Mark 9:30-37

Mark 9:30-37 (NRSV)

³⁰ They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; ³¹ 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.” ³² But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

³³ Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” ³⁴ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵ He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” ³⁶ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷ “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

This particular section of Mark is set both on the road (9:30-32), and in a house in Capernaum (9:33-37). We find the main themes of this section throughout Mark 8-10, which focuses many of its texts on appropriate models of discipleship.

Mark 9:30-32 is the second passion prediction in Mark, the first being in 8:31-32.[1] Knowing who Jesus is comes only from God, who remains hidden but present in the life of Jesus. ³⁰ They went on from there and passed through Galilee. Jesus and his disciples are on the road again. The journey motif has been prevalent throughout 8:27-10:52, as Jesus sets his eyes more firmly on Jerusalem (11:1). After Jesus healed the boy with the mute spirit whom his disciples were unable to heal (9:14-29), they continue traveling through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it. This text shows Jesus and the disciples moving through Galilee while keeping a low profile.  He sequesters the disciples for what is soon to happen. These private, intensive tutorials focus first on the message the disciples least want to hear and most stubbornly refuse to comprehend — the approaching persecution and trials. ³¹ Jesus did not want people to know of his journey because he was teaching his disciples about the events of his passion. He said to them, “The Son of Man, first, in the revelation of a new, chilling detail, is to have someone betray him into human hands, identified as elders, chief priests, and scribes in 8:31, and second, they will kill him, and third, three days after his enemies kill him, he will rise again.” The prediction emphasizes that people will participate in the plot. Yet, it directs us as readers to give attention to the plan of God. The plan of God is the major component of the passion narrative. Jesus as the Son of Man becomes passive in the sense that others will betray him and kill him, while yet another will give him new, eschatological life. The role of God in the passion is difficult to put together. It remains an important matter for us to ponder. The theme of the suffering of the Son of Man directly relates to the vision of Christian discipleship we find in Mark. ³² Of course, as we have come to expect, they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. At least after Jesus’ first mention of his future, Peter had talked back to Jesus.  Now, silence. Knowing who Jesus is comes from only from God, who is present but hidden in the lives of Jesus and his disciples. The previous healing narrative has highlighted the disciples’ lack of understanding. There we see that the disciples were unable to heal the boy with the mute spirit, but Jesus was able to perform the miracle. The disciples asked him why they could not cast out this spirit, and Jesus replied, “This kind can come out only through prayer.”[2] Mark 9:32 resumes the story of the disciples’ confusion by simply stating that they did not understand, but it expands the narrative by adding that the disciples were now afraid to ask Jesus what he meant. This is a direct contrast to 9:28, where they do ask Jesus why they were not able to heal the mute boy. Even though the disciples are receiving answers to their questions and seeing glimpses of glory (the transfiguration, 9:2-13), they are still unable to understand the place of the suffering of Jesus in the divine plan. We see an echo of this inability to understand after the first passion prediction in 8:32-33 when Peter rebuked Jesus, and will happen again after the third prediction, when James and John ask for places in glory (10:35-40). By using these repetitive motifs, Mark continues to emphasize that the disciples will not understand who Jesus is and what discipleship means until after the crucifixion and resurrection.

Mark 9:33-37 is a series of sayings around the paradox of true discipleship, service, and true greatness. Knowing how to follow Jesus comes only from God, who remains hidden in the simple acts of serving each other and welcoming the vulnerable.

            Mark 9: 33-34 are the setting Mark provides for the following sayings. ³³ Then they came to Capernaum. When he was in the house of Peter, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” Jesus seems to be playing the part of the teacher who asks two disruptive children -- “Why don’t you share that with the whole class?”  The disciples should know by now that Jesus had an intuitive knowledge of the heart of the disciples.  Yet, they give further evidence of misunderstanding Jesus. It was a rule that students did not walk beside the rabbi. At least some topic is fascinating to them.  Mark reminds the reader that Jesus has chosen this unlikely lot of the Twelve.  In their hands and hearts lies the future of Jesus’ ministry. ³⁴ However, they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. How could they admit that this was the topic of their conversation? They knew something was profoundly wrong about their topic of conversation. After all, they tried to keep it from Jesus. Sin loves secrecy. We are often willing to confess our little faults in order to persuade people that we do not have large ones.[3] If we are not careful, we will age and tell boring stories of our glory days, whenever that was. Is there something of the entertainer in us all that longs to be the star in our chosen field of endeavor?[4] Salvador Dali said that at age six he wanted to be a cook, at seven he wanted to be Napoleon, and his ambition has been growing steadily ever since. Many have found their ambition to receive honor, money, fame, and power result in suffering and difficulty. The saint sees the mercy of God in this. Divine mercy sometimes shows itself in not allowing us to find pleasure in that which is not of God. We will need to leave behind our ambitions and turn to God.[5] We can even clothe ambition in godly clothes. In a paradoxical way, some Christians experience the temptation to imitate the sufferings of Jesus. It sounds pious. Yet, the practice of it is godless ambition. Beneath the temptation is the notion that we can step into the shoes of Christ and suffer as he did, killing the sinful person in us. We subtly engage in working out our redemption rather than receiving the redemption Christ has already won for us. The passion of Christ is the basis of a life of better service and deeper humility rather than a weak imitation of the sufferings of Christ. Our discipleship becomes a show for others to watch, in which we secretly hope to make others react with shame as to how weak their discipleship is. Our path of discipleship has now become the way of our salvation. Such public acknowledgement has already received the reward it seeks.[6] After the first passion prediction, Jesus told them that discipleship meant that denial of self, a cross, and following him. Instead, in arguing who among them was greatest, they focused upon self. On this very road to the Messiah’s humiliation, disciples had been quarreling over places of honor!  Nothing could stand in sharper contrast to Jesus’ journey than their private ambitions. 

