Sermons

Holding Out For a Hero

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  September 21, 2003                    James 3:13-4:3/Mark 9:30-37

Sometime in them middle of August I experienced something I won’t soon forget. Now my grandfather saw Babe Ruth play and I was privileged enough to see Michael Jordan play several times, in person. But there is a young man named Eldrick who takes the cake in terms of sports celebrity and global acclaim.

Eldrick’s nickname is “Tiger,” Tiger Woods to be exact, and at a practice round, a practice round mind you, at the P.G.A., it happened. From a distance, I could see thousands of people following him, but I waited at a much later hole, knowing he would show up sooner or later. And he did.

But first came the crowds. Then came the security people. They gave the crowd a rigorous once-over – I felt so scrutinized that I checked to be sure I wasn’t carrying anything dangerous. I wasn’t.

From several holes away we could tell he was coming. There he was at the previous hole. As he putted out from 17, (I was on 18), a horde of people moved like a big tectonic plate to get into position. Before we saw Tiger, we saw several state troopers, parting the crowd like the entire Bills’ offensive line. And then, there he was. First little, then bigger. The man.

“You’re the man,” several yelled. I didn’t – I was concerned that some of you might have been present to see me do it. He kept his gaze low, whatever chatter he uttered shared only with his playing partners. He teed it up, drove a drive that resembled an Apollo launch, and then moved on down into the fairway.

99.9% of the crowd followed. I waited until the next group came to hit their tee shots. By the time they arrived, the place resembled a ghost town. Just a handful of fans, the course marshals and three seriously abandoned golfers.

It was quite an experience. I realized for a moment, anyway, how vulnerable Tiger Woods was in that situation, and the almost surreal world we have created. It’s easy to blame the athletes, who are paid incomprehensible sums of money to play games and who – and I am not including Tiger Woods in this comment – do things that they shouldn’t, to other people, with substances, against the law.

It’s easy to blame the athletes, but it also strikes me what a cultural conundrum we have created for ourselves. Athletes, singers, movie stars. Information is readily available, and consumption is at an all-time high.

Now I am a big sports fan, and I worshipped, at times almost literally, the athletes of my youth. Back then we did not know how utterly human they were. We know that now. And still, and still.

My sense of hero worship has ebbed and flowed. There were the requisite athletes, of course – posters and baseball cards, and an every-so-often letter requesting an autograph, before autographs became a growth industry.

There have been others, primarily from the world of fiction. I wanted to be Atticus Finch, or at least Atticus Finch in the way that Gregory Peck played him. Do you remember the TV show “Hill Street Blues?” I wanted to be Captain Frank Furillo – he made good speeches, projected calm all around him, got the girl, even. For a very short while I wanted to be Johnny Cash; I even wore an all black outfit once or twice.

And then I grew up, or am in the process of growing up. I still get a rush at a concert or a ballgame. The heroes of my youth still do great things – they run fast and jump high; they project an air of cool confidence; they say the right things at the right time; they get the girl, or the boy.

And yet I have learned that even the real life ones are fictionalized creations, and such a realization has actually allowed me to enjoy the games even more, and the performances, appreciating the humanity for what it is, a gift. And every one in a while, like when I see Tiger Woods drive a golf ball or Bruce Springsteen sing a song or Batman get the bad guys, I want to be them. But just for an instant.

It is apparently not a new dynamic, and a consistently human one. The equilibrium of this morning’s conversation is between an understanding of true greatness, true heroism, I will call it, and the revolutionary affirmation that we are given gifts, all of us, each one of us, to be heroes. A different kind of hero, to be sure.

The launching point is this little episode from Mark’s gospel. Jesus is on a healing and teaching tour. He is prophesying about things to come. He is teaching hard lessons about the costs of following him, about the costs he himself will pay. He is healing right and left: a little girl, a blind man, an epileptic child.

In many ways, Mark is building Jesus’ credentials for what is to come. We are being led to expect, are we not, something triumphant and miraculous. This one says wise things. This one takes on the powers that be. This one even heals. Why, he should run for office (perhaps in California!), or even more so, should assume the throne.

And what must it have been like to be part of that entourage, his people. Earlier they had been plucked from obscurity, from jobs that weren’t particularly glamorous. Now it doesn’t appear that financial compensation for discipling was all that lucrative, but the fringe benefits weren’t bad. A front row seat to a revolution. Inside connections to miracle upon miracle. And they knew the man. He had called them by name. Mark seems to be setting them, and us, up for something, some chart topping, blockbuster experience.

And they were traveling to a new venue, as it were. And they are ready to listen, but they are not ready to hear this: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed and be killed. And three days later he will rise again.” And Mark, with uncanny honesty, says that the disciples didn’t understand, and were afraid to ask.

Who has not been in some situation that was so overwhelmingly inexplicable that you were afraid to say a word, where for the moment anyway ignorance was exceedingly more acceptable than embarrassed illumination?

