We Are Able

We Are Able

The Church of the Wayfarer

Norm Mowery, Pastor

May 4, 2014 Scholarship Sunday

Mark 10:35-45

                I remember a news report about a14-year-old girl who was being interviewed just before the election of Pope John Paul II.

          A CBS reporter roamed up and down the streets of Vatican City posing this question to people in the crowd: "What would you like to do if you were the Pope?"

          When the reporter came to the 14-year-old girl, she replied: "I'd cover the communion wafers with chocolate."

          That is precisely our problem in the church today.

          We already have.

          In this sermon I will tell you about how we have sugar coated Jesus’s message and I will ask you the question that Jesus asked James and John, “Are you able?”

          Here’s the story.

          Jesus had just told his disciples that following him means thinking of themselves as people who:
          • deny self for the sake of the gospel;
          • are focused on Jesus and his words above all others;
          • remain humbly dependent on God’s power to do God’s work;
          • do not play the games of competitiveness, but choose the role of least of all              and slave to all;
          • relinquish control for who does what and how they do it in the kingdom;
          • keep children at the center of their work, even when it appears distracting      
          • do not become overburdened by possessions.

          Pretty strong language!

          But, after all that James and John, the sons of thunder, best friends of Jesus, part of the inner circle and two very powerful leaders ask a stupid question.

         

          Jesus, “Will you do anything we ask you to do?”  

          How would you respond to that if you were Jesus?

          Together they ask, “Can we have a special place in your kingdom?” Could one of us to sit to your right and the other on your left in heaven?”

          Jesus said, “Duh!”  “You don’t know what you’re asking!”

          I am indebted to Sara Cho for today’s message. I was particularly impressed with her faith statement.

          When I read your statement, Sara, I said to myself, “there is a sermon here someplace.”

          Sara referenced this account as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. Today it was read from the Gospel of Mark. I like Mark’s version better because in Matthew it is James and John’s mother who asks the question. 

          You see the Gospel of Matthew was put in writing somewhat later than the Gospel of Mark. I wonder if a later scribe thought that it was too juvenile for two disciples to ask such a question so he had their mother do the dirty work.

                   

          It’s too bad that James and John didn’t drink some humble tea that day. It’s difficult to imagine what was going on in their minds that led them to come to Jesus with that ridiculous request.

         

          It was ridiculous because Jesus had just told the disciples, for the third time, that he was going to be arrested and killed and then would rise again.
          So where were their heads?

          Weren’t they listening?

          Didn’t they get it?

          James and John ask for places of special recognition! Sheesh!

          (At this time I would like to have five or six people to come up front and help.  

          Would you all join hands and form a circle.

          Is this the only kind of circle you can make?

          Now try making a different circle.

          Try forming an outward-facing circle. The kind of a circle where you are facing completely away from each other, full-face to those outside the circle.)
         
          From the time we are little children we are taught that circles face in.

          Our inability to even conceive of a different kind of circle should help us to commiserate with the disciple's denseness as Jesus tries to communicate a new concept of missionary discipleship to his followers.

          We may find James' and John's questions about heavenly seating arrangements naive and ignorant, but these disciples were actually just caught up in making the same old circle.

          A great and powerful messiah surrounded by his great, distinguished disciples was the vision James and John had nurtured all their lives. It was the expected way they had been taught.

          Jesus' message of servant hood, suffering,

                   even slavery and death for the sake of others

          was a very different "circle" for the disciples.

          Jesus preached that it was only through saving others,

                   focusing on the powerless and the hopeless,

           that a disciple could be called "great."

          No wonder the disciples only wanted to form circles that just faced inward. Facing outward put them face-to-face with the frightening possibilities of rejection, abuse, failure, even death.

          But facing out was the discipleship Jesus preached.

          Jesus taught that to give up your life is to save it;

                   that the first shall be last and the last first.

          Those are very different circles.

          Jesus did not teach upward mobility. Jesus taught outward mobility.

          In fact, Jesus warned about the downward slope of upward mobility.

          Jesus counseled that those who seek to save their lives will lose them.

          We need to look outside the familiar circle of our own problems and find  wholeness in giving ourselves in service to others.

          As Jesus moves inevitably towards Jerusalem, he reveals more of the commitment he is asking for from them as the disciples seemingly comprehend less and less.

          "Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant," and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all" Jesus says.

          The path to true greatness is not special seating in the kingdom; it's a willingness to be "slave of all" in the rough-and-tumble everyday world.

          Let me illustrate.

          Nearly a decade after leaving professional basketball, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar decided to return to the sport he loved by accepting a coaching position with a high-school team at White Mountain Native American High School. These were students of the Apache tribe.

          As an African-American among Native Americans, Abdul-Jabbar had to learn a great deal about his athletes and the tribe. He discovered surprising cultural traditions that made it difficult to coach the team.

