Sermon Cloud

Lost in Translation

          Some of you know that in 2006 I was able to go on a short term mission to a seminary in Moscow, Russia, patterned along the lines of my recent trip to Brazil.  I went to Russia with Rev. Joan Gaines of First Presbyterian in Hereford, and Rev. James Kim, both of whom most of you have met. 

          When we were in Russia our group required a translator to escort us everywhere we went, and every time we preached.  It was all complicated by the fact that we were at a seminary for Russians that was operated by South Koreans, and of course, we were all Americans.  What that meant was that although James had been born in Korea, he came to America as a very young child, so his first language is English and Korean is his second language.  And the ethnic Koreans had all been born in Russia, so Russian was their first language and Korean was their second language, too. 

         So we were behind from the beginning – the Russians – who spoke Russian - were talking to James in Korean, which was for both of them their second language.  That meant that both of them were communicating at a certain deficit just between themselves.  Then James would translate it a third time to us in English.  It was very tiring for him, and there were many times that what he said made no sense in English whatever.

          When we were in Brazil, I have told some of you that there was one memorable conversation where three of us were standing together having a conversation in three languages, but all of us were somehow able to understand:  one of us spoke English but understood a little Spanish; one of us spoke Spanish, and understood some Portuguese and a little English; and one of us spoke Portuguese, but understood a little English.  We would each speak the language that we knew well, and someone who understood us would repeat it in the language that they knew well, and eventually, everyone understood.  It helps to drink a little wine while you’re doing this.

          We even had translation computer programs where we could put a laptop on the kitchen table and carry on conversations by typing on the keyboard – and some of the translations that the machine came up with were pretty awkward.   And you should never be embarrassed about trying to communicate with someone in a different language – no matter how good you are, it will never be quite good enough.   The Brazilians even say that nobody can speak Portuguese correctly – not even them!

          This is the problem that Jesus is facing with the disciples in our text this week about the first being last, and our text last week about what it means to deny ourselves and pick up our crosses to follow him.  The disciples are just not getting it – it is lost in translation - not because Jesus is speaking to them in a different language, but because their expectations are getting in the way.

           Since the cradle, these disciples have been hearing about the advent of a conquering Messiah, a liberating king, in terms of victory and triumph – and they really don’t understand why Jesus is talking to them about betrayal, suffering, dying and being lowly servants instead of being promoted as aides to the king; and about their king saying that he is no better than a child.  They are expecting the vocabulary of triumph and instead they’re getting the vocabulary of slavery – and they don’t understand. 

          And since they don’t understand what he’s getting at, they keep talking the language of triumph about who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God, when Jesus catches them at it.  Like people who speak freely in their native tongue, assuming that no one can understand them, are sometimes unpleasantly surprised when someone they think couldn’t understand responds to their conversation, the disciples are caught, and they fall silent.

            Jesus tries to explain to them what he means when he says they have to deny themselves to follow him by saying that anyone wants to be first, must be the very last, and the servant of all.  What we 21^st century Christians need to understand is that in that culture, the servant who is the lowest, last and least is the servant who serves even the other servants, the one who must wait until everyone has eaten before he can eat.  This servant has no rights to himself at all.

            Then to emphasize the point, Jesus brings a little child into the group and compares himself to the child by saying that when we welcome children it is as though we are welcoming him – but then he complicates things again by going on to say, that when we welcome him, we are really not welcoming Jesus so much as we are welcoming God the Father. 

          Now all this time I’ve been reading and speaking in English, and still this is hard to understand, isn’t it? 

          It helps some to know that in the Greco-Roman culture of the first century – (and although Jerusalem was in Israel, it was nevertheless a Greco-Roman culture in civic and social practices) – children and servants were not considered to be persons, in the sense that they were people with rights and needs.  They were not people who were acknowledged when they walked into a room.  Both children and slaves were thought of as the property of the homeowner, like the other household furnishings.  That children were considered property of their fathers is one of the reasons the Roman culture allowed unwanted infants to be set out to die of exposure if their father did not want another child. 

