Mark 9:30-37 - Christianity Is Only for Losers - September 23, 2018

He launched the world’s first 24 hour cable news network: CNN. His net worth is over 2 billion dollars. In 1991, he was declared Time magazine’s “Man of the Year.” He has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of fame, a book that made the New York Times best-sellers list and a World Series champion baseball team. He was fishing buddies with former president Jimmy Carter and dated movie star Jane Fonda. In the minds of many, Ted Turner represents the ideal of the successful, victorious life that many people spend their whole lives trying to achieve. But what is less known about Ted Turner is that as a child he dreamed of being a missionary – that is, until his little sister, Mary Jean, contracted a rare form of lupus at the age of ten which left her with brain damage and screaming in pain until the day she died. Turner directed his grief and anger at God and the Christian faith – which he claimed couldn’t give him satisfactory answers to why his “innocent” [1] sister had to suffer and die at such a young age. All of which led him to later make the comment that “Christianity is a religion for losers.” [2] Now, you might be tempted to bristle and resent Ted Turner’s low assessment of us and our faith. Don’t. Today our Lord teaches us to embrace Turner’s assessment and to go even a step further: to understand that Christianity is only for losers; the one who lost everything for us invites us to lose everything for him.

We meet the disciples in a moment when all their visions for glory, victory, and success seem to be coming together. They had just come down from the Mt. of Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13) where Jesus had given a glimpse of his divine glory to Peter, James, and John. It appears that the disciples saw this display of glory as a shadow of things to come: when Jesus marched into Jerusalem, kicked out the hated Romans, and began his rightful rule as Israel’s Messiah – with his twelve closest friends, of course, getting their share of the glory. But Jesus had a different plan in mind. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.

The disciples didn’t get it and they were afraid to even ask him about it. Why? Well, if they asked him to explain and he confirmed that he was going to die, they would have to give up their dreams of power and glory. And it’s hard to blame them, isn’t it? They gave up their livelihoods and their lives to follow Jesus. He seemed like the real deal, the long-promised Messiah – he looked like a winner. He had the teaching and the miracles to back him up. He was so popular that they had to go to the backwoods of Galilee to get away from the crowds. Jesus’ whole campaign seemed to be growing and gaining momentum: the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, demons are cast out, the dead are raised. (Matthew 11:5-6) Jesus seemed to be a walking, talking, miracle-working definition of greatness. But then he goes and starts talking about crazy things: being handed over, killed and rising from the dead. This was not the talk of a winner. This is not what you would expect to hear from the Messiah who ought to be preparing to rule as Israel’s king. It was so unexpected and so irrational that the disciples try their best to ignore it. Besides, they had better things to talk about – things like which of them would be chief of staff in Jesus’ cabinet.

Why such blindness and deafness to Jesus’ mission and message? Why, after Jesus had told them a second time that when he went to Jerusalem it wasn’t to be crowned but to be crucified, did they still not believe it? Because that’s how they were wired. In fact, that’s how we are all wired. We are wired from birth to desire and strive for success and power and glory. It doesn’t take children long to understand that school isn’t as much about learning as it is defining who is tallest, fastest and most popular. It’s why there are no high school awards for the least likely to succeed and no trophies for least valuable player. It’s why we give our children the best opportunities, the best education, the best of everything – because we expect that when we do, they will be successful. (Even though experience teaches otherwise.) The entire Christian faith revolves around Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2) and yet, more often than not, and especially when trials and troubles come, we don’t want to hear about a Jesus who died for our sins and rose again for our salvation – we want a Jesus of power and glory; who can fix our problems with a word, who can heal us, give us glory – now, make us winners – now. But that’s not the Gospel. That’s what Ted Turner didn’t understand. It’s why the Gospel doesn’t appeal to those who think they deserve to be winners. Who wants to wake up on Sunday morning to come to church only to confess that you’re a poor, miserable, wretched loser in need of forgiveness? (That’s why it’s no surprise that the most popular religions and corrupted forms of Christianity are based on winning, not losing; on a theology of glory, not a theology of the cross.)

But the cross, suffering and death are precisely Jesus’ mission and message. Not power but weakness. Not a crown but a cross. Not glory in winning, but glory in losing – losing it all in order to gain it all: losing his life in order to save ours. Jesus certainly could have walked into Jerusalem and – with twelve legions of angels (Matthew 26:53) – have crushed the Roman occupiers and assumed the throne. He certainly could have caused his enemies to suffer the same fate that they had planned for him – he proved his power in the Garden of Gethsemane. (John 18:5-6) Jesus could have stayed in heaven where he ruled all things at his Father’s right hand – he didn’t have to suffer the indignity of being born as the child of a teenage peasant, he didn’t have to suffer the perpetual attacks of Satan and the hostility of the very people he came to save, he didn’t have to be a homeless wanderer on this earth for 33 years, he didn’t have to willingly walk directly from the mountain where he demonstrated his glory to a hill outside Jerusalem where he would be stripped naked, nailed to a cross and killed. Actually, he did. Because we were born losers in God’s eyes. Because God created us to love him and serve others – and what we love most is ourselves and having others serve us. Because heaven is reserved only for those who win in God’s eyes – those who are perfectly obedient, perfectly trusting, perfectly loving – and we were disqualified from birth. Because we were the ones who deserved to lose our souls forever in hell, Jesus took our place, he became a loser for us, he submitted to his Father’s plan that required him to lose everything – in order to save us.

