9.20.09 "The True Greatness?"
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Robert H. Fernández
September 20, 2009 “The True Greatness?”
Proverbs 28:10,16,18,26 Psalm 1:1-3
James 3:13-18 Mark 9:33-37
Let us listen to the following description. An affable, charismatic man who moved comfortably among power brokers on Wall Street and in Washington, a winning financier who had all the toys: the penthouse apartment in Manhattan, the shares in two private jets, the yacht moored off the French Riviera. Although hardly a household name, he secured a longstanding role as an elder statesman on Wall Street, allowing him to be named to important boards and commissions where his opinions helped shape securities regulations all over the world. Along the way, he snared a coveted spot as the chairman of a major stock exchange, Nasdaq. And his employees say he treated them like family. What do you think: Had this man attained greatness? Hold your answer until I tell you his name. Bernard L. Madoff! Our question is: What constitutes greatness?
Listen to this list of names: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther, Muhammad, Saint Paul and William Shakespeare. That is quite a list! I understand that this list is currently circulating around the world to ascertain the greatest man on earth. People across continents are voting as if it were an exercise to elect one common President for the entire world. Of course, the first thing that struck me was that there were only men on the list—I wondered, “How about the great women of the world? Why aren’t their names on the list?”
“Survivor” is a reality television game show that gave birth to all sorts of reality games. Its format has been produced in many countries throughout the world. In the show, contestants are isolated in the wilderness and compete for cash and other prizes. The show uses a system of progressive elimination, allowing the contestants to vote off other “tribe” members until only one final contestant remains and wins the title of "Sole Survivor," the greatest! Furthermore, a recent study, whose reliability I have not been able to identify, indicates that one in seven teenagers hopes to gain fame by appearing on reality television, but what fame would that be? Consequently, I have come to the conclusion that we really need to do some serious thinking about what constitutes greatness!
Both secular and religious literatures have much to say about greatness. Let’s listen to an excerpt from each. For instance in “Twelfth Night” Act II, Scene V, Shakespeare says: “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” And in the Gospel According to Mark, Jesus said, “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 to give them a concrete example of what it means to be great.
The lectionary passages for this Sunday once more definitely fit our day and age. You will remember that the lectionary is a carefully constructed selection of four biblical passages for each Sunday in a series of three years so that all the major biblical themes are set forth for our consideration. Therefore, the four for today were simply my given scripture readings; but it is amazing how appropriate they are! It makes my preaching much simpler.
PROVERBS 28
10: To be great means not being misled. “Those who mislead the upright into evil ways will fall into pits of their own making, but the blameless will have a goodly inheritance.” In other words, think and discern for yourself when someone tells you something. Pay attention, certainly, to what is said, but analyze it carefully—don’t rush to conclusions. Find out all there is to be said before you make a decision. Even as you are hearing me say these words, I invite you to hold them in your mind and heart; question them; analyze them; discuss them; practice discernment. A sermon is not a monologue—it is a conversation starter. To engage in such an analysis on all levels is what it means to be great!
16: To be great means to have understanding and respond with justice. “A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor, but one who hates unjust gain will enjoy a long life.”
18: To be great means to have integrity. “One who walks in integrity will be safe, but whoever follows crooked ways will fall into the Pit.” According to Webster’s Dictionary, integrity is “the quality or state of being complete or undivided.” That is what Jesus meant when he said, “Let your eye be single.”
26. To be great is to have wisdom. “Those who trust in their own wits are fools; but those who walk in wisdom come through safely.” That brings us full circle to the first proverb: don’t be misled; don’t trust in your own wits, but be discerning, and wisdom will fill your way of living. That is what leads to greatness!
PSALM 1
Psalm 1 deals with the nurture of greatness. The image is that of a tree planted by streams of water. This is one of the first images from the Psalms that I can remember in my life. It is also tied to a song I heard one of my sisters sing when I was a child: “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.” I am sure that is why trees have always been symbols of greatness to me.
