October 19, 2006

TALL TALES

Proverbs 31: 10-31; Mark 9: 30-31

            I have always sort of envied people who are tall, to just dunk a basketball once.  I was above average height in high school but when I go into a high school today I am short.  The generation that is in school now is the tallest yet, nutrition, medicine and a number of other factors lead up to the dramatic increase in height.  We have all been told that we are much taller than generations that have gone before us. That is somewhat true but the height increase in the last fifty years has been much more dramatic. 

            In the 1300’s the average height for a man was 5’7” and for a woman 5’3”.  The big height difference was in children.  The average medieval child was about 8 inches shorter than a corresponding child today. But those who survived to adulthood eventually reached normal height. We talk about short people in American history.  James Madison was 5’4”, but Washington and Jefferson were well over 6 feet tall.

            What about people in Jesus’ day, they matched people in the Middle Ages as far as we can tell 5’’7” and 5’3”.  Jesus never picked his disciples according to height, in today’s reading there is a concern for other matters of stature.  Here we have Jesus confronting his disciples about their argument over whom among them was the greatest.  Jesus makes a statement and then gives an example.

            The statement was, whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  And for the example Jesus called over a child who lived in the house, took the child in his arms and said, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me”. The statement is fairly clear, but without knowing something of those times, we may miss altogether the point of the example.

In that culture children were essentially non-persons, women had few rights and children had none.  Only slaves were lower in social standing than children.  Mark doesn’t even identify the gender of the child; the Greek word is neutral.  Jesus took a child and put it among them, thus to say that the followers of Jesus could welcome him by welcoming a child was a mind blowing suggestion.  But Jesus wanted them to understand how God viewed greatness.  It came not from being high on society’s ladder but by welcoming those on the bottom rungs or those who don’t have a place on the ladder at all.

            The Greek word for greatness in the Bible means more, in our usual way of thinking a person can be designated great only if he or she excels in some way beyond others, is more than others.  For us to be called great would mean that there are others who do not measure up to our status or achievements and who are therefore less than we are.  Jesus was not taking issue with the idea of measurement to determine greatness, he was simply saying that the disciples were measuring in the wrong direction.  True greatness is not how far we rise above others in status or fame or achievement, but how far we are willing to go in including and caring for the least and the lowly in his name.

            Far from calling for a leveling of humankind, Jesus was urging his followers to stand tall in the recognition of every person, thus in welcoming others we welcome Jesus and in welcoming Jesus we welcome God.

            And here Jesus ties the word greatness to the word welcome, welcoming is an aspect of hospitality, the cordial and generous reception of others as guests.  It is one thing to try to help others from a distance, to throw them the leftovers of hand me downs, but it is quite another to give them the kinds of things we enjoy.

            A ten year old boy came home from school one day saying his class was collecting canned goods for the needy and he wanted to know if he could take some cans from the family pantry.  His mother told him to help himself so he started setting out cans of beets, succotash, and spinach, even a can of hominy that someone had given the family.  His mother then went over and added four cans of Spaghetti-O’s to the pile, he objected to those, a lesson well learned, he liked Spaghetti-O’s.  His mother explained to him something about what it means to be hospitable, accepting that the needs of others are as important as our own needs and offering others what we value ourselves.

            The Bible does occasionally take note of a person’s height; the tallest person in the Bible is easy, Goliath.  King Saul was noted as standing head and shoulders above all those around him.  Probably the shortest person was Zacchaeus who wanted to see Jesus but was too short to see over the others in the crowd (Luke 19).

            But size/stature does not matter in the Bible.  No physical characteristics of any biblical person determine the kind of person the individual was, and the people of biblical times knew this as well as we do today.  Still today we tend to be preferential toward beautiful people, we buy billions of products each year to make us look better.  As a society we are very conscious of how we and others look.  And biblical people were probably the same way; they no doubt equated physical stature with certain abilities.

            Even the great prophet Samuel once had to be reminded to look deeper.  When God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to find a new king he immediately chose Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab, who was tall and striking, but God says, “do not note appearance or stature because I have rejected him”, and so Samuel moves on to the son of ordinary stature and looks, David.

            God does not see us as we do, rather God looks inside of us, outward appearance does not count.  When we really think about it we know this, we know that height and looks are not tied to character, but people stand tall in other ways, be it for missions, our faith, the needy and so on.  As Christians we are called to rise above the ordinary, standing tall in faith is a matter of choice and not of genetics.

            I always remember Dana Reeve (who died earlier this year), the widow of actor Christopher Reeve who was paralyzed for ten years from a riding accident.  Not only did she stick by him and care for him, but established and funded a paralysis resource center.  She not only accepted her husband’s new condition but reached out to welcome others as well.  The sadness of here death at 44 was because when someone stands tall the absence leaves a noticeable gap against the sky.

            Our ancestors were not that much shorter than we are today, but thanks to medical advances and nutrition that may not continue to be true for future generations.  The next two generations are very tall compared to us.  But for growing tall spiritually, the perception remains unchanged.  The long and the short of it is to be hospitable toward the least and lowly for in doing so we welcome Christ.

            Amen.

            Let us pray.