          So what Jesus is saying, is that in relation to us and to his father, he has no rights in and of himself – he is, so to speak, a non-person, someone whose existence depends on the pleasure and needs of another who owns the rights to his body.  But in trying to explain this, Jesus is having to get past a huge cultural norm that no reasonable person would enter into a relationship with a non-person where there is no possibility of give-and-take, no reciprocation, no hope of social or economic advancement from the relationship. 

          Even the words, “thank you” from a non-person would have no social or relational value.  Would I  thank a table when it holds a plate for me?  Do I expect the table to thank me for allowing it to do what it was designed to do?  Of course not!

          And that is what Jesus is trying to convey:  that to imitate Jesus means to do what we were designed to do – to serve others.  To serve all others, no matter who they are, or whether they can do anything to help us in return, or whether they even think to thank us.   Denying ourselves – becoming the last servant, the servant of all – becoming like a child – means taking ourselves out of the equation; becoming a non-person in the sense of any sense of personal entitlement or personal rights.

          Boy, is that a hard thing to say to a congregation in America, home of the Bill of Rights!  But it’s easier to understand when we remember that the Bill of Rights really exists to protect the rights of other people first, and protects us only by association. 

           Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say."  It is equally true that what we don’t do is so deafening that no one wants to listen to what we have to say.  So if we want to speak the gospel, we must set aside our own expectations and serve others in a self-sacrificing language that is understood by every culture:  we must quit talking at people in a language they don’t understand, and begin showing them what the gospel means.

           In his book, The Rise of Christianity, sociologist Rodney Stark details how an small religious cult known as the “little Christs” grew in number and in influence in Greco-Roman culture “by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with urgent problems” like poverty, and homelessness through charity.  To newcomers and strangers, the Christians offered an immediate basis for attachment – not just “come to my church,” but “come to my home.”  To orphans and widows – and today we would add the divorced, unmarried and fatherless – “Christians provided a new and expanded sense of family.  To cities divided by ethnicity, Christians met in groups where people were not separated by economic class, social station, or race.  To cities faced with epidemics – they called it the plague, and perhaps we will call it swine flu – they offered effective nursing services.”[1]

           To better understand their level of commitment to showing others the gospel, we are able to read a letter written by Dionysius at the height of the second great epidemic, around the year 260.  This is what he wrote:

           “Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only others.  Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ…and when they were infected by the disease, they cheerfully accepted their pains…in nursing and curing others, transferring their death to themselves and dying in their stead..the best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, a number of presbyters, deacons and laypeople…

          “…The heathen behaved in the opposite way.  At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease.”[2]

          Another plague struck Athens about 150 years later, and another letter writer wrote that “people were afraid to visit one another…the bodies of the dying were heaped on top of the other and half-dead people could be seen staggering about in the streets or flocking around the fountains in their desire for water…” but in the mornings the Christians would go to the fountains to see if there were anyone still living among the corpses.

            We also have the third-century diary of a young girl by the name of Perpetua, one of the early Christian martyrs who was thrown into the arena, along with a small group of her friends, to be killed by wild animals.  It is fascinating reading and you can find it on-line.[3]  She kept her diary during her final weeks in prison, so we have a first-hand account of her experience and that of her friends.  She gave her diary to another friend or relative for safekeeping, and the final entries detailing her death were made by that person. 

            The thing is, Perpetua, and her slave Felicity, were only about 21 years old and both were mothers of infants.  Any Christian could have escaped death by giving in to the demand to sacrifice to the emperor and so be spared.  Yet even with much to live for, they still chose death.  The reason for their decision was not so much that they would dishonor God by denying Jesus or making a sacrifice to the emperor.  Many Christians – including clergy - during that bloody time chose to do exactly that and later received absolution (forgiveness) from the church, patterned after Jesus’ forgiveness of Peter, after Peter denied that he knew Jesus on the night before the crucifixion. 

