We love to rank things. I would bet that ranking things is the number one
activity Americans enjoy most. You may think we like something more. Let’s
argue. Or better yet, let’s check the Internet, where we can find top ten lists of dog
breeds, rich people, the greatest movie MacGuffins of all time, historical battles
Hollywood got completely wrong, teenage stars who failed as adult actors,
disturbing facts from history, heart-healthy vegetarian foods, and, best of all, top
ten lists. We can lose ourselves in the trivia and emerge from web-surfing to find
hours gone.
We are competitive. If I contend that my team or anything else about me is
better than your team or anything else about you, we must have a way to measure
the winners versus the losers. How much time and money are consumed with
ranking sports teams? Almost as much time and money as that spent debating the
accuracy of those rankings? (At least we can all agree the Texas Longhorns
deserve their current number one position.) It is not enough that we have elections
in which there is a winner and a loser. Continual polling of likely voters creates a
series of trial elections before the real vote in each race. Each week gives us new
results and talking heads to analyze those results.
We like to think that people, companies, groups, and things can be judged on
their merits. We want there to be an objective standard out there, an objective
standard expressed by an order from first to last. Rankings give our world that
sense of order and make our decisions easier. A college professor told me the
purpose of the Academy Awards is to inform the public which two or three movies
people should see if they only see two or three movies a year. The more I thought
about it, the more his assertion made sense. Lists of top 40 musical hits and best-
selling books help us define what is good and what is not, who is a success and
who is not, what to listen to and what to read. Want to know where to apply to
college? Check out U.S. News & World Report’s annual college report that lists
colleges from top to bottom. Where should I take someone to eat? How about at a
Michelin-rated restaurant? While that restaurant must be good, you’re not serious
about booking a reservation at that hotel. It has only one-star! It must be awful. If
ordering from Amazon or other websites, we jump to how each product’s ratings
compare one to another rather than our dedicating the time to read the actual
reviews. We delegate some of our decision-making to save time and energy,
skipping the details for a graded summary.
Within our society, we rank each other. We declare who are the leaders, who
are the higher ups. We have team captains, CEOs, chairs of boards, generals,
admirals, representatives and senators, secretaries of departments, governors,
supreme courts, and a president. Beneath them exist all kinds of layers of authority.
These rankings decide who may make what decisions and who must obey those
decisions. These rankings help decide who succeeds whom if there a death or
resignation. How could we exist without this system?
Of course, we take ranking and rating too far. In our history and present, we
name some racial and ethnic groups as higher or lower than others. We invent
reasons to support our base prejudice. We stereotype certain groups with
characteristics and use those characteristics to justify the status of that group.
Lower groups are lazy, dirty, violent, traitorous, or inherently corrupt. Higher
groups are hard-working, clean, honest, or loyal. Once we’ve justified our
reasoning, we proceed to reward or punish the group. Like reviewing product
rankings on Amazon, the stereotypes allow us to make at least initial decisions
about an individual without taking the time or risk of knowing much about them. I
can trust her, the one like me, even if I don’t know her. I can’t trust him, the one
unlike me, at least not until he proves himself to me.
Even if we are not judging on the color of skin, we judge by wealth. As
Tevye of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” sings in the song “If I Were a Rich
Man”:
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise.
“If you please, Reb Tevye..."
“Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes!
And it won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong.
When you’re rich, they think you really know!
I occasionally flatter myself on how I treat some people less fortunate than me,
only to reflect how much more courtesy I extend to the affluent without thinking.
Fair treatment demands an awareness and effort I too often lack.
Turning to our gospel reading, a rigid social order dominated the first
century of the common era. Emperor on the top, consuls, senators and governors a
step below, leading down to Roman army centurions, Roman citizens, and
freedmen, with conquered peoples like the disciples being a step above slaves.
