Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, pastor
Oct. 21, 2012 Proper 24
Mark 10:42-45
42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
You don't hear much about it in American news media.... But then, you don't hear much news in the American news media..... but since we hear so many disparaging things about Muslims in our news, let me tell you about a prominent Muslim who has come up with what I think is one of the best ideas I have ever heard. Mo Ibrahim was born in the Sudan and he earned degrees both in Africa and Great Britain. He became a multi-billionaire in the cell phone industry and he decided to find a way to help the people of his native region.
He established a foundation to encourage good government in Africa. The foundation awards an annual recipient a one time gift of $5 million and $200,000 a year for their rest of their lives for being an African head of state who succeeds in office to deliver security, health, education and economic development to their nation and then, and here is the catch, then they must leave office when their elected term is finished and provide for a peaceful transition in leadership.
It is a wonderful idea, since one of the worst problems with African governments is that anyone who manages to get into the office of president or prime minister never seems to be willing to give up the reins of power. Corruption, abuse of power and maintaining a violent dictatorship while making themselves very wealthy has been the norm in Africa but Ibrahim's proposal would make it possible for a person to be an excellent leader and still retire wealthy and have no worries for the future.
It is a great idea but the bad news is that there has not been anyone qualified to receive the award this year or, in fact, for three of the seven years that he has tried to give these millions of dollars away. Apparently, corruption has run so deep among African governments that you can't even bribe them to stop taking bribes.
But, folks, I need to really shoot straight with you one this one..... even though, in America, we are able, after lots of shouting and name calling in the political election process, to still execute a peaceful transfer of power once the ballots have been counted, there is still a lot of corruption in our government as well. We tend to get exasperated with dictators in Central America and in Africa because their moral failures are so obvious but I believe that the primary difference is simply a difference of scale.
I got my feet wet in social involvement in my student church in the county seat town of Russellville, KY. When I became aware of how much bootlegging was going on in that dry county and how that was making both alcohol and drugs available to the kids in my church, I started to agitate....Only to discover that the biggest bootlegging operations were puppet operations for the local prosecuting attorney. I took the issue to the city council and discovered that they were all a bunch of property development businessmen who were using city resources to put utilities and streets into property they were developing for their own profit. The circuit judge was involved in a sham corporation taking payments from the city that went to a post office box in Florida.
The more I pulled the thread, the deeper the corruption seemed to go until the local chief of police warned me that I was likely to be killed if I didn't back off.
I've never been a big fan of being killed but what I did do was to organize a committee to vote the town wet so that we could have legal liquor stores that would not sell drugs and would not sell to kids. The local Baptist pastors were outraged that a minister was working to see the town go wet but I was successful. Russellville is still the smallest wet community in Kentucky but we got a lot of drugs off the streets, reduced drunk driving incidents by 75%, and increased city tax revenues by enough to hire a couple more policemen and a supervisor of legal liquor sales.
Of course, as I was leaving that community to move to Louisville, the city council members awarded themselves most of the few liquor licenses and shortly thereafter voted to lower the taxes they had to pay the city. Because, men and women, power corrupts people and there is no more fluid form of power than money.
Jesus grew up in a poor region of an occupied country. Jesus saw the power of the empire from the bottom rung. People often like to tell themselves that Jesus wasn't political but those people don't read much of what he said. A great deal of what Jesus said could be placed under the heading, "Teachings against the empire."
Today's scripture lessons is one of those sayings......"You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them." That's the view from the bottom rung of the ladder of power. "You know how the Roman Caesars act.....you know how the generals of the occupation army, the governors they put in charge of us act...." And you know how Noriega was, you know about Saddam Hussein, you remember Charles Taylor in the Congo and Muammar Kaddafi in Libya.
You remember Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti and how we hoped that the election of a liberation theology priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected president. When he was overthrown by a military coups, President Clinton sent American troops to the island to restore democracy and put Aristide back into the office of the president.
He initially seemed to be trying to institute massive reforms, raising the minimum wage, disbanding the army, ceasing all forms of government repression and torture but, it appears that he was not able to maintain his commitment to these values and, in the end, he suffered accusations of human rights abuses himself, including the practice known as "necklacing" opposition leaders. This horrible form of execution involved tying a tire soaked in gasoline around a prisoner's neck and setting it on fire.
