Mark 10:35 45 Matt Mardis-LeCroy Des Moines, IA October 18, 2015 Every Story Matters I. There is something I just need to get off my chest this morning. Right here, right now, with all of you as my witnesses, I want to say one thing: I was into hobbits before hobbits were cool. Before Peter Jackson, before Elijah Wood and Ian McKellan, Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett before Hollywood got a hold of the hobbits it was just me and my friends: Acne-speckled twelve-year old boys. We collected of comic books, we played Dungeons and Dragons, we avoided direct sunlight. And the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien felt like our little secret, like an exclusive club to which the wider world would never be invited. i I remember one weekday evening. I had been on the couch since late morning at least home sick from middle school, I guess. I had plunged into The Return of the King and now no force in heaven or on the earth could drag me from its pages. I was wholly absorbed. The thought that a movie producer might come along, might wrench these precious words out of my hands and make them into some summer blockbuster might reduce this poetry to a popcorn and Milk Duds special effects showcase it would have broken my heart. Reading Tolkien was a private little pleasure; to see this story on the big screen would have seemed a sacrilege. It isn t hard to see why Tolkien held so much appeal to someone like me. Back in middle school,
I was I m not really sure what the word is like, the opposite of popular? Whatever that is, that was me. Insignificant. Overlooked. Far from the center of things. Of course Tolkien appealed to me and to my friends. There s something subversive about his work, about his world. Middle Earth is fantasy and it abounds in all of the usual accoutrements: orcs and elves, dwarves and dragons, swords and sorcery. It s all there. But then there are the hobbits a small people, a quiet people. Insignificant. Overlooked. Far from the center of things. The opposite of popular. But in the end, the hobbits hold the key to the whole story. They save the day. The hobbits matter most of all. It is deeply subversive and deeply Christian. J.R.R. Tolkien was a good Catholic, a friend of C.S. Lewis, and he wrote out of a decidedly Christian conviction about the nature of things. God chooses the weak of this world to shame the strong. The last shall be first. Even a little hobbit can change the course of history. ii Put another way? Every story matters. II. But that means we should probably pity James and John They never read Tolkien. And they never got that memo about the last being first. They re still playing by the old rules. And this morning, they end up looking pretty bad. If the Gospel According to Mark had a subtitle, it would probably be: Disciples Behaving Badly. All this fall, we have heard these stories about the disciples missing the point, dropping the ball, crashing and burning, blowing it big time. But this morning s story may take the cake. This morning James and John fail on a truly epic scale. They try to ask for a promotion and end up with a reprimand. It all starts when James and John, after much careful planning, request a sit-down with Jesus. They step nervously into his office, take their seats, clear their throats. Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. One sentence in, and already this is going badly. We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you? My daughter is five years old. She knows better than to open with that. But there they are, James and John, just a couple of bro-ciples on their way to
the top. They re seeking a promotion, angling for the corner offices. They want to be bigshots. Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory. Jesus seems sad, and maybe a little amused. You don t what you re asking, he says. You don t know what this would cost you. And then Jesus says something strange. To sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. Who matters most? Who will rise to the top? Who gets the corner office? Nobody knows. Not even Jesus. Nobody knows who matters most because they story isn t over. The story isn t over yet. Well, word gets around about James and John. (Office gossip always does). Everybody s grumpy. Everybody s angry with James and John. So Jesus orders everybody into the breakroom and makes a motivational speech. You know how it is, out there, in the world. Bosses and bigshots lord it over everybody else. But that is not the way it will work among you. In this organization, whoever wants to be great should become a servant; whoever wishes to be first should be a slave. That is the path that I m on, says Jesus. And I expect you to follow. The story isn t over yet. We don t know who matters most. Your best bet is to serve everyone, pay attention to everyone. Until we know any different, assume that every story matters. III. What does this have to do with evangelism? Everything. So far this fall, we have focused on evangelism here at Plymouth Church. And I have found these conversations to be rich. It feels like something new is happening around here, something exciting. Together, we have seen how evangelism means knowing and sharing our own stories;
noticing and narrating God s work in our own lives. We have been invited to take the risk of telling somebody else a bit of our own story. And we have seen the significance of other people s stories. We are called to hear them, to hold them sacred, to be blessed by them. Sometimes other people s stories hold the key to our own. Sometimes other people s stories become God s good gift to us. But whose stories? Whose stories will we hear? Which stories will get our time and attention? Isn t that the tricky part? It is for me. I mean, if I am honest, I have to admit that I tend to seek out stories that reassure me instead of stories that challenge me. You know what I mean. I gravitate toward the stories of people who share my outlook and validate my assumptions. I seek out the cable news channel that reinforces my opinions. I cherish theologians who will go to great lengths to tell me the truth I already know. iii When it comes to seeking out the stories of others, I am selective. Maybe even discriminating. I like what I like, and I ignore the rest. But what if Jesus is right? What if we do not know which stories matter most? What if we can t be sure who gets the corner office in the kingdom of God? What if every story matters? What will we do then? IV. It s not a rhetorical question. I think I have an answer. If every story matters, what will we do? What can we do? We can be the church. By the grace of God, we can try to be the church. All along, we have been talking about evangelism as if it is something foreign to Plymouth Church, something other kinds of Christians might do. But over the course of the last six weeks, I have had a conversion experience of my own. I have come to believe that evangelism is right up our alley. Or at least, it should be, if we mean what we say. Because it all depends on one little word:
Welcome. No matter who you are, no matter where you are on life s journey, you are always welcome here. We say that every time we gather for worship. If any one value defines us if Plymouth Church has a warm and beating heart it is this notion that all are welcome. But you know, sometimes I wonder if we mean it. All are welcome? OK. But when I look around this room this morning, it seems to me that a lot of us are a lot alike. Not all of us, but most of us, share the same race, the same social class, the same education level. And so the stories we have to share with each another I believe these stories are real, these stories are sacred, these stories are powerful. But these stories are also a lot alike. I don t know about you, but I think I would be better off I think I could really grow in love of God and neighbor if I spent more time listening to the stories of people who are less like me. And I know Plymouth would be more welcoming more true to its own best instincts if we all started attending to the stories of other people. Because, at the end of the day, there is only one reason to be a welcoming church. There is only reason to be an inclusive church. And it s not because we are tolerant. It s not because we are oh-so open minded. It s because we are limited limited by the lives we have led, limited by the experiences we have had, limited by so many stories we have heard from so many people who are so much like us. Every story matters. And if Plymouth will become the church God is calling it to be if I will ever be the person God is calling me to be we will need to hear a lot more stories from a lot more people who are a lot less like us. If we are going to be welcoming, we will have to be evangelizing. If all are welcome, then every story matters.
Plymouth Congregational Church United Church of Christ 4126 Ingersoll Avenue Des Moines, Iowa 50312 Phone: (515) 255-3149 Fax: (515) 255-8667 E-mail: mmardis-lecroy@plymouthchurch.com Notes i And they still do, actually. I doubt anybody is going to make a big screen version of The Simillarion anytime soon. ii There is a lot of writing about the deeply Christian vision of J.R.R. Tolkien. For this sermon, I drew on the work of John Carswell, which can be read here: http://truemyths.org/2015/07/31/concerning-tolkiens-faith-pt-2-ofinsignificant-hobbits/ iii Telling the truth we already know is Robert Dykstra s definition of boring preaching. Discovering a Sermon: Personal Pastoral Preaching. (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2002).