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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2024b

Old Testament – Proverbs 16:1-3, 16-19, 32-33 

New Testament – Mark 9:30-37


 

Totem Pole Living 

 

As many of you might recall, in the 1800s frontier men and women were pushing their way west across the US. 

 

Because of the demands and dangers associated with such a trek, the people who made it were a different breed, to say the least. They were a hardy, rugged, coarse, and determined lot.  

 

And apparently, as a way to cope with the dangers and hardships of the American frontier, people engaged in the art of bragging to show their toughness. Why, there are even written accounts of people gathering to hold bragging and lying contests!   

 

 “I was born full-growed with nine rows of jaw teeth and holes bored for more,” one man is reported to have bragged. “They was spurs on my feet and a rawhide quirt in my hand…When I feel cold and lonesome, I sleeps in a den of rattlesnakes. The Grand Canyon ain’t nothing but my bean hole.”

 

And as it turns out, our own Davy Crockett was actually considered to have been one of the better braggarts to have existed. Just listen to one of his more flamboyant and stylized self characterizations: 

 

“I am a real ringtailed roarer of a jawbreaker, from the thunder and lightning country down east. I make my breakfast on stewed Yankee and pork steak, and, by way of digestion, rinse them down with spike nails and Epsom salts […] I can out-eat, out-drink, out-work, out-grin, out-snort, out-run, out-lift, out-sneeze, out-sleep and out-lie anything in the shape of a man or a beast, from Maine to Louisiana.”

 

Well, how’s that for some bragging! Is it any wonder, after losing an election for congress to Adam Huntsman, a lawyer with a wooden leg, Crockett would famously remark: “Since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.”

 

ONE: And while bragging might have been especially prominent in the 1800s as people pushed west across our rapidly expanding nation, that was hardly the first time in history folks were known to brag.

 

Nope. Humans, it turns out, have always engaged in the practice in some form or other. Why, there is even an ancient Greek play called Alazon, written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, which in English means The Braggart. 

 

And then, of course, there are Jesus’ disciples. As they travel around ancient palestine with him, they eventually get into a discussion one day about who is the greatest. Keep in mind the disciples are having the conversation despite the fact Jesus had just told them at the end of chapter 8 that anyone who wishes to follow him must deny themselves and take up their cross. 

       

And yet, there are the disciples engaging in their own bragging contest. I can hear Simon Peter now, who was, of course, not shy about making big proclamations as long as things were going smoothly:

 

“I am the biggest, baddest, toughest fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. I don’t even need to use a net because the tilapia, barbels, and sardines just willingly jump into my boat. And no boat is faster or prettier than mine either. Why, I can out-fish, out-skin, out-clean, out-cook, out-sell, and out-sail anyone in the shape of a man from Egypt to Babylon!” 

 

The other disciples, no doubt, then chimed in with their own proclamations about their unmatched abilities and skills. “Yeah? Well, I am the best farmer this side of Edom. I can plow a field without an ox and my wheat is the tallest, healthiest, best looking, and most nutrient rich for hundreds of miles.” On and on it no doubt went.           

 

TWO: Well, Jesus, after overhearing their conversation, gathers his followers together for yet another lesson about the true nature of discipleship.

 

Knowing they’ve been arguing about who is the greatest, Jesus sits them down and says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

 

And then taking a child into his arms he concludes, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”           

 

While such remarks to us might sound like quaint words of wisdom, to his followers they were shocking and disturbing stuff. In the ancient world children were about as low on the social scale as one could get. In fact, the only group that ranked lower than children were slaves. 

 

While we tend to keep a watchful eye on our children, and in some cases even mollycoddle them, in the ancient world children were basically seen as property.

 

Today, in our world, children, fortunately so, are protected by assorted laws and even have various rights. There are laws to protect children from abuse, working too much, and to make sure they’re properly educated. 

 

But in ancient Palestine, that was far from being the case. Children were closer to being like cattle than people with rights.

 

And ironically enough, according to Jesus that’s where his disciples are to find true greatness. It’s not in striving for worldly recognition like we might expect, but rather in seeking to become lowly and meek like children. 

 

The preaching professor David Buttrick draws the following rather hard and frank conclusion from Jesus’ teaching on the matter: “Disciples [of Jesus],” writes Buttrick “should give up striving for social status and become like children, who have no social status.”

    

THREE: There is a story about Paul Cezanne and his great humility despite eventually becoming one of the world’s most famous painters.  

 

Apparently, as often happens with painters, Cezanne spent the first 35 years of his career living in total obscurity. Unbeknownst to the world, Cezanne was producing one masterpiece after another, which he unwittingly gave away to friends and neighbors who were just as clueless regarding what had been bestowed upon them. 

 

But since Cezanne simply loved painting for painting’s sake, and since doing it to achieve recognition and fame was the farthest thing from his mind, he just kept right on painting totally oblivious to the fact that he would one day be considered the father of modern painting.    

 

The fact that Cezanne would eventually become famous for his paintings is reportedly due to a Paris art dealer who, after coming across several of the obscure painter’s works, gathered them together into an exhibit.

 

And so on the opening night of the exhibit, Cezanne arrived with his son to gaze in amazement at a gallery full of people captivated by his paintings. But what really struck Cezanne the most was what the Paris art dealer had done to his paintings. Turning to his son, he reportedly said, “Look, they even framed them!”

 

FOUR: In 1941 the American humorist and journalist H. Allen Smith released a book called Low Man on a Totem Pole. The idiom had actually been created by an American comedian named Fred Allen a few years earlier, who used it as part of his standup routine.  

 

But it was Smith’s book, which eventually sold more than a million copies, that helped turn “low man on the totem pole” into a well known and popular colloquialism. For us, of course, “low man on the totem pole” refers to someone who is stuck at the bottom of the pecking order. Often used in business settings, to say someone is the “low man on the totem pole” is to mean they are of low rank and probably don’t have a whole lot of power or decision making authority.         

 

Presumably, Allen created the phrase because he assumed the carvings at the top of a totem pole were considered to be of more value and then those at the bottom. Thinking there was a linear progression to totem poles, he concluded the carvings higher up were more important than lower ones. And to those of us reared in western ways of thinking, the assumption makes perfect sense. As far as we’re concerned, it’s better to be on top rather than on the bottom in various aspects of life!          

 

But the indigenous peoples in the northwest pacific who actually make totem poles even today, well, claim Allen got it all wrong. While totem poles are culturally rich and mean assorted things across different communities, for many the carvings at the bottom of the poles are actually seen as more important than the ones at the top.

 

First, the bottoms of trees, of course, are wider than the top, so the carvings at the bottom are actually bigger. Second, the best carvers usually do the ones at the bottom of the pole since their work is the most visible, while those who are learning, get the ones at the top. And finally, given that some poles can be over 30 meters tall, the ones at the top can be hard to see sometimes. So why in the world would you want the most important carving at the top?

 

So when it comes to totem poles, it’s actually the opposite of what we’ve tended to think. Being at the top isn’t the favored position, it turns out, but rather being at the bottom.       

 

CONCLUSION: Well, we hear how some indigenous peoples actually understand totem poles, and it’s easy for some of Jesus’ teachings to pop back into mind, I think. 

 

After all, Jesus also has a funny way of thinking about what’s really important in the end.   

 

For him, it’s not getting that matters, but giving. It’s not being served that’s important, but serving. And it’s not being first that counts the most, but, as odd as it might sound, being last. And maybe, just maybe, he might agree it’s not being at the top of a totem pole, but rather at the bottom of it.  

 

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.

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