I delivered at Buffalo United Methodist Church

Mark 9:30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “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.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.  He 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 taking it in his arms, he said to them,  “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

 In the biblical passage known as the Walk to Emmaus, two follows of Christ are walking down a road after the crucifixion. They don’t realize that their companion is Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.  In our passage today from Mark, the disciples are walking down a road with Jesus, and one could argue that they also don’t fully realize who their teacher really is – and it’s not because Jesus hasn’t told them.  They haven’t yet understood the nature of the Messiah they follow and what discipleship means.

Mark 9 is at a crossroad in the adult life of Jesus, if you’ll pardon the pun.  Jesus has been teaching and healing, traveling. In the previous few chapters, they had been in a northern region, in towns like Caesarea Philippi and Bethsaida.  In our scripture today, they walk to Capernaum, which is farther south, and closer to Jerusalem.  They are geographically and spiritually moving toward Jerusalem – and therefore moving closer the Jesus’ death.  Jesus knows there is not much time left to him to teach these men, and that in order for the gospel to move forward after his death, he has to make sure that these men “get it.”  And what they have to understand is completely radical – it is the opposite of what they know.

They are traveling through Galilee, and Jesus is once again teaching his disciples, and he says to them, “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.”

None of them wanted to hear that, even though he had told them before.

His teaching was greeted with silence.  What did argue about instead? Who is the greatest among them.  When they get to a house in Capernaum, he asks them what they had been talking about.  Again, silence – maybe this time motivated by embarrassment.  He responds by bringing a child into their midst and saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.”

Quite a contrast.  Imagine Jesus glaring at them all, frustrated, saying, in effect, “None of you is the greatest!  This child, this person who has no standing, no power, no authority is the greatest – and not only that, when you welcome this child, you welcome me.  And God.

None of them wanted to hear that – in fact, they had been ignoring that radical idea all along.