Jesus looked at the abuses of power in the empire and he said to his followers: But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
When scholars look at the gospels and ask, "which of these sayings originated with Jesus and which came from later church traditions?" one of the things we look for is how far the saying goes against the norm of society at the time.
When Jesus is reported to have said, "Love your enemies," we tend to think, "Yes, that is the authentic Jesus," because that is the Jesus who not only pushes back against the empire but he also pushes back against society and against our human nature.
Dictators, generals, Caesars, pharaohs, Democrats and Republicans are not all that different from you and me. Once we are in power, we start to conspire about how we are going to stay in power. When we get to the top of the economic mountain, we try to make sure that no one pulls us down.
But, if we will expose ourselves to Biblical preaching, if we will devote ourselves to being in community, if we can put our ego on the shelf long enough to say a prayer of confession, to chase the sounds of TV commercials out of our ears for a few minutes with the poetry of hymns, then we can hear Jesus saying to the little dictator who keeps trying to come out in all of us..... "but it is not to be so among you for the greatest among you will be the servant of all."
I know that we have a lot of pastors who listen to our YouTube and iTunes recordings and I do not want to presume to school you in how to be a pastor, but I want to share a personal experience. For many years before we started this church, it was my habit to go to Nicaragua a couple of times every year and I loved the rural poor of that nation and did a lot to raise support for them but in those days I worked in a big church and sat in an office adorned with crystal chandeliers and a marble fire place and the poor were people who lived a thousand miles south of my office.
When we started this church, I made a new commitment to myself, to spend a part of every week with the most poor people that I could find as close to me as I could find them. Two or three times a week, in the company of our church volunteers who cook and donate food, who gather up sleeping bags, blankets and coats, I go and spend time with people who are standing where Jesus spent most of his life, on the bottom rung of the empire's economic ladder.
Many of them are sick. In the line of people we talk to and serve every week, some are just unemployed and cut off from family and supportive friends but there is also mental illness, there is alcoholism, there is HIV, TB, hepatitis, and the open sores that go with chronic methamphetamine addiction.
Sometimes they are rude and demanding. Sometimes fights break out. Some are con men always trying to get something out of us..... but, there is not much difference between us. Most of the members of this church are involved in some kind of poverty ministry, either professionally or as a volunteer. I go every week, not because I am a good man but because there is a third world dictator inside of me that would love to take over and be the ruler of my heart, my wallet, my conscience.
What I'm saying to you who are pastors is that you need to be aware that even a well intended liberation theology Catholic priest can become an evil third world dictator who gets to the point of saying that he loves the smell of a burning tire around the neck of a protestor if you lose touch with your own identity with the poor.
So, I stay in community, both with the faith community and the homeless community. I come here, I pray, I sing, a take communion and listen to the teaching of the prophets, the saints and of Jesus because, I'm sure that if I don't that I will forget. It is not that Manuel Ortega, Saddam Hussein, Charles Taylor, Baby Doc Duvalier, Jean-Bertrand Aristides and Moammar Kaddafi are evil and we are good, it is that given the right circumstances, given a few years of being addicted to power and money, we could become who they are.
We are here because we have chosen a different path. I don't describe myself as being a Christian very often.... That word seems to be far to weighed down with beliefs and rituals that have dubious meanings to me. I strive, not so much to be a Christian as I want to be a follower of the teachings of Jesus. I don't want to be a believer..... I want to be a doer, a follower, a disciple so that the dictator in me remains hidden.
Americans were born on the top of the economic mountain. Even the poor among us have a better shot at a decent living than people in most parts of the world. We don't have to suffer indignities internationally. Our president, whoever is president, can order attack drones, warships, nuclear missiles, and armies to any place on earth and so even if there is a sneak attack against our people, we can exact a thousand fold retribution and our nostrils are filled with the smell of revenge.
And so, I say to you Americans..... it is not to be so among you.... For the greatest among you will be the servant of all. The challenge before the greatest power on earth... the greatest military and economic power on earth, is to set that power aside and to reach out and identify with the stranger. To learn to let go of resentment and anger and fear and to lead by example, by love, by a path of generosity.
There may be no Mo Ibrahim Foundation to reward you with millions of dollars for resisting the urge to be a tyrant but I will make the claim that following in the path of Jesus is its own reward.
