Words of Wednesday: King of the Mountain-An Ash Wednesday Reflection
While King of the Mountain is a fun game as a kid, it isn’t fun when we grow up.
The following was a sermon I preached at First Christian Church of St. Paul on Ash Wednesday 2016. I preached from Mark 9:30-37.
From second to fourth grade, I went to a Lutheran school in Flint. During Springtime at recess, we all went to the playground which was shared with a public school. I would get on the swings and run around and do what any seven-year-old should be doing at that age.
But during the winter, most of our playtime when it was outside was relegated to the back parking lot. At the corner of the lot was where they put all the snow that had been cleared. Now, back in the 1970s, we had some pretty fierce winters with a lot of snow, so there was a large mound of snow. It was perfect for us and we started to play “king of the mountain.”
No doubt, you’ve probably played this. One person would stand at the top of the mound while the rest of us would charge up the pile of snow. Most of the time the “king” would push us away. But every so often, one of us would charge up the snow pile and be able to become the new King. As kids, we loved to try to knock off the king, but we had fun being pushed and tumbling down the hill. It was fun.
While King of the Mountain is a fun game as a kid, it isn’t fun when we grow up. We become people obsessed with being on top, with having the best of everything.
In our text, Jesus tells his disciples again that he will be killed soon. But this time the disciples weren’t paying attention because they were arguing with each other. You can imagine Jesus being a little perturbed and finally asking the disciples what in the world they were talking about. They never answered him, but he already knew. He knew they were arguing about who among them was the greatest. I can imagine Jesus sighing and looking at his disciples and say “seriously?”
Jesus then picks up the child, gives them a big hug, and then tells his disciples, that if they want to be first in God’s eyes, they must be the servant of all. He then motions a child to come over, picks them up, and gives them a hug. “Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me isn’t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me.”
Some other gospels talk about becoming children, but here Jesus wants us to be servants and welcome children. We are to welcome those that might be viewed as less important because of their age or for other reasons like being poor. To be a servant, to be first in God’s Kingdom means being a servant first.
Ash Wednesday is a time when we are reminded of our finiteness and our sin. We are reminded that too often we play our own grownup version of King of the Mountain, putting more value on status than on service.
Jesus calls us to servants and through Lent we will see how the son of God, the Messiah, the king, chooses to be a servant instead of trying to get to the top of a snow pile and as well we journey together to see what the Reign of God looks like, we will hear the call to be like Christ, worried more about others than in trying to be on top of the mountain.
Funny thing about that mountain. Every spring it got smaller and smaller and then melted away. I think there’s a story there somewhere. Thanks be to God. Amen.