           But the reason these young Christians decided to stay and face death is that if they were taken out of line, someone else would be moved up in their place – someone else would die, because the arena spectacle was part of the birthday celebration for the emperor’s young son, and death was the party entertainment, part of the birthday treat.  It didn’t matter who died, only that some would.  The Christians died intentionally so that others would live.[4]

          It is a compelling story, but isn’t it really just so much ancient history?  How likely is it that any of us in this room today will face such a choice with regard to our own deaths? 

          Well, in an interview given only last week, theologian and Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas pointed out that “the Romans didn’t take much notice of the Christians until their practices became an issue.”[5]  He goes on to say that it’s his opinion that “within a hundred years, Christians will be known as those odd people who don’t kill their children or their elderly.”[6]    

          Hauerwas has also suggested that the day may come when health care will have been rationed to the point that it will become a Christian witness to forego a life-prolonging treatment like a kidney transplant in order to allow someone else to receive treatment, and thus to die in their place.  Hauerwas reasons that since Christians aren’t afraid to die, and have the assurance of eternal life, it will be a witness –and a martyr’s death - to decline treatment and face an earlier death, so that someone else can  live.

          Matthew records Jesus teaching, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me…Truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”[7]  When Jesus tell his disciples – and us – to “deny ourselves” and to consider him and ourselves as the lowest and last among the slaves – he is speaking of sacrifice as a rational choice.[8] 

           It could not be any clearer – there is no form of Christianity, no denomination, no tradition, no interpretation of Scripture – where doing nothing to relieve human suffering from loneliness, abuse, hunger, poverty, sickness, addiction, ignorance or crime is an option.  And there is nothing in Scripture that teaches that merely giving money – only giving money -  is a sufficient sacrifice, or an adequate witness.  From beginning to end, Old Testament Hebrew scriptures to New Testament Greek scriptures, money is a tool to be used in relationship to God and to others.  It is good to build a building with your money – but it is better to welcome strangers in person and feed and clothe them in the building after it’s built.

           It is a good thing to use our buildings to house groups for cancer support, AA, NA and Celebrate Recovery.  It is a better thing to come alongside others by helping them get back on their feet, giving them jobs, helping them care for their children and teaching the next generation.  You have done LOGOS for 11 years – you already know this! And you know that it has absolutely nothing to do with church growth – it isn’t about membership - and everything to do with your own growth in Christ.

          And there is plenty to do – the Guymon Herald for this past Saturday listed six calls for theft or burglary, four assaults, six ambulance runs and welfare checks, and three juvenile detentions.  When you factor in that Guymon is a small, relatively quiet town in the middle of nowhere, and that these are just the problems that the police were called to – and that there is some larger exponent of all of these consequences of crime, sickness, loneliness, orphans and divorce that did not call the police – then there is plenty of work for this church to do and all of it requires our hearts, hands and feet – our individual ministries of presence.

           In the 18^th century, a young man named David Brainerd was a missionary to the American Indians in New England.  He was born in Connecticut in 1718 and died of tuberculosis at the young age of 29.  His father-in-law was the famous American preacher, Jonathan Edwards.  Like Perpetua, David kept a diary that was published after he died. 

            One of the entries in David’s diary records these words: "It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God.  God Himself could not make him happy any other way... There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God's work, doing the work that Christ did.   I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing him, and doing his whole will."

            As he neared death, David said to his father-in-law, "I do not go to heaven to be advanced but to give honor to God.   It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high seat or a low seat there.  My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His glory." 

[1] Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, (Harper Collins: San Francisco, 1966), 161.

[2] Stark 82

[3] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/perpetua.html

[4] Stark 214.

[5] Renee Huie, “A Death in the Family,” The Presbyterian Outlook, 9/21-28, 16

[6] Ibid

[7] Matthew 25:35-40

[8] Stark 163.

[9] St. Francis of Assisi