Wisdom over Greatness: 19 September, 2021

Dorothy Day

Mark 9:30-37

While a medical student in New York, Robert Coles volunteered at a Catholic Worker soup kitchen. Coles is the Harvard professor, dedicated to studying the psychological welfare of children. One day he hoped to speak with Dorothy Day and found her conversing with a man who was down and out. Coles sat down and waited. When the conversation ended and Dorothy got up, she noticed Coles for the first time. She went over to him and asked, “Do you wish to speak to one of us?” Coles was nonplussed. For Dorothy Day there were only people. There were no great and lowly. Her conversation partner was her equal.

This is the import of the second half of the gospel passage we read for today, when the disciples began to argue about who was the greatest. They were thinking of leadership on the world’s terms, not God’s. In the world, leaders measure themselves by greatness: Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great, and Mohammad Ali, whose autobiography is entitled The Greatest. And Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Whereupon he took a little child in his arms and said we should serve even the likes of these.

But that’s not the whole gospel reading. Jesus’ teaching about service follows a prediction of his betrayal, death, and rising. What do the prediction and the teaching have to do with one another? Here’s one answer: leadership is a matter of life and death. . . The sage James writes, “Where there is envy and ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind” (v 16). . .

Certainly Robert Coles took Dorothy Day’s words as reproach. He had ambitions to be great in his field and wanted to speak to a lady he regarded as great. Blessed with a conscience, he was able to accept the challenge of his encounter. Others cannot. Those closest to Jeremiah plotted to silence him by assassination. Hitler persecuted the confessing church, imprisoning many, killing some, most famously Dietrich Bonhoeffer. . .

Christ sacrificed everything that we might be saved: his life, his body, his dignity. We may not be called upon to sacrifice our bodies. But we are certainly called upon to sacrifice our will to power. In so doing, we choose life. We challenge the structures of this world, even as we find them in ourselves. . .

Dorothy Day asked: Which one of us would you like to speak to? Gandhi offered: Would you like a cup of tea? Jesus said: Let me wash your feet. –– Fritz West

James 3:13––4:3, 7-8a

This week, [the readings] tell us that wisdom is less about what we say and more about what we do—about the choices we make, the concern we exercise for others, the care we take in developing relationships. –– E. Byron (Ron) Anderson

Jeremiah 11:18-20

Greatness [in this world] entails violence—certainly psychological and spiritual, likely physical violence. In the political sphere people often get to greatness by stepping on others. –– Fritz West

E. Byron (Ron) Anderson is the Ernest and Bernice Styberg Professor of Worship and the Director of the Nellie B. Ebersole Program in Music Ministry at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

Fritz West, a liturgical author and retired pastor of the United Church of Christ living in Minnesota, serves as the Presiding Member of the Association for Reformed & Liturgical Worship Steering Committee.

Homily Service 42, no. 4 (2009): 26-36.