The Measure of Greatness

Sermon from September 24, 2006 at First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas

Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

In the Star Trek mythos, there is a character named Zefram Cochrane. He is the inventor of Warp Drive, the faster than light speed engines that make traveling interstellar distances possible. A quote attributed to Cochrane is, “Don't try to be a great man, just be a man and let history make its own judgments.”[1] It isn’t said where or on what occasion Cochrane makes this statement, but it becomes a hallmark quote of a visionary. It is a quote memorized by school children along the lines of FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear…is fear itself.”

Cochrane has all of the makings of a visionary; seeking to open the next frontier, beginning the renaissance of the mid twenty-first century. But in fact, he developed warp technology primarily for money, women and rock & roll. The entire ethos of Star Trek is built around a federation of worlds where all of the necessities of life are satisfied and people are able to seek artistic and intellectual fulfillment. Cochrane on the other hand was a survivor of World War III who was barely able to meet his most basic needs. So he was interested in nothing more than a simple life filled with pleasure, the pleasures a successful transportation tycoon can afford like Fuller, Vanderbilt, and Ford before him. Obviously, between his hunger and pain as an impoverished engineer and scientist in Montana…and the speech where he defined the measure of greatness, Zefram Cochrane had changed.

In the end, Zefram Cochrane was one thing, but seen as another. He was a rebel and a cad and an entrepreneur with tastes for the finer things of the world. But this came to be forgotten when he became the revered Father of Warp Science. He would be remembered as a scientist and pioneer; until he faded off into the distance and was never heard from again.

The disciples argued with one another as they were moving across the landscape. They were arguing about who was the greatest.

This leads to some questions, none of which will put the disciples in a better light, but they are worth asking. First, were they arguing about whether there was someone greater than Jesus? Doubtful, especially considering Peter had just called Jesus the Messiah. Also, if they had been arguing about this, Jesus’ response would have been different.

Were the disciples arguing on behalf of another disciple to say which of them is the greatest? I imagine there could have been different camps of disciples: the pro-Peter or the pro-James or the pro-John groups. It is possible. Just before this incident, Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain where Jesus’ appearance changed and he spoke with Moses and Elijah. These three will later accompany Jesus to the garden of Gethsemane for his final prayer before being handed over to the forces of chief priests and the scribes and the elders. The three who are special enough to see the transfiguration and pray with Jesus in the garden could by our standards be considered great.

I can also imagine the argument between the pro-Peter and the pro-John camps. The rock of the church verses the beloved disciple. Who is more important, the foundation of the church or the one who Jesus loved?

Or perhaps individual disciples were arguing for themselves about which of them was the greatest? This seems just as likely. Imagine Peter arguing he is the greatest because he was called first. Were James and John imagining themselves greatest because they were called together–the first family of the disciples? Where did this then leave Andrew, Peter’s brother?

Levi, called Matthew would have a hard time offering himself as the greatest since he had been a tax collector, doing the dirty work for the Romans. But he could have easily claimed that he was great because he had changed more than all of the other disciples. Then there is Simon the Zealot—the Zealots were a group who wanted the radical overthrow of the Romans. The Israelites had expected a military Messiah and the Zealots were on the front lines of this fight.
If Jesus is the Messiah, Simon the Zealot would have expected to be the Chief of Staff. If the arguments were between individual disciples, I would have loved to hear the argument between Matthew and Simon–the collaborator verses the Zealot would have been a worthy argument.

Imagine the Judas Iscariot argument?

As I said, none of these arguments casts the disciples in a good light.

Seemingly, Jesus ignores all of this going on behind his back during the journey. My father could never have taken this much arguing going on from the back seat of our station wagon. If Jesus had been like my father, he would have stopped the car long before reaching their destination. But when they reached their destination, Jesus asks what everyone was arguing about? Like my sisters and I, the disciples say, “Nothing.”

Jesus knows what’s going on, he always does. So he tells them what it takes to be first. Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all. Welcome to divine logic. The world says people who are powerful, people who are great, have servants; they don’t become servants. So this doesn’t set well with people in either the first or the twenty–first century.

Our society tells us that we must be great, and we must be told we are great by others. Television gives us “The Apprentice” where if the contestant does not measure up in the board room, they will be told they are lacking with those little words and viperous hand gesture, “You’re fired.” A British import game show dispatched people who were voted the “weakest link” with a little “good bye” followed by “the walk of shame.” At the end of each of these shows, contestants who are the greatest are hailed with those words, “You’re hired,” or “You are the strongest link.” These are the people marked by their greatness. They have earned the right to receive praise.

