First Congregational Church of Evanston, IL; September 24, 2006, 16thSunday after Pentecost

First Congregational Church of Evanston, IL; September 24, 2006, 16^thSunday after Pentecost

Mark 9:30-37; Rev. Dr James E. Roghair

Who Is the Greatest?

Children’s sermon (Disciple Dialogue):

Girls and Boys, this morning I want to tell you a story. This is a story that is in the Bible, so some of you may know it, already.

One day, Jesus was walking along with his disciples. (Do you remember we talked about disciples last week? Who are disciples? {They are the ones who are learning from Jesus.} And there were men and women, and even girls and boys who were learning from Jesus.)

Well, Jesus and these friends, who were his family, walked wherever they went. There were no cars or buses or trains or airplanes in those days. And Jesus and his friends couldn’t afford a horse, a donkey or a camel to ride. They were poor, so they walked.

One day Jesus and his friends were walking – a long way. And I guess, walking a long way is a lot like taking a long car ride – or like a long plane ride. And Jesus’ friends got irritable. You know, they started to quarrel.

Now some of your parents might think that you fight on long trips – in the car or on the plane. Is that so? Do you fight with brothers or sisters?

The longer the ride, the harder it gets. Right?

Big people always say that kids fight too much on trips.

But I want to tell you, that in Jesus’ family, it wasn’t the kids who got to fighting. It was the big people.

Jesus heard just enough to understand what it was about. They were fighting about usual things: Who is the best at something? Who is more important than the others? Who do the parents like best? That sort of thing. And these big people were really going at it!

But, when Jesus asked “What were you talking about?” they were ashamed. They knew Jesus didn’t like them to fight. And they were right about that.

But, instead of scolding them, Jesus took one of the little kids – I wonder if it was the littlest one. And Jesus said to the big people, “Do you see this little kid? I want you to be like this. Whoever can be like a little child – that’s the one who is the best of all.”

That little one must have wondered. I bet she wondered for a long time. Wondering why Jesus said that. But, you know what? The big people wondered, too. They really thought they were more important than the children!

What do you think Jesus would say to us if we could see him and hear his voice? What do you think Jesus would tell the big people? What do you think he would tell the kids? I hope you keep wondering about this. #

(Adult sermon)Like Children?

It was a shocker, Jesus taking up the little one and declaring the baby to be the epitome of the Kingdom of God. Mark quotes Jesus to say that one who welcomes the child, welcomes Jesus. But Matthew and Luke both quote Jesus saying that we must be like children to enter the Kingdom (Luke 18:17; Matthew 18:4).

Really?! Is following Jesus something childlike or even childish? We thought it was a matter of mind and reason – an adult thing to do. Why would Jesus lift up a child to teach the adults how to be disciples?

It doesn’t make sense. What about those difficult and mature things we are asked to do, like taking up your cross and following him? What about the commandments to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself? What about the story of the Good Samaritan looking after a neighbor? Aren’t those the kinds of things that demand adult strength and adult commitments? They surely don’t sound very childlike. Are we confused?

Polarity Management: Adult Confidence/Child Humbleness

I would suggest what we have here might be understood as a polarity. The Transition Team and the Council were on a retreat Friday and Saturday, and in our time together we looked at the concept of ‘Polarities.’ I want to share a little of that with you, too.

A polarity is a set of ideas or concepts which are opposites. But often in polarities – much as we might wish the opposites were for winning and losing – the more we look closely at polarities, the more we see that one side is not all right and the other, all wrong. One side doesn’t have to win and the other lose. A polarity is something that people of healthy faith learn to live with. (We might use the word paradox, as well.)

Thus the concept is that in a church a polarity becomes something – not to fight out to the bitter end – but something for churches to learn to manage. For polarities are never stable and settled, but always in motion.

Paul Speaks out on This Polarity

But before I go further on that, I would like to read some of the words of the Apostle Paul, in which he tackles the same things that Jesus was talking with the disciples about along the road. In Romans 12 beginning with verse 3, Paul says,

“... by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

Charting the Polarity

These particular biblical passages contain a polarity. Perhaps we can say it is a polarity between Adult-like Confidence and Child-like Humbleness. This may be an example that helps us think about polarities in general. I would like you to envision the polarity as going horizontally between adult and child. Above the horizontal line there are pluses and below the line are minuses. And so this makes a box divided into 4 squares. (See chart at end of the sermon.)

Adult Positive

So in the upper left of this diagram we find the words of Paul reminding us think of ourselves with sober judgement – to understand ourselves. We should use the gifts God has given us for building up the community of faith – for being the Body of Christ He warns us not to get too puffed up, and not to be thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. Of course that is what Jesus’ disciples were doing on the road – arguing about who was the greatest.

