The town of Chevy Chase, Maryland, adjoins the northwest border of Washington, DC.  There is no physical separation between the two, but when you drive from Washington into Chevy Chase, you can tell that the price of the real estate has just gone up.  Chevy Chase got its name in 1725, when Joseph Belt decided to name his farmland for the Ballad of Chevy Chase, a Scottish folksong that tells about a hunt — or chase — that took place in the Cheviot Hills along the border of England and Scotland.[i]  As recently as 1906, Chevy Chase was mostly farmland, but that year a section of Chevy Chase was subdivided for homes, and within 2 years about 250 families had moved in.  One of the new residents decided that the community needed a Presbyterian church, and he and other folks started holding worship services in their homes. 

As the congregation grew, it began meeting in the town library, which it rented for $2.50 per week.  The congregation continued to grow and was able to buy land and move into a tent.  It hired a section of the Marine Band to provide music.  It was several more years before the congregation built its own building, but if you visit the Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church today, you will find it meeting in a huge Gothic structure with a hand cut stone exterior and beautiful stone and wood carvings inside.  The church’s campus dominates Chevy Chase Circle, the hub of that very wealthy community, and it exudes a sense of dignity and formality.

That is where my husband and I were on Christmas Eve 1986.  We arrived at 10:30 p.m. for the 11:00 p.m. worship service, anticipating (correctly) that the sanctuary would be packed.  An usher took us to a pew near the front, and we spent the next half hour reveling in the beauty of the place and listening to the magnificent organ and the muffled sounds of worshipers quietly taking their seats.  The service was about to begin, and it was a nearly silent night, until a raucous sound broke the mood.  You know the sound:  the sound of two drunks jostling around and talking as though they need to shout to be heard.  Dirty and rough, these guys were a couple of pews ahead of us, right there at the front of the sanctuary, and they were really making a scene. 

The next thing I knew, two ushers — two good-sized young men — came quickly up the aisle.  Ah, I thought, they are about to show these two fellows the door so that dignity can be restored and the rest of us can worship in peace.  As I watched the ushers approach, I felt a measure of trepidation, fearing that a fight was about to break out.  I held my breath as the two ushers went straight over to the two intruders and . . . introduced themselves and asked if they could sit down.  For the next hour, the four men worshiped together.  The ushers shared their bulletins with their guests and held hymnals for them when it came time to sing.  At different moments, they all put their heads together, as the ushers explained some aspect of what was going on or simply chatted about whatever the other men wanted to discuss.  At one point, I heard the ushers ask their guests if they would join them after the service for a meal.

That experience connects well with our Second Lesson for today.  We are continuing our progress through the Gospel of Mark, addressing the provocative questions that Jesus posed to the people around him.  Recently, we have been noting how throughout the Gospel of Mark we see Jesus and his disciples make trips back and forth between their home territory on the western side of the Sea of Galilee and the region on the eastern side.  The eastern region was home to Gentiles — people who were not Jewish by birth or by conversion, who did not worship and had no faith in God.  We have seen why it is important for our understanding of Mark to pay attention to where Jesus is when a particular incident or conversation takes place — either among his fellow Jews on the western side of the Sea of Galilee, or among the Gentiles on the eastern side. 

We also have seen why it is important to notice who is in Jesus’ audience — whether he is talking with a crowd of people, with religious or political leaders, or if he is off alone with his disciples.  In the days leading up to today’s passage, Jesus and his disciples have been outside Jewish territory, near Caesarea Philippi.  They are about to re-enter Jewish territory and head toward their home base of Capernaum, and Jesus is trying to keep a low profile so that he can give his disciples some private instruction.

They went on from there and passed through Galilee.  He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”  But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.  Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.  He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Many things that are old hat to us today simply did not make sense to Jesus’ disciples.  You and I read Mark’s gospel with the benefit of 2,000 years of hindsight, but much of what we might have heard from the time we were little was “brand new news” for the men and women who traveled with Jesus.  In this passage from Mark, the disciples are hearing for the second time that Jesus is going to suffer and be killed, and that after three days will rise again.  The first time Jesus gave them this astounding news, Peter pulled Jesus aside and told him to stop talking such nonsense.[ii] 

This second time, we read that the disciples “did not understand what [Jesus] was saying and were afraid to ask him.”  In all, there are three times within the Gospel of Mark that Jesus tells his disciples the future that awaits him, and all three times, Jesus explains to the disciples that most of the things they spend their energy worrying about count for nothing in the kingdom of God.  Jesus explains that the kingdom of God is a topsy-turvy world, where down is up and up is down — when looked at from a human point of view.  The problem, as Jesus told Peter after Peter had the audacity to rebuke him, was that the disciples were “setting their mind[s] not on divine things but on human things.”  Jesus reveals this problem in today’s passage when he asks the disciples, “What were you arguing about?”

