September 22, 2024

Proverbs 31:10-31; Mark 9:30-37

Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

Jesus and the disciples were travelling around and, I am guessing, during those travels they got to talking to pass the time. And at some point, in those conversations, and those arguments, the topic of who among them was the greatest rose to the top. Which is a little embarrassing. And we know they thought it was embarrassing because at first, they were silent about it.

It is like when you are talking about your favorite sport teams, or the best players, and you are trying to convince someone else that this was the greatest player of all time or that was the best team of all time. But in this case, the disciples were talking about themselves, about how great they were.

I doublechecked the Greek word used and it is indeed the greatest or the strongest or the eldest – elders being honored in Jewish society back then. So they were indeed arguing about who among them was at the top of the heap, at least among themselves, because I am guessing they would place Jesus above all others but now they were trying to sort out the ranks below him.

And then Jesus sprang upon them one of the reversals of common wisdom for which he became known.

He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

This advice from Jesus comes after that embarrassing episode among the disciples. The first must be last and the servant of all. On the face of it, this idea does not make any sense. Someone is the eldest, meaning the most honored. Someone is the strongest, meaning the one to be feared in battle. And of course someone is the greatest, meaning they are to be respected and followed by all the rest. You have to listen to me.

And it is worth noting that Jesus had recently told the disciples that, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” The disciples did not understand what this meant, but immediately afterwards they began to argue about which of them would be the greatest, perhaps meaning would be left in charge. They did not understand what Jesus meant by rising again, but they did understand what it would mean if Jesus was gone.

That, they could imagine.

This week we are looking at another movie, this time something a bit more recent, the 1987 film Princess Bride. For people of a certain age, this movie is extremely familiar to the point that they have memorized large sections of dialogue. But for others, it might not be as well known.

The movie is a story within a story, with a grandfather reading a book to his grandson who is home sick with a cold. The story being told is about a woman and a man, both peasants, who fall in love. The man named Wesley goes off to make his fortune but disappears. It was believed that he was killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. After five years of believing he was dead, the woman named Buttercup becomes engaged to the local prince, who is a rather unpleasant character.

The princess is then captured by three ruffians: a swordsman, a giant, and a short man who refers to himself as a genius. They were hired by the prince, spoiler, to kidnap the princess to frame a rival kingdom as an excuse to go to war. That is perhaps the least realistic part of the movie: when did a country ever need an actual excuse to go to war?

Anyway, the three men and the princess are sailing away when another boat begins to follow them. We discover this to be the Dread Pirate Roberts who tenaciously follows them across the ocean and over some mountains. The audience immediately recognizes the masked man in black to be none other than Wesley the peasant boy. And yet somehow Buttercup is unable to notice the man she loves while he is wearing a tiny mask over his eyes and not the rest of his face. The willful suspension of disbelief. Don’t mess with the premise of the story and all will be fine.

As the man in black follows the three men and the princess, the self-proclaimed genius, a man named Vizzini, is frustrated with the dogged pursuit of the man, repeatedly calling it “Inconceivable!” And after saying it a half dozen times, the swordsman, a man named Inigo, says to the genius, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Which is a funny line. It just does not happen to be true.

The definition of “inconceivable” is not capable of being imagined or grasped mentally. Something that is unbelievable. Vizzini is using the word correctly because he cannot grasp what is happening, though he most likely meant that what was happening is impossible. The actions of the man in black are inconceivable to Vizzini. He cannot believe that they are happening because, well, he is a genius and geniuses know everything.

Eventually, the man in black faces the three men. He defeats Inigo the swordsman in a duel. He somehow physically overcomes Fezzik the giant, played by Andre the Giant from American professional wrestling. And he outwits Vizzini in a deadly game of finding the poison. Two glasses of wine were presented and Vizzini had to guess where the poison was. Unfortunately for him, the poison was in both glasses. The man in black simply was immune to the effects.