Their travels continued, to Capernaum. Jesus knew full well that his followers, the disciples especially, had been talking. It was only natural. They couldn’t ask him, to be sure, but they sure could speculate. What one earth was he talking about? What could he mean? Look at the crowds – he is popular, and growing more so! How dare he talk about his death?

And the conversation apparently spilled over into other topics, away from the window of Jesus to the mirror of self. And Jesus knew, though my hunch is that the conversation was reasonably transparent. “What were you talking about along the way?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. And like a kid caught by an all-knowing parent, they fall silent.

What they had been talking about was greatness. It was only natural. Celebrity. Popularity. All those crowds had come to see Jesus, but t was only natural that a little of the glow had rubbed off on his leadership team. Jesus knew the topic of conversation. They were embarrassed by it. But it was only natural, only human.

Mary Hinkle writes that “as the walk progresses, the disciples find their way into a discussion about which of them is greatest. They are graduate students comparing GRE scores. They are ministers discussing how many they worship each week, as in ‘We worship 450 at both services.’” (Parenthetically, I have NO idea what she is talking about!) Hinkle continues that “They are anyone who has written a memo containing the words ‘measurable outcomes.’ Which of the disciples is the star pupil? Who is the greatest?” (Christian Century, September 6, 2003, page 19)

It is easy to be critical, except when we pause fro a moment and remember that throughout the gospels the disciples are surrogates for us. And we, like they, are caught up in every measure of human weakness. It’s not simply about wanting to be great. Jesus’ words about his death have frightened them, and silenced them. They do the same to us. Pheme Perkins writes that “despite extraordinary power, Jesus still must suffer.” (New Interpreters Bible, page 635) They know that their wrangling for “vice president” of the disciples club is unseemly and inappropriate. And yet it is all too human, particularly in light of Jesus’ ongoing message.

That is not to let them off the hook, or us. And Jesus does not do so either. So he knows. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” As Mark Twain said, “it’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that trouble me, it’s the parts that do.”

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And then, as if seeking for an example, he sees a little child, a virtual non-person in that social setting, and equates welcoming that little child with welcoming him – true greatness.

Lamar Williamson writes that the elemental question in all this, and I think him to be right, is “what does it mean to follow Jesus?” (Interpretation Commentary, pages 167 and following)

To the question of what it means to be great, Williamson responds: “To measure greatness by lowly service is apparently as characteristic of Jesus as it is alien to the world in every age. Jesus does not despise the desire to be first, but his definition of greatness stands the world’s ordering of priorities on its head and radically challenges a fundamental human assumption about achievement” (Page 170) Yes it does.

And so whatever ways that we have created this dynamic – this social, cultural, political, economic and yes, even this theological, dynamic – we have done so at the cost of understanding a core gospel truth. That’s the first point, which would leave us in trouble, like Tiger Woods in the deep rough, if there were not to be a second point.

Jesus offers it. He offers it when he focuses the light of his gospel on that child, that small, nameless, socially worthless child, and suggests with every ounce of radicality that he can muster that this child IS the kingdom of God. We are heroes, we are great, when we welcome that child, serve that child, and all that that child represents.

That’s why I can still have a little fun thinking about Johnny Bench or James Bond or whoever. But it’s also why when I think of true greatness, who the real practitioners of heroism are to be, my focus moves elsewhere.

To every city teacher who takes the limited resources given to her and makes a difference in a child’s life. To my parents, increasingly, and my spouse, and my children, in surprising ways. To ministers on the front lines, where the clarion call of the gospel is most clear and pure. To politicians, even, whose commitment to the common good outweighs commitment to self-interest. To cancer patients facing their future with dignity and integrity. To parents living into, day by day, that most demanding of jobs. To our young people, making difficult choices in a culture that encourages otherwise. To those who are aging gracefully by refusing to age easily. There are so many others.

To all of us, gathered here, as great as any could be, as heroic as any could be, not because of award or accomplishment, but because we make mistakes and confess them and then move on to seek to do the next good thing, because we have overheard the story that Jesus took a little one and said love, and we seek to love in the way he did, even when it means a little tarnish now and then.

Saints, our tradition has called them. Heroes, we will call them for today. Given a vocation, a vision, a calling, and given gifts to pursue it. That’s the good news. We are not left forsaken in our calling.

The Epistle of James speaks of a life “normed by love” (see Luke Timothy Johnson, New Interpreters Bible) and so our heroism is marked by counter-cultural values: gentleness, mercy, peace.

There are so many stories of this kind of heroism, from history, from literature. Yet the best stories, and the most real, come from our own lives. And so for a moment, might we in silence remember with gratitude those in our own lives who reflected true greatness. (Silence)

Let us pray. Loving God, we thank you with grateful hearts for those we have remembered, whose greatness is marked by gentleness and love, saints and prophets and pioneers, and poets of your peace. Help us to remember, and to be like them in every good way. For we pray in the name of the one who welcomes even us into his company, Christ Jesus our friend and savior. Amen.