GOD IS SOMETIMES A SURPRISE!

It is now football season, and so on the sports pages of the newspaper, we are presented with endless projections about who will be the best of the best.  Eden Prairie High School was, until last night, ranked among the top tier of teams in the state of Minnesota – again.  And then the Eagles got blown out by Lakeville.  That wasn’t supposed to happen, not that way.  Nobody saw that result coming.  And last week the Vikings were significant favorites to beat Cincinnati – until they didn’t – again.  And it’s far too late to talk about baseball now, and our Twins who were predicted last spring to win the division and head to the playoffs, but who have been at or near last place since May.

It can all cause an interesting question, and not the one we may first think of asking.  The question may not be, “What’s wrong with these teams?” But rather, “What’s wrong with these self-appointed experts who presume to rank them in the first place?”  Who are these sage predictors, and why does anybody listen to them?

And this isn’t just a question for sports.  Every month, for example, we get statistics about economics, like jobless rates, unemployment, and inflation.  And they are always better, worse, or about on target for what was “expected.”  Well, expected by whom? And on what basis?  Who is the presumed treasurer of all this alleged wisdom?  Or in politics.  People make whole careers and media make whole enterprises out of ranking who is going to win elections or what people in general think about issues.  And they are demonstrably wrong a whole lot of the time.  Who are these people?

And every entrepreneur stakes his/her business decisions on the belief that consumers are going to want or need what he or she has to offer in the market.  How do they know?  And why are they also so often just wrong?

At least one thing is common to all of the above, namely, a false confidence in a wisdom that they don’t really possess.  Football coaches don’t know who’s going to get injured or over-matched by an opponent.  Baseball coaches don’t know which players are simply overrated.  Economists can’t predict the effects of a pandemic, either before or during it.  Pollsters don’t know who will actually show up to vote in an election. Business people can’t be sure what products or services people may want a year from now. 

In all cases, it’s a symptom of presuming to know too much, and then to issue predictions about the future on that basis. How many times do we have to be proven to have been mistaken in our presumptions before we change the question from “What’s wrong with them?” to “What’s wrong with me?”  Certainly we humans have been given the precious gift from God of intelligence and discernment, but that very gift can cross over into pride and arrogance relatively quickly if we are not self-aware enough and humble enough to recognize the danger in that.  Those who make their living by ranking and predicting outcomes are at particular risk of this.

All of which brings us to the gospel today.  It’s a follow-up to last week’s gospel, in which Jesus tells Peter to “get behind me Satan.”  The Apostles were all prognosticators of a sort.  They all knew that God would be sending a Messiah into the world.  To that extent they were correct, but they couldn’t leave it at that.  They also knew just what that Messiah would be like – how grandiose and powerful he would be, how “great” in human terms.  And by extension, how “great” would be his chosen ones.

They knew no such thing, and they didn’t know what they didn’t know. In fact, they couldn’t imagine what they didn’t know – even though the subject in question here was GOD!  They presumed in advance to know what God was going to do in order to save them, and what that would demand of every follower of Jesus Christ.

So it is little wonder that Jesus’ speaking of his impending suffering, persecution, and death was met with stunned silence by The Twelve.  As Mark tells it, “They did not understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to question him.”

Of course they were.  When anybody thinks they’ve got God’s plans all figured out in advance, and then the real God shows up and does something completely differently, the result is bewilderment.  And we human beings are confronted with a couple of possible reactions:  The easy one is to say, “Where is God?” or even, “There is no God.” The harder question – but the right one, is “What needs to be challenged and changed in me/us so that we might be more open to the real God when/how God presents himself to us?”

A Messiah who must suffer and die?  Yes – unless we in our pride have already ruled that out.  Unless we confine God to meeting our pre-conceived expectations and predictions, rather than allowing Jesus to tell us what is real and true.

If we can’t even get the football rankings right, what makes us think that we’ve got God all figured out?  Although, to give some credit to the sports people, at least they change their rankings from week to week on the basis of what actually happens in the games.  Are we willing to change our notions about who and how God is like because of the things that happen before our eyes each day?  To be able to do that would be a necessary disposition in order truly to know him.

Today’s gospel presents us with a great lesson in how not to do that.  Immediately after teaching his followers about how servant leadership and discipleship involves self-sacrifice, the 12 commence with a lively debate about who among them is the greatest.  So Jesus has to say it all over again and eventually, on the cross, show it.

As a wise person once said, it is only the rigid ideologue who refuses to question his convictions on the basis of new evidence.  Here’s the new evidence – which is actually ancient:
            To be great is to be least.
            To be first is to be last.
            To be mature in faith is to welcome a child.
            To rank ourselves, others, our teams, and our commitments, is to
                        pay attention to what is actually happening, and
                        to adjust when necessary.