            Mark 9: 35 is a saying that shows Jesus putting restraints upon ambition. ³⁵ He sat down, sensing their misunderstanding, called the twelve as if they were children, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” He begins instructing them on the peculiar work of divinity at work in him. Jesus’ lesson turns all the disciples’ arguments about who is greatest to dust.  Were they, his select group of teachers and preachers, expected to become servants to all?[7]  Mark has increased the irony when we recall the setting. As Jesus was traveling to his death in Jerusalem, the disciples seem to have concern only about their personal success. Therefore, Jesus underscores the previous lesson about self-denial by stressing that they must become servants. Mark firmly connects ideas of service with discipleship. This is particularly apparent, as the paradigmatic teacher, Jesus, is the one who will serve by suffering. After the third passion prediction in Mark 10, Jesus makes this connection obvious when he says that the Sn of Man has come to serve by giving his life (10:45).  Therefore, the disciples, or “learners,” should follow the model of discipleship their teacher sets forth. They, too, will paradoxically become “first” by serving.

 The point is not so much that we are naturally self-centered, selfish, prideful individuals who look out for number one. In fact, much exploration into the sociality of human beings suggests the opposite. As much as we struggle with ambition, learning to cooperate has been an important part of human societies. In fact, wisdom involves learning the appropriate place in our interactions for listening to divinely oriented ambition, learning the self-destructive dimension of ambition, and even learning the self-destructive dimension of serving. For example, ancient societies could be brutal. Yet, prehistoric men and women helped each other more than they harmed each other. Of course, they had some enlightened self-interest in doing so, but they did so nonetheless. In all human societies, some individuals will come out ahead by harming others. Yet, most of the time, one maximizes personal good fortune by cooperating with others. Pre-historic human beings banded together for mutual aid. Generally, hostile and destructive societies, such as Spartans or the Nazis, disappear while cooperative societies flourish. One could argue that good people do not finish last. Rather, they generally do better than bad people do. Most human interactions are win-win results, both parties coming out ahead. Of course, war is a “game” in which one party wins and the other loses, but most human interactions are not like that. The orientation of human beings is toward increasingly complex forms of social organization, thus moving away from imperial domination and war by the progressive adoption of interactions that provide the potential for win-win results. In fact, one could argue that the spread of global commerce brings a growing recognition of a common humanity.  One cannot do business with a people while executing them.[8]

Mark 9:36-37 contains a story about Jesus, children, and providing a welcome to the poor and vulnerable. ³⁶ Then he took a little child (παιδίον child or servant in Aramaic, dramatizing the play on words) and put it among them. Mark documents the fact that Jesus is giving his disciples these private lessons in the midst of a warm, comforting environment — a home — by the casual presence of a child.  Jesus’ action immediately makes the child — who had only moments ago been an insignificant, perhaps slightly annoying part of the environment — the central focus of all attention.  To place a little child in the midst of a circle of adult men whom their rabbi is teaching was a tremendous breach of all the social and cultural boundaries of Jesus’ day. Taking it in his arms, wraps his arms about this child, giving it his protection and his most heartfelt welcome into their midst.  God’s loving concern and presence down to the very lowest, weakest of human beings, finds assurance in this act. Focusing on the relationship between Jesus and the child, Jesus shows the disciples how this discipleship might manifest itself. A disciple is supposed to fill the role Jesus does, by welcoming and serving even the children, the least, the lowliest. Here is a moment, when the Christian might have some humility in witnessing to Jesus. We might admit that we cannot prove a thing. Yet, we see something in his eyes and voice. We see something in the way he carries himself, even as he is on the way to the cross. In the end, we see something in the way he embraces and carries us.[9] Jesus said to them, ³⁷ “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Such a saying is proverbial.  To welcome an emissary was the same as welcoming the person who had dispatched the emissary. Finally, those who perform such service will not have just served others, but they will have served Jesus and ultimately, God. The passive verbs used in Mark 9:31 to describe the passion show that the presence of God hides in the passion narrative. In a similar way, the act of service and true discipleship will become the way the follower of Jesus finds God hidden and present in daily life. This is true greatness; this is the way of the cross.