Each of these successes was inconceivable in a way. Inigo had studied fencing for 20 years, dedicating his life to the day he could avenge his father who had been murdered. Fezzik was a literal giant and winning in a hand-to-hand struggle seemed a forgone conclusion. And Vizzini was a genius in his own mind, so the horizons of what he did not know remained unexplored. Each of these three had been arrogant in underestimating this stranger, the man in black. And so, in each case the result was truly inconceivable.

“The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

In the Gospels, the disciples are told by Jesus he will be betrayed, he will be killed, and he will rise from the dead. These statements are progressively less conceivable, less imaginable. In the case of the betrayal of Jesus, the disciples had come to accept Jesus as their leader, as the Messiah, the one sent by God to deliver the people from oppression. How could he ever be betrayed with God on his side? And the same could be said for his death. For how could the Messiah be killed and still be the Messiah?

How could a representative from God not triumph?

Those two prospects, betrayal and death, are hard for someone to accept. But they are not impossible. They were not impossible at that time, considering the recent arrest and execution of John the Baptist, another man thought to be Elijah reborn. Yes, they could not imagine Jesus’ betrayal and death, but that does not mean it was impossible.

But then Jesus said, “…and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” And for the disciples, that was beyond being inconceivable. For isn’t it impossible? Isn’t it impossible for someone to rise from the dead?

Now there are several instances of people being brought back from the dead in the Bible. Like the healing of lepers and making the blind able to see, these are miraculous events arising from the actions of Jesus. But in such cases, bringing people back from the dead could be seen as healing them rather than reviving them. Someone is thought to have died but may have only been at death’s door.

There is strangely an example of this in the Princess Bride in which the man in black is almost killed and seems to be dead. They visit a man called Miracle Max, played by Billy Crystal to high comic effect, who explains that nearly dead is not the same as dead. And as in the case of the many of the miracles in the Bible, I do not think it is sacrilegious to see them as stories about healing rather than stories about rising from the dead.

And that is religiously very important. Because the resurrection is unique. Jesus rising from the dead is supposed to be an unparalleled sign from God about Jesus being the Messiah. The Messiah sent not to save the people of Judea from their Roman oppression, but to save everyone. To save everyone and to reconcile the world with God. And that is a miracle without equal.

But when the disciples were faced with the betrayal, death, and resurrection of Jesus, notice what happened. They started arguing about which among them was the greatest, meaning who would be in charge after Jesus died. They heard the dying part and ignored the resurrection part. Which, to be honest, was not surprising. Because it was inconceivable.

In the Princess Bride, after the man in black is revived from near death, he joins forces with Inigo and Fezzik to save the princess who is being held against her will by the not so nice Prince Humperdink – Hey, I didn’t name the guy. Anyway, there are sixty armed men guarding the only gate into the castle. The man in black asks them what assets they have going for them. Inigo says his sword, the giant’s strength, and the man in black’s brains. But the man in black scoffs and says it is impossible, that they could never overcome those odds even with a month to plan. Ridiculous.

And then he says what might be my favorite line from the entire movie: “If only we had a wheelbarrow, that would be something!” If only we had a wheelbarrow. And it just so happens that there was a handy wheelbarrow in the prior scene. Inigo mentions, well there is a wheelbarrow. And the man in black looks at him and says derisively, “Why didn’t you list that among our assets in the first place?”

The reason I love than line is that it connects back to the repeated use of the word “inconceivable.” Remember, inconceivable means that it cannot be imagined, it cannot be believed.

That does not mean it is impossible, but it is beyond the scope of someone’s current ability to dream up, to picture. So, whenever I feel like I am stuck in a situation, I will often think back to this silly line from this silly movie. “If only I had a wheelbarrow!” If only I could think of what would make a difference. If only I had the ability to expand my imagination beyond its current limits.

There are many examples of the word inconceivable masquerading as the word impossible. Because if I cannot imagine it to be true, that means it could never be true.

It is impossible that human beings could fly.

It is impossible that we could ever walk on the moon.

It is impossible that there could ever be peace in Northern Ireland.

It is impossible that a gay couple could ever legally marry.

It is impossible that a black man could ever be president of the United States.