To be great is not pretending to be somebody I am not, but rather discovering who I really am, and then being that person, authentically and zealously. Thomas Merton said, "A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.” It 'consents' to His creative love. It expresses an idea which is in God's mind. So the more a tree is like itself, the more it is like the creation God intended. We are made in God's image, and the more we consent to be what God made us to be, the more we become the great creatures we were intended to be.
Furthermore, the tree in the Psalm is planted by streams of water so that its source of nurture is constantly present. Likewise, greatness only comes when we are in constant contact with our source of life—God. An awareness of God does not mean, however, that we need to be looking over our shoulder fearfully because God may zap us at our first wrong move. Our awareness of God must connect us to the creative beauty and vastness of the life that God intended for us.
Thus the psalmist continues the imagery by saying that the tree bears its fruit in due season and its leaves do not wither. Jesus knowingly said, "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). To be great is not an end in itself, but it is to produce fruits that give nurture and sustenance to anyone and everything that is near at hand. Greatness does not hoard its treasure; it returns it and scatters it abroad. Such is the nature and greatness of stewardship. Our lives are not out own; we depend on the sun, the rain, the grace and power of God which I do not control but only soak up as precious gifts. We live in the light, but the roots of greatness go down deep into the mystery of God so that it can bring blessing to everyone and everywhere.
JAMES 3:13-18
The passage from James begins to describe the fruits of greatness which the tree produces. “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom . . . the wisdom from above is first pure, than peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” This epistle reading explicitly connects James' interest in mindful speech with his concern for community harmony. James uses these verses to bind together claims to be wise with the stipulation that wisdom reveals itself in action, just as "faith" does (2:14, 17). James binds true wisdom—true greatness, if you please—to peaceable behavior and willingness to yield. Belligerence and contentiousness demonstrate a destructive determination to win, rather than a faithful determination to build up harmony, gentleness, and mercy.
The value of patience and gentleness are not obvious to the most prominent streams of contemporary culture. Politicians -- with keen attention to their constituents' sympathies -- outdo one another in adopting bellicose poses toward opponents, and partisans decry compromises that might alienate their core supporters even though such compromises may be for the greater good. Church bodies regularly take their conflicts to secular courts without even a trace of self-conscious penitence for resorting to state power to resolve ecclesiastical problems. Behavior that most congregations take as self-evidently necessary, James condemns as antithetical to heavenly wisdom and have no part in greatness.
James call us to the arduous commitment to persevere in the perfect freedom of a disciple who loves heavenly wisdom more than earthly power, and this requires determined activism. This commitment to the truth will oblige disciples to make themselves inconvenient to the players of power games.
MARK
We finally arrive on that dusty road to Capernaum immediately after Jesus revealed to his disciples that his death was eminent. Jesus' words in Mark, especially his passion prediction, show how ill-conceived the disciples' dreams actually were. Their anticipation of greatness is exposed as foolish and flawed. Their quarrel over who would be the greatest and get heaven's glory seats is dismissed by the looming reality of Jesus' inglorious death. But Jesus doesn't just dash ashes on their elitist hopes, he shows them, gently at first but more firmly as he goes along, how they must learn to redefine greatness, how radically they must realign their concept of success and achievement, how totally they must rid themselves of ideas of class.
Jesus turned upside down everything the disciples thought about what “making it” means, everything first-century and 21st century men and women have been taught about becoming upright and upstanding and great. Instead of glorying in his leadership, assuming sweeping authority, flexing his messianic muscles, Jesus lauds servant hood and insists that, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
The disciples were human beings. They wanted their names to be in lights just as you and I want to stand out from our peers. The difficulty with that is that many times that causes us to mistreat others or betray our values. My guess is that Jesus wanted them to be ambitious and energetic because these are the people that get things done. He just wanted them to be ambitious and energetic in the right way.
Sitting down, Jesus called the twelve disciples together and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Think about those words for a moment. If we want to be the greatest, we must learn to serve others. Ponder what it means to be a servant? Service is not an ambition that most of us aspire to. We would prefer to look after number one rather than being a servant.
Then very simply Jesus took a little child and placed it in their midst, 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.” So . . . what does it mean to be great?
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