by Patricia D. Nanoff
Mark’s gospel raises the question people ask in every age: why must we suffer? None of us escapes suffering. Many of the losses we experience leave us feeling, as my father so painfully discovered, as if we are invisible.
Mark’s gospel begins not with an infancy narrative but with the voice of one crying out in the wilderness — strong language, suggesting suffering. This Sunday for the second time we hear with his disciples Jesus’ lean, spare anticipation of the conflict and suffering that lies ahead for him. He will be handed over and killed but will rise again on the third day. Even in this harsh, difficult territory we find unexpected blessings and gifts.
Sunday’s gospel focuses on one of the less elegant moments for Jesus’ followers. In the chapters leading up to this passage, Peter has professed his belief that Jesus is the messiah. Peter, James, and John have experienced Jesus transfigured in glory. All the disciples have witnessed Jesus heal a child whom those left behind when he ascended the mount of transfiguration have been unable to help. Jesus raises the child up from what seems like an epileptic seizure.
We expect their experiences might hold the disciples in a permanent attitude of amazement. But they can’t manage it. They can’t hold onto these moments. We find them breathtakingly small-minded.
- When have you experienced deflating responses to projects you have envisioned?
- How do you work with resistance to a new project or vision?
- How do you hold on to moments of amazement?
When Jesus teaches his disciples about the suffering ahead, they don’t understand but find themselves too afraid to ask questions. They resort to familiar territory — petty conversations about status and accomplishments — the world of who is better and who is best, the place where status matters and all else becomes invisible.
When Jesus and his company reach Capernaum, he sits down alone with the twelve to talk about their arguing. Jesus turns this moment of false pride inside out. The resulting lesson gives us an image of the human condition that challenges all our assumptions.
A child is the focus of the lesson. To our modern eyes a child can make this seem a sentimental, greeting-card moment. However, bible scholars warn us away from importing our modern notions of childhood into the gospel landscape. In the ancient world children were invisible, non-people of little consequence.
Jesus taking a child in his arms must have shocked the boasting, arguing disciples. Jesus tells them that they must invert their basic beliefs about first and last. They must abandon the usual benchmarks of accomplishment and acclaim. In Jesus’ company the invisible become visible, servants are first, and those with higher status fade into the background. Harsh territory. Unexpected blessings.
- When has someone’s unexpected generosity inspired you?
- How do the children in your life sustain your resilience?
- Whose service is vital to your day by day existence at home, at work?
The health care professionals I teach become the skilled technicians who do much of the hands-on work in health care services, the heavy lifting of patient care. They do the hardest and often dirtiest jobs, yet they receive the lowest wages.
For these technicians one arched eyebrow, one sigh, can make or break their days. They approach their tasks with humility and grace but fade into the background when those with higher status turn up.
Jesus warns us that to receive a child is to receive the One who sent him. He reminds us that to see those who invisibly serve is to see a glimmer of the face of God.
Most assuredly my father experienced such a glimmer in the attentive face of his nurse. May others see the glimmer of the holy in us. May we value those who invisibly serve us.
- When have you experienced being invisible?
- When have you recognized the amazing presence of someone long invisible to you?