Diocese of Tennessee Convention January 21, 2023
Matthew 18:1-6
St. David’s Church, Nashville
The Right Rev Brian L Cole
Who is the greatest?
The disciples are asking Jesus this question as it relates to the Kingdom of Heaven. In asking him the question, we are left with the impression that they believe Jesus can give them the answer. In the Kingdom of Heaven, they believe Jesus will be in the know. Tell us, then, Jesus, who is the greatest?
The question, in its most generic form, is one that is constantly asked, from generation to generation, across art and sport and film and literature. As humans, we cannot help ourselves.
We want to see the rankings, the pecking order, who makes All-State, who makes the Best Of for the year or the decade or, okay, let’s go there, all time. Who is the GOAT, the Greatest of All Time?
When I was a child, the boxer, Muhammed Ali, was the GOAT, the Greatest of All Time. I even had a comic book to prove it.
In the Spring of 1978, an oversized comic book was published which featured Muhammed Ali versus Superman. Long story short, Muhammed Ali defeats Superman in a boxing match in outer space where Superman’s superpowers are negated. Then, after the match, they team up to save the Earth. All’s well that ends well.
For Ali, however, being the Greatest came at the expense of his body. The very things that made people call him Great ended up causing irreversible damage to him, with his body and brain marking the score forever.
The disciples ask Jesus about greatness. In asking about greatness, they situate it in the Kingdom of Heaven. Throughout the Gospel of St. Matthew, we hear Jesus proclaim the inbreaking and the arrival and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
This place, this process, these series of events which Jesus speaks of tell us of God’s Reign on earth. Jesus enters an upside-down world and begins to tell his followers there is another world, another way, another Rule coming. With Jesus’ arrival, it is here, and it is growing, even when we cannot see it.
Still, the disciples, who have been with Jesus and heard his preaching and teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven, they simply can’t help themselves. Even in this new world, this new Kingdom, the God of Israel, known most fully to us in Jesus Christ, must have a ranking system, a seating chart, the greatest. In that world, how do we recognize the powerful?
Have the disciples not been listening to Jesus? Throughout the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are told that the story of God, inhabited and taught by Jesus, requires us to be surprised with how God moves in the world.
From the very beginning of the Gospel, we are told of the arrival of Jesus from the line of Joseph. From that lineage, we hear names of people with complicated pasts, with outsider status, with the unlikeliest of resumes to lead to the Messiah.
Jesus surprises us by being baptized by John. Shouldn’t the greater baptize the lesser? Then who is great and who is less? Are we keeping score? How does God keep score?
In the wilderness, Jesus is tempted with greatness, with the kind of greatness that the Empire would recognize. To these enticing but false kinds of power and greatness, Jesus says no, no, no.
In calling early followers, Jesus seems to collect the most unlikely candidates. This is greatness? This is the Kingdom come down?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reframes everything and returns it to the people. “You have heard it said, but I say.” He taught them, not by showing them his credentials, but by the authority in his voice, in his body.
In parables, in healings, in calling new followers, in sending out the disciples, on land and on sea and on a mountain Transfigured, Jesus continues to proclaim the Kingdom and the Kingdom continues to appear unlike any kind of Empire or Movement where power and authority and rule and greatness have ever been expressed elsewhere.
Yet, by the Eighteenth Chapter of the Gospel, the disciples ask the age-old question again? “How will things be ranked and graded in the Kingdom? Who is first? Who is preferred?
So, he tells them again that the Kingdom of Heaven is unlike any earthly Empire which aspires for power and greatness in the ways we have always and to this very day assess it.
Who is greatest in the Kingdom? The very ones you consider the weakest, the least, the ones not seen. How does he show them this new picture of greatness? He places a child in the middle of their circle. In the center of God’s reign, there is a child, a person without strength or influence or standing. This is how God sees greatness.
Today, the Church remembers St. Agnes. We remember her as a child, possibly 12 or 13 years old. A resident of Rome, she was martyred during the Diocletian persecution. Why does an Empire fear a child, an innocent? If you believe you are all powerful, what kind of power exactly are you wielding if you must destroy the weak?
While we remember St. Agnes today, it is not just her story worth remembering. Whenever Empires rise in our world, why is it that children, and especially young girls, end up being destroyed for the powers that be to prove their greatness?
In showing the disciples a child and proclaiming her to be the face of greatness, Jesus is recentering the world. Whenever an Empire rises and believes true power is wielded by violence and that people are as much instruments and tools as they are children of God, then the Way of Jesus is mocked.
Jesus does more than place a child in their midst and say this is greatness. He also invites, or rather commands, his disciples to be transformed and become like children. Start over, let go of what you think you know about the world and power and greatness and rank.
Become a child, a student, an innocent. Unlearn fear and hate, as the poet Frank X. Walker, has written. Rather, by following Jesus, by accepting your status as a child of God as your true rank, learn the real power of grace and love and mercy and being reconciled, both to God and to God’s creation.
Today, we remember St. Agnes and that the Empire martyred her, a child, who knew herself to be one who followed the Way of the Lamb. The Empire destroyed her, believing what is weak and innocent and childlike is not great and, therefore, not worthy of honor and care. That Empire is no more.
Yet, other empires have risen since that continue to believe greatness is protected by violence and that children are a commodity, things that can be used. Not only children, but anyone who is considered weak can be used, exploited, treated without dignity and respect.
When we baptize, every time we baptize, every time we renew the baptismal covenant, we say no to the Empire, we reject the belief that people can be things, be instruments used by others. In baptism, we profess that the greatest identity any of us can aspire to is to be a child of God. And that identity is given to us by God. We do not achieve it or compete for it. By God’s grace, we are given it.
Today, you and I live in a political climate that celebrates cruelty and coarseness. We live in a political climate that looks more like gladiator than good governance, more like civil war than civil discourse. It borders on the demonic.
You and I, through our baptisms, are called to be countercultural. We are called to be different, to be transformed, to take on the mind of a beginner disciple, always growing, never done.
My prayer for you is that you all will seek greatness.
My prayer is that you all will continue to seek the greatness found in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Become as a child, be transformed and changed.
Then, as transformed and changed people, live as countercultural contemplatives, who never forget that empires come and go.
What endures, what remains always, what is emerging even more just now, is the Kingdom of Heaven. Continue to live there. Seek its greatness and welcome all, especially those who do not matter in the eyes of the Empire.
If we welcome those who do not matter in the eyes of the Empire, then the renewal of the Church will never ever be in doubt.
Arise, my love, my child, and come away.