These are examples of past certainties that have been proven untrue. In each case the word impossible turned out to be the word inconceivable, that the people of that moment in time could not imagine it being somehow different.

Technology may eventually make liars out of us all as past impossibilities become present realities. Some of that is exciting and some of that might be terrifying. I am not thrilled at being replaced by an artificial intelligence minister, for one.

And when it comes to aspects of our culture, much of what we deem impossible is again beyond our current imagination. Peace in the Middle East or Ukraine or North Korea is impossible. Meaningful political dialogue in the United States is impossible.

For some, climate change is impossible, and for others recovery from climate change is impossible. You get extra mileage on that one as both sides cannot imagine possibilities beyond their predetermined outcomes.

I do not have a magic wand to wave around to cure diseases, to bring about peace, to avert natural disasters, or to fix the environment. But each of those problems, no matter how intractable they might seem, have avenues of possibility leading into the future.

For example, years ago, before I was born, my uncle died of a heart defect. A defect that would be treatable in the following decade. Not a simple operation, but suddenly a possibility beyond the imagination of a few years before. That was a tragic loss for my family, but technology and innovation have helped make that tragedy a thing of the past for countless families.

What about the others?

War is a mindset. It is a mindset that cannot imagine peace, but peace is nonetheless always possible. We could never make peace with the British and then we became allies. We could never make peace with the Japanese and the Germans and then we became the staunchest of friends. So, when we say that we will always be at odds with China or Russia or Cuba, we need to step back from our certainties and realize there is more to the future than the prejudgments of the past.

Climate change is a giant chemical imbalance caused by human beings that can be rebalanced with time, effort, and imagination. Give it a few million years and it will change on its own, but we are on a tighter schedule. So, it is a huge task for humanity right now, literally a global challenge. But the ways for meeting those tasks and overcoming that challenge are all around us.

It is inconceivable right now that we will all drive electric instead of gas-powered cars and that we will have charging stations enough to keep those batteries topped up. Just like it was inconceivable that gas-powered cars would ever replace horses and that asphalt highways would span thousands of miles across the United States.

The first gas station was built in 1905. In 1920, 15 years later, there were 15,000 stations in the US. And 15 years after that there were 100,000. And so, if in 30 years you can make a change from horses to cars, I am guessing in the next 30 years we could make a change from gas to electric. It is not impossible. It is simply beyond the current horizon of our imaginations.

And this expansion of imagination is far less than we are expected to undertake religiously. For the disciples who knew Jesus personally, they struggled to imagine the idea of his death and more so the possibility of his resurrection. They could not believe it.

Peter at one point even tells Jesus not to keep telling that story because frankly it was depressing everyone. That is when Jesus famously turns to Peter and says get behind me Satan. Get behind me Satan, get behind me temptation. Because for Jesus the temptation was that he would turn away from what was about to happen. His death was unavoidable because he had to be true to his ministry and to the teachings he had espoused. He could not turn away from that path because that was the only way forward.

We can chat about why another Sunday.

The disciples could only imagine a Messiah coming and kicking out the Romans because that was what they could believe in, that was what they wanted. But Jesus was not trying to free them from the Romans. Maybe because there will always be someone like the Romans.

The real goal then was to free people from something else. The temptations of sin, like anger and greed. The temptations of religion, like prejudice and intolerance. The temptations of selfishness and conceit, like pretty much most of American culture.

We must cultivate our imaginations to reach beyond the limitations of our present worries. I do not mean to suggest that any of those challenges are easily resolved. But there is a difference between the impossible and the inconceivable. And knowing that difference is the beginning of every moment of change, every moment of deliverance, every moment of salvation. Yes, Jesus challenged his disciples to believe something that was impossible. Not being Jesus, I will limit myself to suggesting that we can imagine ourselves in new places, with fresh ideas and hope for the future.

Because once we can imagine being hopeful, we have overcome the imaginary walls of the impossible. That is the ultimate gift of hope: to imagine a different world and to imagine each of us helping to make it possible.

Amen.