Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

September 24, 2006  Edgewood United Church UCC Rev. Karen E. Gale

Cravings
Mark 9:30-37
James 3:1-13-4:3, 7-8

Do you ever get a craving?  Like for ice cream or chocolate…

I get a predictable craving every night around 9 or 10 o’clock. I crave cereal. And so some nights I pour myself a bowl of Cheerios or Raisin Bran. I think it is a genetic trait, actually. My dad used to eat Corn Flakes at night when I was growing up. I teased him then but look where I am now.

Cereal is not too bad a craving in the scale of things. I get calcium and fiber at least.

But what about other things we crave… like power?

We all want self determination: the ability to determine our own lives and make choices and decisions. Sometimes we want to control others’ lives like our spouses or partners or children. We crave order and security and control.

We crave notice, that people will notice us and appreciate our talents and abilities. We may spend hours upon hours at work so that we move ahead or get noticed. Maybe we sabotage a colleague’s work, or take credit for something that is not ours. In our mind we see our name on the shiny name plate on the corner office or on the list of authors for a major articles. We want to be admired and crave that attention.

I have often marveled at the publication Who’s Who in America. It is a listing of people in various professions--those who are the “movers and shakers.” I am not sure where this publication gets the names they put in their annual publication. But I do know how they make money. They sell copies of the book to everyone who is listed in it because many of those listed can’t resist buying a book with their name in it. It satisfies that craving.

Sometimes we crave something that is not ours: our neighbor’s car or our neighbor’s spouse. And we plan and plot how to get what we should not desire at all.

The bible looks us straight in the face and asks us what we are willing to trade for these cravings.

Today’s scriptures talk about cravings. First, the disciples are walking with Jesus along the road. You can imagine Jesus has gone ahead after reiterating to them what it means to be the Messiah. Another lecture about oppression, death and destruction. I wonder if the disciples exchanged worried glances or just zoned him out. Well, they reach Capernaum. And Jesus turns to them and asks them what they were discussing on the road.

Did you ever have this experience growing up? You had been getting into trouble or fighting with your siblings and your mother turned to you and said, “so, what have you been doing?” Somehow you just knew that she knew already what you had been up to. I have no doubt that Jesus knew exactly what the disciples had been talking, or rather arguing, about. Which one of them was going to be the greatest?

A pastor, Mary Hinkle, puts it this way, “as the walk progresses, the disciples find their way into a discussion about which of them is the greatest. They are graduate students comparing GRE scores. They are ministers discussing how many they worship each week, as in "We worship about 430 at both services." They are anyone who has ever written a memo containing the words "measurable outcomes." Which of the disciples is the star pupil? Who is the greatest?” (midrash.org)

You can imagine after hearing Jesus was going to be killed they wondered which one of them would be selected as the successor, the teacher’s replacement, the anointed one, the star student. And the arguments would just go from there.

“No way it will be you, Peter, you are too loud and brash and bossy.”

“Hey, I got it that he was the Messiah first!”

“Look here men,” Matthew would say, “Jesus needs a mature man who knows his way around finances. A person like me.”

“No,” the Zebedee brothers would protest, “he called us first so we will be first.”

And on and on and on.

The disciples crave power. They crave being first in Jesus’ heart and estimation. And their cravings lead to arguments and anger and dissention among them.

In our second reading, James, our fiery-tongued epistle writer tells us that of course those are the outcomes of cravings.   “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”

James believes cravings come from our more earthly, less divine, parts of our selves. Our cravings are not the best parts of us.

Jesus responds to these cravings by taking a child in his arms and saying, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

What you need to know is that children in Jesus’ time were nobodies. They had no voice and were on the same level as servants. Children were not really considered whole people until they became adults. No one of any status would take note of a child. With the mortality rate of children running about 50%, with only half the children making it to adulthood, there was even less reason to pay attention to a child. But the main reason children were of no consequence was because they had no power or wealth or status. A child had no way of paying back a kindness or favor. Doing something for a child was a wasted or empty transaction. In that society in Jesus’ day worked transactionally with “what can you do for me if I do for you,” with a child the answer is “nothing Why would someone waste their time?

But Jesus says to us “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me. Whoever wants to first must be last of all and servant of all.”

What are our cravings, our desires for power, for wealth, for things, in the face of such a statement?

I’m not much of a weblog reader but there is one I check each week. It is called Journeys with Jesus and is written by a pastor Daniel Cleninden who formerly worked at Stanford with the InterVarsity fellowship, a conservative, evangelical student movement.

