What the Dolphins Said--September 23, 2024

What the Dolphins Said--September 23, 2024

"Then [Jesus and his disciples] 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 about 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'." [Mark 9:33-37]

Sometimes the very things you think make you look "great" are actually the things that make you the most pitiful and pathetic.

And sometimes the things you might think will get you labeled "weak" or "nobody" or a "loser" are actually the things that make for greatness in what really matters.

If you don't believe me yet on this one, listen to the testimony of the dolphins.

There is a wonderfully funny (and rather on-point) insight from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where he imagines that all this time on Earth, humans were really the third-most intelligent species, behind dolphins and mice (we'll save the mice conversation for another day's book-group). As Adams puts it, the evidence is clear:

"On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

Obviously, Adams has his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. But there is something very true, very honest, about what he says there, even if it is silly to imagine dolphins in some kind of civilization contest with humanity. The underlying insight there is profound (Adams has just found a way to dress it up in clown make-up so we won't see how powerful it is until it has already taken residence in our brains). It is possible that we could look at ourselves and see something as a sign of our greatness--even our superiority over others--and that they might see the very same realities as signs of our totally missing the point. Like dolphins looking at the human invention of war and saying, "Well, I think this makes our case for us!", Jesus has been daring us to take on a whole new way of seeing, in which greatness and lowliness, failure and success, are often turned on their heads.

And to hear the Gospel writers tell it, the followers of Jesus have needed help in trying out that new way of seeing from the very beginning. There they are, on the way with Jesus, after another road trip and walking tour, and Jesus has overheard their childish bragging and one-upsmanship.

"I'm the most important to Jesus--I'm very smart, you know. Practically a genius. I'm the greatest."

"No, Pete--I'm the most important among us! I'm the best at finances. Before signing on with you all and taking this job with Jesus, I'll have you know that I was a very successful and rich tax collector. Money talks, gentlemen, and I am flush with it. Clearly, I'm the greatest."

"Matthew, no--it's not you! It's me! I'm the greatest--I've got connections with the powerful and the well-respected religious leaders. When Jesus finally decides he wants to play ball with them and get himself on the national stage in Jerusalem, I'll be the one he turns to for favors. I'm the greatest."

Who knows what precise claims they were lobbing back and forth at each other? The specifics may not precisely matter, but it seems obvious that they were each taking turns thumping their own chests and tooting their own horns with whatever traits or qualities they thought made them stand out and seem "great." And over the course of human history, there are some basic boasts that keep rearing their giant heads: who is smarter than whom, richer than whom, more influential than whom, stronger than whom, and so on. We humans are terribly insecure, but we are not all that original.

For whatever the particular points of braggadocio were, Jesus has had enough of it. Like a disappointed dad who has overheard the bickering children in the back seat on the car ride home, Jesus sits them down once they are in the house and has a family meeting with them. "This isn't how we do things," he says. "I am teaching you a new way--a new way of seeing the world, a new way of seeing yourselves, a new way of living in the world, and new way of judging greatness. If you want to be first, put yourself last. If you want to be great, serve the rest."

And then, as if he weren't clear without an object lesson, Jesus sets a little child among them--a nobody, a non-entity in the eyes of Greco-Roman culture, in many ways--and says essentially, "Here is somebody the world regards as nothing, because children don't earn salary, don't have influence, and haven't been taught yet. And yet, the real key to greatness is in welcoming somebody like this in my name." Jesus isn't being sentimental or sappy by putting a toddler in his lap. He is being downright subversive. He is taking all of the things the disciples had learned to look for as signs of "greatness" and throwing them out the window, and replacing them with a preschooler.

All of this is to say that the world looks at things like vast sums of wealth, political influence, mass popularity, brute strength, and stockpiles of weaponry and says, "Here--see, these are the things that determine greatness. If you have enough of these, that's how you'll know you are on top in this world."

And then Jesus comes along and says, "Nope. Even toddlers who come bearing the name of Christ are greater than all that... The very things you dense disciples think make you look like "winners" are the very things I care next-to-nothing about, and they are exactly the reason you have so very much to learn yet." Jesus is teaching them--teaching us!--to see like Douglas Adams' imaginary dolphins: to see the things others look at as marks of greatness and to see them instead as inconsequential... and beyond that, to see the way people brag about those traditional signs of "greatness" as the very evidence of how pitiable they really are.

It takes a good deal of courage--as well as a willingness to let people call your vision foolish--to adopt Jesus' upside-down, Adams'-dolphin-like way of seeing the world. Plenty of other folk won't get it. They will still be hung up on the chest-thumping, horn-tooting, saber-rattling nonsense, and they'll still be wowed by who has the private jet, the bigger fortune, the political leverage, and the biggest guns, and they'll assume that God operates with the same set of values (like the old saying goes, "After God made human beings in God's own image, we've been returning the favor ever since."). And maybe most frightening and tragic of all is the way disciples still--still!--miss the point and just take the old marks of "greatness" and slap a cross on them, as though the way of Jesus were at all compatible with that old way of thinking and seeing.

So Jesus keeps telling us. He keeps putting toddlers in our midst to remind us that greatness in God's eyes has nothing to do with power or money or influence, and he keeps showing us true greatness by putting on the towel and washing feet. While Rome looks at the cross and says, "Look--we killed him! This proves we are greater than this rabbi from Nazareth! We are the winners!," Jesus teaches us a different way to see, which says, "Look--he laid down his life for the ones who are crucifying him! That's his kind of victory. That is what makes Jesus truly great."

Where are the places in your and my life that we are still stuck in the old way of seeing greatness... and where do we need to adopt Jesus' way of measuring greatness? What will it look like... today?

Dear Jesus, teach us your kind of greatness, and keep pulling us back to it.