Welcoming a child means willingness to have your life disrupted. Children frustrate us. One father shouted at his child, “Why do you not grow up?” The boy finally blurted out, “That is what I am trying to do!” We do not welcome children well, in spite of all the attention we give them. Few of us responsible adults have time to receive children. We turn over children to what they will see on television, play on video games, and learn in school. Yet, the point of the story is to invite us to ponder how well we truly welcome all persons into our lives. Jesus embodied the welcoming and inviting nature of God in what John Wesley would call prevenient grace. We need to learn that grace as well.

The play "A Streetcar Named Desire" has a couple meet who are not impressive.  Blanche is not pretty.  She seeks love.  She meets Mitch, a man overweight and who is embarrassed that he perspires profusely and who, like Blanche, is frantically lonely.  It is not their strength, but their mutual weakness, which brings them together.  Because they are both so weak, Blanche is able to trust Mitch with the tragic story of her life.  Mitch then takes her in his arms and says, "You need somebody, and I need somebody, too.  Could it be you and me, Blanche?"  She looks at him in amazement, then reaches for him, her eyes filling with tears, and says, "Sometimes there's God, so quickly."  Thus, maybe this likeable, comfortable text, is not as it seems.  The places of weakness in our lives and in the world may well be the places we need to be most open to the amazing intrusion of the God who is small, weak, tugging from behind, wanting to get our attention.

Jesus never promised that it would be easy.

Jesus is calling us to flip our usual attitudes toward greatness, honor and fame completely upside down. Our normal perspective is to look at life from the top down, giving our greatest attention to the people who have competed with one another and come out on top. We do this with dancers, singers, actors and artists, as well as with politicians and business leaders. Their fame draws us to them. Their talents and accomplishments impress us. 

I have felt it. I had lunch with Anthony Campolo. True, it was a group of college students, but still, he sat across from me. I was with a past governor, a well-known Christian singer, and so on. I was younger then. In retirement, I was with Jürgen Moltmann for his 90^th birthday, had him sign books, and took pictures with him. It was easy to lift them up to a point where one hardly knows what to say.  However, Jesus is saying, “No — change your perspective.” Instead, he says, look at life from the bottom up and give your greatest attention to the people who have no fame. True greatness results not from how far we rise above others but in how far we are willing to go to include and care for others. In fact, the challenge I see in this passage is that we cannot genuinely welcome unless we are willing to serve. I invite you to reflect upon welcoming someone into your home. Can you welcome them if you do not serve them in some way?

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[1] The first time he specifically mentions his death is in 8:31-32. This prediction in chapter 9 is a little more vague; it does not mention the groups of people to whom Jesus will be betrayed (the elders, the chief priests and the scribes; see 8:31), but it still tells the three movements of the passion narrative in terms of betrayal, death and resurrection. There is yet another passion prediction in 10:32-34, which is still more detailed than either of the previous predictions. Thus, the central point of all of these predictions is found most succinctly here.

[2] (and some, generally later, manuscripts add, “and fasting”; Mark 9:29).

[3] We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones. —François de La Rochefoucauld.

[4] I sing the body electric, I celebrate the me yet to come,

I toast to my own reunion when I become one with the sun.

And I’ll look back on Venus, I’ll look back on Mars, and I’ll burn with the fire of 10 million stars;

And in time, and in time, we will all be stars.

-Fame, the musical

I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly — High!

I feel it comin’ together, People will see me and cry — Fame!

I’m gonna make it to heaven, Light up the sky like a flame — Fame!

I’m gonna live forever, Baby, remember my name!

[5] I aspired to honors, money, marriage, and you laughed at me. In those ambitions I suffered the bitterest difficulties; that was by your mercy – so much the greater in that you gave me the less occasion to find sweet pleasure in what was not you. Look into my heart, Lord. In obedience to your will I recall this and confess to you. My soul now adheres to you. You detached it from birdlime which held me fast in death. How unhappy it was! Your scalpel cut to the quick of the wound, so that I should leave all these ambitions and be converted to you, who are above all things and without whom all things are nothing, and that by conversion I should be healed. – St. Augustine, Confessions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 97

[6] There is always a danger that in our asceticism we shall be tempted to imitate the sufferings of Christ. This is a pious but godless ambition, for beneath it there always lurks the notion that it is possible for us to step into Christ’s shoes and suffer as he did and kill the old Adam. We are then presuming to undertake that bitter work of eternal redemption which Christ himself wrought for us. The motive of asceticism was more limited – to equip us for better service and deeper humiliation. But it can only do that so long as it takes the suffering of Christ as its basis; if not, it degenerates into a dreadful parody of the Lord’s own passion. Our whole motive now becomes a desire for ostentation. We want other people to see our achievements and to be put to shame. Our asceticism has now become the way to salvation. Such publicity gives it the reward it seeks. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995], p. 171.)

[7] However, many scholars would say it reflects leadership problems after the resurrection.

[8] Wright, Robert. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York: Pantheon Books, 2000).

[9] A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, "I can't prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice.  There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross -- the way he carries me. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, 32).