Mark 9:30-37
There was once an Asian visitor to the United States who was being wined and dined by business associates. As one of their treats, they took him to see a professional football game.
When the opposing team, an arch rival, was introduced, the stadium erupted in boos. The visitor, visibly shaken by this, asked what that reaction was all about. Had these players disgraced themselves in some way? Had they delivered a shameful insult to the sponsors of the event?
His host tried to explain the nature of rivalries, that the fans had come to watch the home team, and the other the opponent was from another city. But that only seemed to make matters worse, and the Asian man fidgeted in obvious discomfort through much of the game.
“Why does everyone applaud the efforts of only one side?” he finally asked. “When the other team scores no one gives them any respect or appreciation.” Again, the host tried to explain the nature of competition in American sports.
Late in the game, the visitors were faced with a crucial 4th down and 1 play near the goal line. As they approached the line of scrimmage, the crowd noise became deafening. The Asian asked what was happening now. Screaming over the roar of the crowd, his host explained that the crowd was making noise to prevent the other team from hearing the quarterback’s signals.
The Asian was utterly bewildered. “I do not understand such rudeness,” he said. “In my country, a host would lose face if they treated visitors so rudely. It is unthinkable that the hosts would dishonor themselves by purposely being unfair to their guests.”
There was a definite clash of cultures there. The Gospel reading for today reminds us that the Christian message is sometimes neither traditional nor contemporary. Sometimes it is absolutely countercultural. It swims upstream against an attitude that we all take for granted. It is that part of Jesus’ message that is the hardest for us who are wrapped up in our culture to see, and the hardest for us to accept.
An outsider’s view of our sports culture provides the best perspective of what this Bible reading is all about, and so this sermon is largely about sports.
The story begins with Jesus teaching the disciples as they travel through Galilee on their way to Capernaum. He’s talking to them about very serious and important and complex matters. These are literally matters of life and death. They are crucial to understanding what God is about in this world and in their lives.
Yet they don’t make much of an effort to listen. It’s too deep, too heavy, and requires too much thought. Even though they don’t get what Jesus is talking about, they don’t make the effort to ask a single question. What is meant to be a serious discussion doesn’t last long.
As it turns out, the disciples have something much more important to talk about, at least in their minds. We find this out after the fact, when they finish their journey for the day. As they’re getting cleaned up and settled in for the night, Jesus asks, “What were you arguing about on our trip today?”
Suddenly, the disciples get a little sheepish. They don’t want to admit what happened. For, as Jesus knew, they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest disciple.
What they were doing is known in the sports world as talkin’ smack, talkin’ trash. It might be politely defined as a type of conversation in which people use their oratory and rhetorical skills to persuade others of their superiority.
You can tell by the way this story is phrased that it was not calm, objective argument, in which they tried to come to a consensus. The disciples were the forerunners of modern sports radio talk shows in which fans call in to passionately and heatedly argue why their team is number one and everyone else is a loser.
You can bet that no one said, “I think I would have to vote for James as the greatest. He’s seems to have the clearest handle on what Jesus is all about.”
No one said, “Yeah, Peter, I guess I’d have to say that you’re way out in front right now. You’re going to be tough to catch.”
No, they were all promoting themselves. They were all saying, “I’m number one.”
In order to back up that argument, they had to brag about how awesome and wonderful they were, while at the same time shooting down everyone else’s claim to be awesome and wonderful.
“Sure, you get a lot of face time with Jesus, Peter. But when you consider that you’ve done more stupid things than the rest of us combined, I think that puts you out of the running.”
“Philip, you’re not even in the top five. You didn’t get picked for the special group that went to pray with Jesus.”
“Give me a break, Thomas. Name one thing you’ve ever done or said that anybody’s every going to remember. You’re basically a nobody. I’m number 1.”
Just as sports fans today get wildly passionate about the subject of who’s number one, this argument seemed very important to them at the time. But now as the disciples look into Jesus’ eyes, they realize how silly that whole exchange had been. Here they had been given the chance to learn from Jesus, to pick his brain on the really key things of life. And they had passed that up in favor of a spitting contest.
