Worth dying for

 Mark 9:30-37

Today, we are mostly going to follow my train of thoughts, from one idea to another, and round-about to the beginning again. It all focuses on value, on worth. I hope you can follow, and not get derailed along the way.

… Jesus and the disciples are walking back to Capernaum from Caesarea Philippi after Peter says out loud what they are all thinking: “Jesus is the Messiah.” As they walk along, Jesus continues to teach them. He makes up parables, they laugh and joke about some situation, and some of the time Jesus teaches the hard stuff.

The text here in English is a progressive verb – he was teaching – the teaching is ongoing. He tells them many times that he will suffer, die, and rise again. But, they struggle to understand. Of course, they have never known anyone who was raised from the dead, so it’s the farthest thing from their minds that it would be possible.

They would rather think about power and glory. They begin to plan who will be the leader of the group when Jesus is gone – they are thinking about the succession plan. Which of them is more important, who has more value, Peter or John or James?

This question leads to arguments, and Jesus overhears them. So, when they are alone, he teaches them a lesson. He sees a child, picks them up, and cuddles them, then says, “When you welcome a child in my name, you welcome me, and when you welcome me, you welcome God who sent me.”  

… We often hear that children “back in the day” were not valued, they were chattel. But, over and over again there are scripture stories of the value placed on children: Isaac, Samuel, David. Over and over again, Jesus heals children. Instead of value-less, this child is precious, yet innocent, not yet affected by the worries of adulthood.

…So, following my train of thought about the value of people, I wondered: what IS the value of a human life? I did a little research and here are some of the results:

-      Chemically, we are worth about $576 in oxygen, carbon, calcium, and so forth.

-      If we were to sell our individual body parts, heart, lungs, bone marrow, and so forth, we are worth up to $45 million, depending on the condition of the tissue being sold. Most of us in this room are probably worth a lot less!

-      Economics calls it the VSL, the value of a statistical life. VSL is used in risk analysis – at what point is the loss of life higher than the cost of saving a life? For example, how much more does it cost to add a beep to the car to remind people to wear their seat belt, compared to how many lives are saved. In the US, the Value of a Statistical Life is around $7.2 million.

-      We value wealth, and most of us seek to have more wealth tomorrow than we have today. Oprah Winfrey is more valuable than I am, because she has megabucks, and I don’t.

-      We value political influence, so the President of the US, the Bishop of the Synod, even the head of your HOA, has more value because they have been granted more power.

-      Some people are more valuable because of physical ability, so Simone Biles, Usain Bolt, Caitlin Clark, and Babe Ruth are famous for their athletic abilities.

-      Sometimes we value age for different reasons – young people have energy and enthusiasm while elders have experience and wisdom.

… My train of thought then led me to this: How valuable do you think you are? Are you worth $546 or $7 million? Are you worth more or less than Oprah or Bishop Suarez or Caitlin Clark? Are you worth more or less than Julian or Quiana or baby Barrett, the youngest members of Gloria Dei? Mostly, we would say we are equal in value with any person, no matter how famous they are, or how much money or fame they have.

But here’s a different question: are you worth dying for? Here, we might get some resistance to the notion of having value. I’m nobody. I’m insignificant. I’m not worth dying for.

Jesus disagrees. You might remember last week when I said Jesus is God who came to earth for a time to tell us in God’s own words how much God loves us and how readily God forgives us.

Jesus intentionally gave his life so we would know the depth of God’s love for each person, the depth of God’s love for ourselves. The choice of Jesus Loves Me as one of our songs today is very intentional, because we need to hear for ourselves, often, that Jesus does indeed love us, that he loves us today as much as he did when we were children singing that same song. So, simply because we are beloved children of God, we have value. We are worth dying for.

… This week, I hope you will spend some time thinking about the idea that you are worth dying for. Is that easy or hard for you? And then, consider how everyone else is also worth dying for. Does that affect how you think of your neighbors?

I try to include a challenge for you each week, a practical way of living out the gospel, or the sermon. Please tell me the stories about what happens when you spend time pondering them.