I imagine Jesus is cringing right now.

Jesus teaches his disciples that whoever welcomes the children in his name does great things. Whoever welcomes one such child in his name welcomes him, and whoever welcomes him welcomes the one who sent him. Children were, and still are, the weakest, most fragile members of society. Whoever welcomes the weak in the name of the Lord—welcomes the Lord.
A couple of weeks ago, I received my alumni magazine from seminary.[2] The theme of this issue’s articles is “A Faithful Response to War.” One of the articles is about military chaplains. Of the six active duty chaplains pictured in this article, three were fellow classmates; one other was my Greek tutor.

Chaplain Captain Maurice Millican spoke of his unit’s work in Iraq creating a secure zone for voting during Iraqi elections. He said:

“I saw American soldiers provide safety and security for the Iraqi citizenry to travel freely, conduct commerce, and vote. The day we handed sovereignty over to the Iraqi people was a good day.” He goes on to say he is proud that they did the right thing when there was “tremendous stress and pressure to exercise vengeance.” Instead he “saw a sustained effort over 365 days to care for and protect the citizens of Iraq.”

Chaplain Captain Millican reminds us that greatness is never found in revenge. It is found caring for and protecting society’s weak.

Chaplain Lieutenant Ramon Santillano was asked about the dangers he faced in Iraq. He said:
“A lot of people have asked me, ‘Don’t you fear death? Don’t you fear dying?’” Chaplain Lieutenant Santillano responds, “You know, to some degree, yes, but at the same time I think how I respond to that question in terms of faith is: I have absolutely no control over when I die, or how I die, but I can control how I live. And so for me, that really plays a theologically important part of how I approach not only my own personal life, but my ministry and chaplaincy.”

Chaplain Lieutenant Santillano reminds us that greatness is measured in terms of how we live.

Chaplain Lieutenant Jennifer Rogers is the chaplain attached to the 101st Airborne, the same unit her father served in during the Vietnam War. She says “I have seen soldiers brought to their knees by the circumstances of life that are out of their control because of a deployment, and I have seen soldiers change themselves to effect a change in the world.”

Chaplain Lieutenant Rogers reminds us that even when the world brings us to our knees, we are called to change the world.

Perhaps it is not accident that to be great, to change the world, we need to begin on our knees.

There has been a lot of discussion around the halls of government and the tables of cafés about the war in Iraq. There are many questions asked about this war, I am sure you have your questions too. I won’t even pretend to ask, much less answer, your questions from here.

But this I know: There are those who are in Iraq who are there to protect and serve the weak, those who are like the child Christ holds before the disciples. There are those who support the soldiers and the war keeping the home fires burning. These are the soldiers and the families and the citizens and even the politicians who welcome the weak and the oppressed. They welcome these children of God in the name of the Lord.

And there are those who do the exact opposite.

As Zefram Cochrane said, “Don't try to be a great man, just be a man and let history make its own judgments.” Ultimately history will make its own judgments. History will judge of whether this war was good and just or not. History will also judge how this war is fought. We have seen photos and heard reports of atrocities committed by many combatants on every side of the conflict. Regardless of how history judges the combatants, in the end it is God who will judge these individuals.

Whoever welcomes the children in the name of the Lord does great things. Whoever welcomes one such child in his name welcomes him, and whoever welcomes him welcomes the one who sent him. Some come to protect and welcome the weakest of all the people. Some come to exploit. Scripture leaves little to the imagination about how these individuals will be judged.

This is the heart of discipleship shown in the most extreme of circumstances. These brave men and women bring the word of the Lord into a place and situation where the word of the Lord is sorely missing, and surely needed. These chaplains provide pastoral care to those in the most volatile crucible on earth. When asked about who is greatest, surely those who bring pastoral care to soldiers in a combat zone can be counted. Those who work to free others from oppression can be counted. Those who welcome the weakest, the children, can be counted.

As James’ epistle reminds us, we are to submit ourselves to God, for when we draw near to God, God draws near to us. Or to paraphrase this, when we welcome the weak, the oppressed; when we welcome the children in his name, we draw closer to God.

Welcoming the weak and the poor in the name of the Lord, this is the measure of greatness.

[1] http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Zefram_Cochrane
[2] Neufeld, Shannon, “Called to Military Service” in Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Windows, volume 121, number 3, pages 7-9, 19.