What were the disciples arguing about?  They were arguing about “who’s #1.”  This past week, we found the Pharisees wondering the same thing. The Pharisees were looking for a messiah who would free Israel from Roman rule and make Israel #1 among the nations.  After all, weren’t the people of Israel God’s chosen people?  Weren’t they the folks who had worshiped God for thousands of years, while other people were worshiping all manner of idols and gods?  Wasn’t being #1 their destiny, their right?  That is what the Pharisees assumed, and now we find a variation of that belief driving the disciples.  Each of the disciples wanted to be #1, wanted to be ranked first among Jesus’ followers.  Ranked first among those who had left behind their families and homes to follow Jesus from village to town.  Weren’t one or two of them more faithful than the rest?  Hadn’t a couple of them earned the right to sit at Jesus’ right hand and to his left when he came into his glory?[iii]

What a terrible thing to ask!  What a horrible concern to have!  Jesus has just told his disciples that he is going to suffer and die, and all they want to talk about is which one of them is “the greatest.”  But, wait a minute.  That was not Jesus’ response.  We do not hear Jesus give his disciples a dressing down for thinking such a thing.  What we do hear Jesus tell his disciples is how they can achieve greatness in the kingdom of God.  “Whoever wants to be first,” Jesus tells them,  “must be last of all and servant of all.”  These disciples have watched Jesus grant the same mercy and love to ne’er-do-wells and outcasts, criminals and traitors as he did the most righteous Jew.  They have seen Jesus be criticized and threatened for treating people at the bottom of the social and religious ladder as well or even better than he treated the people at the top.  Now, Jesus tells his disciples that the way for them to achieve greatness is by doing the same thing, by following his example.  To help the disciples understand his point, Jesus takes a little child and puts the child among them.

Jesus takes a little child, puts the child within this group of disciples, and wraps the child in his arms.  Very ordinary scene, right?  Not at all.  In Jesus’ time, children had much the same status as slaves:  they could be bought and sold and used as free labor.  If there was a shortage of food, it was the children who ate last — if there was anything left.  Until a Jewish boy was in his teens, he could not actively participate in the study of scripture or in worship, which makes us wonder why a child was even in the same room that day while Jesus was instructing his disciples.  And, this child was not just in the room, he was close enough that Jesus could reach out and take him into his arms. 

When Jesus did take this child into his arms, he demonstrated several things.  By not shooing the child out of the room, Jesus indicated that this one whom society considered worthless had the right to be there.  By putting the child among his disciples, Jesus indicated that this one whom society considered worthless not only had the right to be there, but also to be in the thick of things, to be fully included in the life of Jesus and his disciples and fully surrounded by their acceptance and protection.  By taking the child in his arms, Jesus indicated that this one whom society considered worthless had as much value as he did.  “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name,” Jesus said, “welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

This message of welcome and inclusion is not limited to children.  It extends to cover all of those who are weak and vulnerable, all of the people whom society would like to ignore.  Jesus made that clear when he announced that “when the Son of Man comes in his glory,” the people he will welcome into his presence will be the people who saw that he was hungry and gave him food, who recognized his thirst and gave him something to drink, who saw him as a stranger and welcomed him, who cared for him when he was sick, or naked, or a prisoner. [iv] 

Or who saw him sitting in a front pew of a beautiful Gothic sanctuary on a Christmas Eve and heard him interrupt a time of solemn, dignified worship with the raucous sound of a drunk jostling around and talking as though he needed to shout to be heard.  Who saw him all dirty and rough, right there at the front of the sanctuary, really making a scene, and then welcomed him and showed him that he not only had the right to be present, but the right to be in the thick of things, to be fully included in the life of God’s family and fully surrounded by their acceptance and protection.  For, “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[v]  Amen.

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