Adult Negative

Both Paul and Jesus were talking about the negative or down side of adult/confidence. I would put it on the box on the lower left side. The negative side of confidence is to think that we have all of the answers and that we are of course the leading authority on almost anything that we set out to do.

Child Positive

On the other side (upper right side) of our polarity diagram is the Child-like Humbleness. Jesus lifts the child up as an example. She is a vulnerable one – one who has a best a very simple faith – one who doesn’t even think that she has everything all figured out. This is one who is free of all the hangups of adult wrangling. This is a little one who needs a welcome. Is she someone we might emulate?

Child Negative

But the diagram is not complete without putting the negatives on the child side (the lower right). One who is child-like, may be unwilling to grow or mature – may be one who refuses to accept responsibility for his/her own faith, refuses to make decisions or choices but just goes blithely and carelessly along with anything. The child may be one who feels he has nothing to offer or has no worth.

Managing a Poliarity

And so you may see we have completed a simple polarity chart. Polarities are not things to win or loose, but things to manage. For if you look at this chart that we have created, it is the balance of the positives that we wish to maintain. The two sides of the polarity will tug against each other in healthy ways.

As the two sides tug, and one side becomes more dominant, the human tendency – let’s call it human sin – is for the positive (on the top) to drift to its negative (on the bottom). So the one who has a mature adult faith and accepts the gifts of God, may drift into thinking that she/he has got it all tied up – to think that ‘I am better than the others.’ Paul calls that ‘thinking about ourselves more highly than we ought to think.’

The antidote for that negatives is found on the opposite side of the polarity. When we get too high on ourselves and too sure of ourselves, we need need a more humble and simple relationship to God. We need to be more child-like and to accept grace without understanding it all.

But the one who takes on child-likeness may be tempted to be childish – i.e. to take no stand, to have no opinions, to take no responsibility – the negatives of the Child side.

And of course the antidote for those negatives are to be found in the positives of the opposite side of the chart: Sober judgement; accepting the gifts of God and putting them to use for the kingdom of God. We do are not to stay as children, but to become more adult in our relationship to God.

That sort of movement is what polarity management is about.

Strengths are Weaknesses; Weaknesses are Strengths

Another way of thinking about these polarities is to remember that we are who we are by the grace of God. Who each of us is has certain strengths and certain weaknesses. And if we really think about it our strengths and our weaknesses are really the same thing. The one whose strength is a child-like faith may also find that child-like faith to be his/her weakness. The one who has a strong and well-defined sense of self, may find that sense of self is also her/his weakness – the inability to rethink and to accept new data or new ideas, simply because you are so strong. Our strengths and our weaknesses are a part of who we are as human beings in need of God’s grace and forgiveness.

Adult/Child as a Congregational Polarity?

So far, we have considered this polarity between the adult and the child, between confidence and humbleness to be an individual thing. But I would propose that we also think about it in terms of the whole congregation. Is there an adult/child polarity in this church? If so, how do we manage it?

If we start out on the child side of this for the church, we have gone to great lengths to develop a good children’s program in this church. Lots of energy and time are invested in a Sunday School, and it is growing. That is positive.

But a church can’t be only for children. Who brings them? How are they cared for? How are they taught? If we should drift into thinking that children are the only ones that really matter in the church, that would be negative, and we would have to go to the opposite side of the polarity. We would have to be thinking about what it means to have an adult faith. We would be wanting to develop strong programs for adults that parallel the programs for the kids – to say that adults are welcome. And that would be positive.

But if we then become a church that is only for adults, and children are not welcome we have drifted into the negative.

This is the way we can use polarity thinking to keep ourselves as a church in balance.

What are the Polarities of This Church?

The Council and the Transition Team considered in their retreat one polarity that we find in this church. But we didn’t get to make a list of all the possible polarities.

However, during the adult education forum today after worship, you are invited to take the opportunity to talk more about this concept of polarities – to consider what polarities or possible polarities there might be in this church. I think you will find it stimulating and enlightening to discuss this concept.

What I hope you will keep in mind is that polarities are not terrible faults or grave errors. They are not great decisions that must be made for and against certain things. But polarities are natural opposites that exist in the life of this church as they do in all of our lives. They are the natural results of our humanity.

We are – each of us is – a mixture of giftedness and sin. We are human flesh, but God has breathed the Holy Wind into us. And so we are the children of God. God give us the wisdom to manage the polarities we find. Amen.

(Note: The Polarity Theory used in this sermon and the following diagram is inspired by p. 32-47 of Discerning Your Congregation’s Future: A Strategic and Spiritual Approach , Alban Institute, 1996 by Roy M. Oswald and Robert E. Friederich, Jr. But the statement of it and the application to this scripture is original with me. JER.)

Adult-like Confidence » A Polarity º Child-like Humbleness)