Women ranked far below men and, outside of the most elite elements, were best
kept out of sight and society. Children, maybe due to their high mortality rates,
were hardly deemed to be people and not worthy of mention or consideration until
they reached adulthood. Our views of children have changed radically since those
times and become far kinder and sentimental.
It made sense for the disciples to argue who was the greatest. If something
bad happened to Jesus—and Jesus keeps talking like something bad might
happen—who will lead the group? Will there be a consensus about who is in
charge, or will the disciples fall apart into factions? It is a real problem that
disciples would be wise to address, even if it looks bad when Jesus asks about it.
But what is wise for the world is foolish in the kingdom of God. Jesus is not
drawing an organizational chart. The disciples don’t need titles. The radio is not
announcing this week’s “top twelve” list of disciples. Las Vegas casinos won’t be
posting odds on Peter outranking the sons of Zebedee, James and John. (I guess I
will lose the five dollars I had on Andrew pulling off an upset.)
Jesus brings a new way of life. His organizational chart is simple: God on
top, the rest of us below. True followers will find themselves on the bottom, where
the servants would be. Just as the Son of Man will be murdered in service to and
out of love for all, the truest of Jesus’ followers must be the servants of all. To
emphasize his point, Jesus physically takes a child—someone who has no place in
this men’s discussion—and declares that welcoming this nobody in Jesus’ name
ranks the same as welcoming Jesus himself and welcoming Jesus is the same as
welcoming God. I suspect there was a period of silence as the disciples tried to
digest what that meant.
God gives us grace in abundance. Grace is a gift only when we serve our
neighbors. The grace God gives us is then shared, not left stagnant. What does our
world look like if we become servants of all, welcoming in Jesus’ name those
society values least? What if service defines leadership, if the highest achievement
is to serve society’s nobodies, and the highest honors are not riches, power, and
dominance? God’s grace would spread and multiply, rebounding manyfold to us.
The sharing of God’s grace does not necessarily require great acts of daring
or courage. Small acts make a difference. I am reminded of a favorite part of Mark
Twain’s book, Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn finds himself in a Mississippi
river town, staying at a house in which the head of that house has recently died.
The body lies in a casket in the parlor. On the day of the funeral, the parlor fills
with people until the room is packed. The undertaker is present, a long-legged
silent master, sliding around the room without a sound, touching up every detail
before the service commences. The service begins, and the preacher starts his slow
and solemn talk.
No sooner do the first words leave his mouth, then the preacher is
interrupted by “the most outrageous row” busting out from the cellar of the house.
It is a dog, but that dog makes a most powerful racket and keeps it up. The
noise—the word barking does not do it justice—is so loud Huck cannot hear
himself think. The reverend cannot proceed. No one seems to know what to do.
Except the undertaker. He glides along the wall, the sound from the cellar
“getting more and more outrageous all the time.” He disappears down the cellar.
Then the people in the parlor hear a whack, the dog finishes with “a most amazing
howl or two,” and all becomes dead still. The preacher resumes his talk where he
left off.
A minute or two later, Huck sees the undertaker gliding along the wall,
gliding around three sides of the room. The undertaker rises up, shades his mouth
with his hand, stretches his neck towards the preacher, over the people’s heads, and
says in a loud whisper, “He had a rat!” Huck remembers,
You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, because
naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don’t cost
nothing, and it’s just the little things that makes a man to be looked up
to and liked.
Many great acts of love and charity occur through this church or in the world
outside it, but often it is those little things that don’t cost nothing which are the
welcome someone needs. Think back to small acts of kindness that made a change
in your life, acts that the giver may not have remembered or considered significant.
The acts of grace we received and those we gave make up the stories of how God
reigns in our lives. Our stories can be of a kind word, a generous act, a silent
gesture. Those stories become our good news, our gospel. We need to share our
gospel with family, friends, and strangers, just like Mark shared his stories of
God’s reign in the life of Jesus. We don’t have to be preachy; just tell our stories
and listen to the stories of others. We never know what a difference those stories
may make.
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