And now, the world’s biggest loser invites us to imitate his example. He gathers his proud, glory-seeking disciples around him and says: If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all. Notice, Jesus doesn’t crush their ambition to be the greatest in his kingdom – but he does blow up their idea of greatness. Rather than defining greatness as having the most people serve you, Jesus defines the greatest as those who serve the most. To punctuate his point he picks up a child. “You want to be great in my kingdom? Here. Get off your high horses, step down from your imaginary thrones, bend down and serve this child – because when you do, you will not only be receiving me, but the one – my Father – who sent me.”

I’m not sure that the full impact of this action resonates in the 21st century. Today, we tend to idolize childhood, we glamorize it, and prolong it. This is a children’s world – and the rest of us are just living in it. Children need to be coddled, listened to, understood, encouraged to make their own decisions, to be spoiled and pampered and shielded from disappointment. If they don’t like supper, we make them something they do like. If their team doesn’t win, they still get a ribbon. If little Stevie decides he wants to be a Suzy – who are we to argue? But it wasn’t always that way – especially not in Jesus’ day. Children had no rights or privileges, they were under the absolute authority of their fathers. They were seen as a drain on the family resources and couldn’t grow up quickly enough to be married off – for a girl; or put to work – for a boy.

Which is why it would have been so shocking to the disciples that Jesus not only acknowledged a good-for-nothing little child – but even pick him up and use him as an object lesson. Jesus is saying that if you want to be great in my kingdom – you must bend over and receive me just like you would receive this – for all practical purposes “useless” – little child. The only way to receive me is to receive me not as the world’s greatest winner – who promises nothing but glory and success to his followers; but as God’s Son who was born in a dirty manger, as a man of sorrows and a cross, as a servant who dies to save his enemies. Do you want to be great in God’s eyes? You must humble yourself and believe that the Jesus you need most is not a glorious, empowering, spiritual guru – but a lowly servant who suffered and died for your sins.

Do you see the relationship between welcoming Jesus like a little child and serving little children – in other words, the relationship between faith and love? You must first become nothing and throw yourself fully on God’s grace in Christ – forget everything you’ve done, contributed, earned, deserved and instead cry out “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” and fall into his loving arms. Because only when you’ve come to the realization that Jesus lost everything to save a loser like you – can you understand how the last can be first and the greatest in God’s kingdom are the servants.

Perhaps a few examples would be helpful. Greatness in God’s eyes in found in those little acts of love that no one notices. Greatness is found in the mother whose work around the house is only noticed when it’s not done. Greatness is found in a father who takes the time to teach his children not only to ride a bike and throw a football, but to thank God for their food, to read the Bible with them, to pray with them. It’s found in parents who lose career advancement and new cars and breathtaking vacations to give their children a full-time Christian education. Greatness is found in grandparents who demonstrate in word and action that greatness is not defined by personal achievement but by humble service. Greatness is found in people quietly contributing – without any expectation of public recognition – to build a place for God’s Word to be taught to people they don’t know and may never meet. Greatness is found in visiting those who are sick and suffering. Greatness is found in acknowledging and befriending the “losers” at work and school. Greatness is found in seeing something that needs to be done – and doing it; instead of running to tell someone else to take care of it. In short, greatness is found in doing the things that the world would say makes you a loser.

The concrete evidence that this is greatness in God’s eyes becomes clear when we remember that one day all people will experience the greatest loss of all. The sad fact is that our lives end much the same way they began. We become children again – not really very useful and completely dependent on others. No matter how great we once were, no matter how much wealth we accumulated, how many degrees we earned, how many awards or memorials were given to our honor, no matter how many people we lead or employed – we once again become helpless, relatively useless children. Even the first must become last, eventually. And while most people try their hardest to avoid it, that’s exactly what Christians are aiming for: we are aiming for death, to lose our life, to follow the biggest loser of all – Jesus – through the grave to resurrection to true, eternal, never-ending victory in heaven.

And so when you hear someone like Ted Turner call you a loser, don’t get offended, don’t get defensive, don’t get angry. Instead, thank him. Thank him for the reminder that Christianity is only for losers. We trust and follow Jesus Christ who lost everything for us – and who invites us to lose everything for him. Welcome that little child of Bethlehem with child-like faith and seek out the “children” you can serve in this world. That’s winning in God’s eyes. Amen.  

[1] Psalm 51:5 teaches that all people are sinful, not innocent, from conception

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/17/us/ted-turner-profile/index.html