This week he wrote about a fellowship he started for professors. “When we started most people did not know each other, so every Friday a different professor shared his or her Christian story. The very first Friday morning Doug disarmed everyone with a candid account of his disintegrating marriage. The following week Tony related his frustrations with raising teenagers. Another prof recounted his financial failures. In the succeeding months it became clear that these remarkably gifted people who had reached the pinnacle of professional success [were wrestling in their lives.] How do you balance personal and professional responsibilities? How do spouses negotiate dual careers with heavy demands? Does God care about my neuroscience research? I still remember the morning that Chuck spoke for many of those exceptionally gifted and gracious professors when he noted that "behind every great [person] there often lies a trail of human wreckage."

“Given a safe space, the Stanford professors experienced the message of Jesus that Mark articulates in his Gospel this week, namely, that the holy grail of human greatness that we so honor, envy and pursue—rank, wealth, recognition, power, title, privilege, and prestige—can exact a very high personal price. Worldly greatness has a limited capacity to nourish authentic human fulfillment, it does not protect us from human vulnerabilities, and it often prevents us from experiencing God's kingdom. To make this point, by his words and actions Jesus radically reversed our normal ideas about greatness and taught that insignificant children epitomize the ethos of his kingdom.”
(Daniel Cleninden, journeyswithjesus.net)

All these worldly things exact a terrible price. Many cravings tempt us. As people of faith we have Biblical figures who demonstrate this clearly. King David killed Bathsheba’s husband so he could take her as his wife. Jacob cheated Esau out of his birthright. The disciples James and John asked Jesus if they could sit at a place of honor in heaven but then ran away when Jesus was arrested. These heroes of the Bible, so flawed, mirror our own flaws. The cravings that destroyed them destroy us and the people around us.

James says, “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”

And Jesus says, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Last Saturday I listened to an NPR segment of This American Life which was on “Unconditional Love.” One story was about a couple Heide and Rick Solomon who adopted their son Alix from a Romanian orphanage when he was seven. They did not know at the time about the terrible conditions in Romanian orphanages. The horror stories came out much later and told of children raised there, how they were never held, never sung to or talked to, never loved and so they did not learn to love.

The Solomons were faced with this when Alix exploded one day in rage and the rage went on and on and on. There was no love but hate emanating from their child. Alix’s violence, anger and rage became unmanageable and they finally sought help. In doing so Alix was diagnosed with Attachment Disorder. This meant that Alix had no sense of empathy. He did not realize that other people had feelings. He could not love or bond with people because he had never bonded as an infant or child.

And so the Solomons began a program of trying to get Alix to bond, in trying to connect him to the love they had for him.  First they were instructed in a new method of discipline. Unlike most children who, when they misbehave, get a time out, when Alix misbehaved he got a time in. Instead of being isolated he was forced to spend more time with his parents.

Alix got older and the problems grew worse. So Heidi and Alix went for treatment at a center that worked on getting children to bond with their parents. For two months Alix and his mother were constantly within 3 feet of each other, 24 hours a day. This close physical experience was supposed to mimic the bonding that a parent does with an infant.

There was some progress as Alix grew less violent but still an attachment had not been formed. And so the specialists asked the Solomons to do one more thing with their now 13 year old son. They were to take him on their lap and feed him ice cream. Now at this point Alix was far bigger than Heidi and so it took both Heidi and Rick sitting together to make a big enough lap. And every night for 20 minutes, week after week, for an entire year, they help Alix on their lap and talk and had ice cream. A whole year.

And in that time something happened. Alix finally came to bond with his parents. He finally made an attachment to them that allowed him to love and be loved. And now he lives a pretty normal life.

It is said that “the person who saves one child, saves the world.” Heidi Solomon decided to take a hold of this child and not to let go. Through hell and back. To see world in this child. She held on and would not let go. And Alix learned to love and in some important ways was healed.

The Solomons were not craving, as many competitive parents, the future life of accomplishments many envision for their child.  They were not comparing with other mothers and father what college their child would go to, or SAT scores, or their son’s winning soccer team. They were not craving that he would be great at playing musical instrument or have the smartest of friends.

What was most important in their minds is to heal that aching, awful hole inside their son caused by neglect in his first seven years. And that through love, he would be made whole.

Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one child, welcomes me.”

I don’t know what each of you craves. It may be money or power over others; it may be tenure or professional advancement. It may be being known to many people or being admired by your peers. It may be a relationship that is not healthy or the destruction of an enemy so you can have revenge.

What is it that you crave? I invite you to consider it for a moment…..(pause)

Cravings can destroy us. James offers us an alternative. “Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

This is a more difficult path to tread.

But James also promises that if we draw near to God, God will draw near to us. And God will partner with us in easing what we crave and instead instill in us a hunger for what is good and true and whole and of love.

That we may welcome the nobodies in the name of God.
That we can be satisfied being a nobody ourselves.
That we can love with abandon.

That we might save the world, one child of God at a time.

Amen.