The pep talk at the match- Mark 9.30-37
Half time on the playing field and the team members shuffle off the pitch occasionally crudely shoving a shoulder against a rival as they amble to the sideline in deliberately not straight lines. There they mill about, legs restless yet showing some fatigue, the coach giving some words of advice, or the manager giving a good rollicking, depending on the scenario. The team members’ minds half listening, half looking about them, not quite ready to quit their focus on the game, even temporarily, not quite hearing all words of their lead, but gathering enough of his sentiment to get on with the job. The whistle blows, calling them back to their positions and the game recommences, time alone showing whether the team members had had enough grace within to marshal the competing energies of their macho personalities.
In 2014, at the World Cup two very well known teams had a chance to show just what that half time pep talk could achieve. Germany was playing Brazil, two giants in the world of international football. The game was one that bewildered and excited fans almost equally on both sides of the stadium because the result was Germany 7, Brazil 1. A commentator at match’s end said of the teams: “they (Germany) looked like a team that had all bought into the same philosophy, whereas Brazil looked like a group of people that had never played together before.”
A challenging summary for a match where people were expecting drama from two giant teams of almost equal ability, to produce some of the most spectacular fireworks of the competition.
Now, I’m no football fan, I’d be the first to admit not having a clue as to what is so alluring about the sport for others, but I watched that match and I learnt a lot from it about how people could or wouldn’t learn to walk together. In the gospel reading this morning, we find Jesus taking his disciples aside, away from the crowds, the demands and the controversies of his life, to give them a half time pep talk. They were taken aside and he explained to them the tactics and strategies of team heaven for the second half. It was not easy listening. The disciples had their heads turning, half looking to the pitch they’d come from, half concerned with their own ego, only vaguely attached to the words their master was trying to get them to hear. And we know that happened because as they journeyed on to the next place, the friends argued about who was the number 1 shirt, and whose personality deserved the camera interview after the match. Jesus was silent.
They were at that moment acting like Brazil had done in the 2014 match. They were all over the place, like a group of people that had ‘never played together before,’ interested in only serving themselves for their own gain, totally missing the point that the team had a task to achieve together, and that was to score the goal of seeing scripture fulfilled and the task of Jesus the servant made complete.
In desperation Jesus called them together again. And we have another episode on the side line. The one we know so well where Jesus takes a little child and places her among them. Only we are reading Mark’s version this time (last time we came across this it was Luke’s version, told as a paraphrase), and the words continue their stark, slightly underground tone of speech. Mark refers to the child as an it, the poor thing. And in Mark’s version she is merely an object for the purpose of telling the story. So Mark the writer, also, didn’t quite figure the pep talk Jesus was about to give quite so successfully either.
Jesus focuses his team on the serving, united dynamic they need to achieve together. His words tell them to welcome these little ones, because in doing so they will welcome him, and if they welcome him, they will welcome the one who sent him; a long-hand way of saying such humility is the place of meeting Godself.
He was retelling the words of how he would be handed over, become one who was powerless, voiceless, wrongfully convicted and killed, that this was his act of humility of reaching down to those who matter from a place of security and joining with them. And he was telling them to be ready to do likewise, that this was the stuff the gospel was made of, where amazing things of goodness could come about simply by showing kindness even where kindness wasn’t merited. And a child could signify that for them.
The disciples were all gathered around. The child placed in the middle. The apparently great minds of his followers, finally drawn to a single point of attention, away from the playing field, away from themselves, dragged, unwillingly to a tiny scrap of humanity set before them. An unexpected leader, an example of the task to be done, not in what she could do but in what she was. Finally, there was the catalyst to bring the team together, to shock them into knowing what it was they were actually standing for. And behind the child, with his hands on her shoulder, was their master. Their eyes surprised at this tiny creature in front of them, having heard the words, were now drawn up, following the hand on the shoulder, then the arm, until they rested upon the face of their leader. Finally, he had their attention. Finally, they had the chance to be the team. Finally they look as though they have learnt that divesting themself to honour the other, would get the job done and fulfil the great task ahead of them.
The pep talk completed with looks with the eyes rather than words, Jesus dismissed the little girl with a squeeze of her shoulder. The disciples were ready to rejoin the pitch.
Eventually those disciples would share their mutual task, see themselves as all leaders by not demanding to be the lead and their play on the pitch of society’s story of faith became much more like the actions of Germany in that old old football match from 2014.
Knowing, together, what we are about and moving as one unit, the effects of such a thing are unstoppable. Setting aside our own fickle fancies and picking up the task of having space to include a voiceless one, perhaps we too might find our sight drawn up a loving arm to rest upon the face of Jesus and know, from his look, that we had got it right, and play out the next half of our game of faith on the great pitch of our society today, as those who had all bought into the same philosophy, that of the ultimate humility of divesting ourselves, and our spaces, and our interests, for the sake of giving a place to someone who may not yet be among us.
The too long didn’t read of all this is: the goal we need to score is to bring life, not for ourselves, but for someone else.