Jesus has to tell them that the “we’re number 1” argument is not only trivial, not only a waste of time, but it’s counterproductive.
“If you want to be great in God’s eyes, you won’t get there by puffing yourself up and bragging about how great you are. Being number 1 is about you putting yourself above other people, and that isn’t how the kingdom of God works. Those who are great in God’s eyes are those who put aside their own egos and own selfish desires and simply do what God asks. And that is building up the whole, not making sure you cross the finish line first, but making sure everyone crosses the finish line.
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” Jesus says. To illustrate his point, he picks up a small child and holds him or her in his arms, close to him. Why does he use a child? Because in Hebrew society, children had no status. Far from being in the running for the top spot in the polls, children weren’t eligible to compete. Yet a child was as important in God’s eyes as anyone else. Who’s number one isn’t an issue for God, and in fact, such arguments tear away at the very nature of life that Jesus came to bring.
Now we’re treading onto ticklish ground in our society, where sports is basically a mania. Sports are worthwhile activities. Rivalries are a way to have fun, a little good-natured teasing. I intend to go home after church today and watch the Vikings kick the living daylights out of the Bears. (Hey, I can dream!) Is this harmful, sinful behavior?
Is competition harmful? I once worked at a summer camp where some of the counselors were on an anticompetitive kick. When we played volleyball games, no one was allowed to keep score. We were supposed to play just for the fun of it. You know what? It wasn’t much fun. After awhile, I found that I would rather lose 21-2 than play without keeping score.
And isn’t competition, the striving to be better than others, the number one motivating factor in helping us to be more productive, better skilled. Isn’t competition what drives our entire economic system that provides goods and services and innovation for society at a more efficient rate than any other system ever devised?
So is Jesus wrong on this? Isn’t striving to be number one a good thing that helps us to be the best that we can be?
As I ponder the text and the nature of our competitive society, the lesson seems to be this. Competition is good as a means of striving for excellence.
Look at the records set in track and field. How many of them are set against weak competition? It hardly ever happens. Tough competition helps us to focus; it pushes us to become better at what we do. It is to help us achieve excellence. Scottish track star Eric Liddel 400 meter gold medalist in the 1924 Olympics, had the best handle on competition. It made him train hard so that he could run fast, and as Liddell said, “when I run fast I feel God’s pleasure.”
Jesus wasn’t advocating against competition; in fact, he set up a competition of his own: which of you can do the best job of being last, of putting others first? Competition among Creston congregations in supporting CROP walk would be a great thing, if that competition helps us all to do a better job of feeding the hungry.
What Jesus warned against was not seeking excellence but in seeking glory at other peoples’ expense. The purpose of our competitive efforts is not to be or to claim to be number one. It’s not to claim superiority over others. It’s not to be king of the hill who stands at the top and maintains that position by throwing everyone else down. That goes entirely against what Christianity is all about.
Can you imagine Jesus doing an end zone dance after a healing the blind man? Can you imagine him at the Last Supper leading his disciples in a spirited chant of “We’re number 1! We’re number 1!”
While the point that Jesus was making shows up most clearly against the backdrop of sports, it is a lesson that is important in all phases of life. And it is not a message of guilt and condemnation; it is a message of hope.
Sometimes it seems we live in a world in which competition, the harmful kind, is leading society and the world off a cliff like a pack of lemmings. Not the competition that seeks excellence but the kind that aims for getting ahead, for being number 1.
Children are being robbed of their childhood; we push them at an earlier and earlier age to do things that will help them get ahead. There are areas of our nation where parents pay big bucks to enroll their child in a prestigious preschool before the child is even born, because that’s how you stay ahead of the competition, to give your child the edge to come out better than others. The competition for colleges, medical schools is so fierce that kids labor under the pressure that one lapse of concentration in a 9th grade course in which they have no interest in may wreck their future. Every year sports travel teams get younger, travel further, demand more time, and eat into Sunday and Wednesday nights because that’s what we have to do to stay ahead of competition.