          By working with the students and coaching them, Abdul-Jabbar moved from a historical appreciation for the Apaches as a people to a new understanding of them as individuals.
          Did he lord it over them as an NBA superstar?

          Not at all. He served them.

          He was among them as their coach, their teacher and their servant.

          Everybody can be great because anybody can serve.
                   True for James.

                   True for John.

                   True for any one of us.

          What is it about airport waiting areas that bring out the worst in people?

          On one particular day, bad weather had caused cancellations throughout the system. One of the passengers was desperate to get on a plane. He kept crowding the counter trying to get his name higher up the standby list.

          The agent had just put down the microphone, having said to the crowd for the fourth time: "Those of you who are on standby, please sit down and we will call your name when we have a seat for you."

          But this man kept pestering the agent, explaining how important it was that he gets on the next flight.

           Finally, in exasperation, he asked her, "Do you know who I am?"

          The agent had had enough.

          Picking up the microphone, she announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a man here who does not know who he is. Would someone please come and tell him who he is?"

          The standard of greatness in the kingdom is the standard of the cross.

          Jesus asked James and John, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”

          Are you able to go to the cross?

          Are you able to go the whole way?

          James and John said, “YES! We are able!”

          Jesus asks us this morning? Are you able?

         

          In our world we strive to be important—to be number one. We want a favored spot in High School, in College, in the business world, in politics even in the church.

          We strive for importance.

          No one is exempt. Even pastors strive for power and prestige.

          One pastor, however, Dr. Paul Wouldenberg, who was the senior pastor of this church in 1978, chose to serve the community by providing scholarships for High School Students.

          To date $610,100.00 has been awarded to students.

          The value of the scholarship endowment is $567,440.00.

         

           Persons chose to serve by giving sacrificially for this scholarship ministry. Here are some of the names: Alabaster, Anker, Baker, Dean, Dixon, Freet, Hoeffel, LaKamp, Lewis, Lindgren, Maroun, Meadows, Ostermeyer, Pike, Shafer, Truscott, Ullestad, Woudenberg, Pearson, Hamann, Wood, McEwen, Mayfield.

          These are not just names—they are persons of faith.

          George Dean was the first Chairman of the Church of the Wayfarer Foundation and put it together with the State of California.

          Leslie Dixon, a lawyer, was on the first Foundation board.  

          Mildred Hoeffel was Dr. Wouldenberg’s aunt. She died at the age of 99.

          Doug Baker, son of Rev. Dale and Jean Baker was a creative person with musical talents.

          Barbara Anker was a pastor’s wife and worked extensively as a volunteer in the church.

          Pearl Pike was our church secretary.

          Amy Meadows was Lucy Fillmore’s daughter who died too young.

          Joyce  Lindgren was the very active wife of Jim.

          Barbara and Woody Wood are some of our longest members and are still giving and serving.

          Major General Autry Maroun was the chairman of the 75th anniversary celebration. He sat on the front row every Sunday and was a devout lay person.

          Elizabeth Truscott entered Stevenson in 1987. She was a bright and funny young girl eager for the things Stevenson had to offer.

          She became a Varsity cheerleader and was present at every football game to cheer on her team.

          She was a member of the basketball team and her friends remember her as an outgoing participant.

          She spent her year in excitement and impatience, working hard to maintain a high grade point average, achieving Honor recognition.

          She left the school in June of 1988 with friends and memories, breathless for her sophomore year, excited about the time she was going to spend in Venezuela with her uncle.

          Indeed, after an exhilarating summer abroad the world was her oyster.

          She was packing to return home to Pebble Beach in the last days of August when she suddenly fell ill.

          At six o’clock in the evening of August 30, 1988, Elizabeth Truscott died of an irreversible brain aneurysm.

          She passed away with the love of her family and friends.

          She was a bright light in a cycle of days that would seem long and dark.

          I thank God for these persons who said, “Yes, we are able!”

          Jesus asks us this morning, “Are you able?”

          Are you able to run the race?

          Are you able to go the distance?

          James and John answered, “Yes! We are able!”

          What is your answer?

          At this time I would like to ask Sara Cho to come forward and give her personal testimony of faith.

Prayer

          O God, we want honor, we want credit for our hard work, but that isn’t what the kingdom of God needs.

          We know that, but it goes against everything that is within us.

          Even if we can manage to be humble, we want people to acknowledge it!           Lord, take from us our pride.

          Help us humble ourselves and become a servant to the least.
          We come before you, O God, as people with our own agendas—people who want life to be good and easy.

          People who, if we see a need that someone has, quickly turn away.

          We want the seats of honor and all the respect that comes with them, but we don’t want the cup of responsibility.

          Lord, you have children every day who go to bed hungry, alone, afraid, sick and hopeless.

          Lord, we have heard the cry of the needy and turned away.

          We not only pray for ourselves but also for all your children, wherever they are.

          We pray that we could hear your call to be a servant to the least and the lost.

          For we pray in the name of Jesus who teaches his disciples of all ages to pray saying………