A town like Creston can’t have decent department store because fierce retail competition leads these companies to operate only in areas of high population, high volume, high profits. Good, honest jobs are lost and sent overseas where poverty can be exploited to avoid the cost of living wages, benefits, and environmental care, so that companies can beat the competition.
Despite labor-saving and time-saving advances, how many of us have less time than ever as we try to keep up with the accelerating pace of competition? The gap between rich and poor grows ever larger because of competition. Fierce technology battles make computers obsolete in 2 years, generating tons of waste. Every chemical or genetic engineering advancement grinds poor farmers in Third World nations further into poverty and starvation because they cannot compete.
The pressure of staying number one causes nations to start justifying torture because we have to keep up with the other guys. To spend billions and billions on weapons systems to get ahead or stay ahead of the competition.
Entertainment standards get lowered to disgusting levels because that’s what sells and we have to beat the competition. Political ads hit new lows of sleeziness because that’s what it takes to win, and winning is the only thing. We grit our teeth and sacrifice family and our own moral standards to advance our careers.
The list goes on and on, and the horror is it keeps accelerating and there is no end in sight. It seems the current of winning at all costs is so strong that no one can fight it. We’re sucked into this course of action and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Here’s where the gospel, the good news, comes in. The gospel tells us that we don’t have to feel helpless. The message of salvation in Jesus Christ is that we don’t have to let ourselves be washed down the river to self-destruction. We can hitch ourselves to the lifeline that Jesus throws to us. The way out of our dilemma is to focus on God and not ourselves.
When we do that, when we realize that our place in the rankings of heaven has already been established, not by what we have done or will do, but by what God has done, the pressure eases. We are free to use competition for what God intended—to help us focus, to achieve excellence, to push ourselves to do things that enrich the world in so many ways.
In the kingdom of God, the chant of we’re number 1 is never uttered. No one can look into the eyes of Jesus and claim to be the greatest.
In Kiwanis last week, our finemaster imposed a fine of 25 cents for everyone who did not know when Yom Kippur was—it happens to begin next Sunday, although its not on the same day every year. The Day of Atonement is one of the most important days in the Jewish religion. I didn’t have to pay that fine. Because for 41 years now, I’ve been very aware of Yom Kippur.
When I was 8 years old, living in the Twin Cities, the Minnesota Twins came to town. I instantly became a devoted fan. We went to several games every year, and it was always a highlight of my summer. In 1965 the Twins won the AL pennant, and I was ecstatic.
The Twins were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had a pitcher named Sandy Koufax. Many people say he was most unhittable pitcher who ever played the game. That year he led NL in wins, era, shutouts, and strikeouts. That was bad news for the Twins. With Koufax pitching games 1, 4, and 7 it would be almost impossible for Twins win.
Then I heard news too good to be true. Koufax would not pitch game 1. The reason? Game 1 of the series was on Yom Kippur. Koufax was Jewish. He had strict priorities, and in his life God came first. He was scheduled to pitch one of the important games of his career. Millions would have traded their first born child for such an opportunity. Koufax gave it up, to go to church.
He did not let an opportunity to win the World Series keep him from honoring God. It just wasn’t a good enough excuse.
It’s not that Koufax was a poor competitor. As it turned out, he risked his arm and his career by pitching twice in 4 days. The Twins didn’t score a run off him in either game, and because of that, LA won the series. He loved to compete—the right way. Competition was about achieving excellence; being right with God was more important than being #1.
Every fall, when the baseball regular season comes to an end, I know that Yom Kippur is close by.
And when I think of that old World Series, I know that there is a way out of the rat race. It’s not an easy way, and it takes a lot of courage. But because of the coming of Jesus into the world, we no longer have to impress God: all God asks is that we love God with all our heart as God has shown us how to love.
That’s the goal. Game on! Let the competition begin.