“Greatness,” by Rev. Dr. Jay Marshall Groat, September 22, 2024, at Mount Vernon, Ohio, based on Mark 9: 30-37

I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ll mention it again. I don’t write sermons. I prepare them, and I create them. There’s a blessing to that, and I don’t know if it’s a curse, but there’s two sides to that coin. One of the challenges for me in the way I prepare a sermon is that I’m never really done until now. I’ve got my notes. And one of the blessings for me, spending all these years preparing sermons, it’s not just the sermon, it’s also that I think about these things. I wonder. That word “wonder” has become so important to me. I think one of the most important, and one of the most sacred, and one of the most holy things for you to do is wonder about this stuff. We can walk through life, no matter where we are, and be wondering about these things.

So, I’ve been wondering a lot this week about what greatness is. What is greatness in the eyes of God? What is greatness in the eyes of Christ? How do you become a great Christian? Doesn’t that seem a little paradoxical? How do we do this? So I looked up a word. I asked my computer what greatness is. You know about this Internet thing, right? What is greatness? Here’s one definition that I came up with. It’s not altogether satisfying to me, but the last line is the one that I like the most.

What is greatness? “Greatness can be defined as the quality or state of being important, notable, distinguished, powerful, large in size, stature, number or skill.” Eh, OK. “It is a term that gives the impression that someone or something is superior or better than others.” Eh, OK. “Someone who has greatness distinguishes themselves from others, sets themselves apart and is truly eminent in their field.” OK. Now here’s the one I like the most. “Greatness is the quality that radiates from the inside out when someone is honoring their values and living a life of purpose.” I like that one. Greatness is the quality that radiates from the inside out. That’s the one I think we all can do. Radiate – what Jesus was talking about in terms of greatness.

Jim Taylor, Ph.D., is a fairly well-known motivational speaker. He works with famous athletes and other significant leaders, and he has written an article entitled, “How to Find Your Own Personal Greatness.” He says we all should try to find our own personal greatness. He lists some things at the end of the article, and I just want to walk through them with you. He says, “Achieving your own personal greatness boils down to being passionate and committed, because a lot of striving for your own personal greatness is boring, monotonous, tiring and painful, so you have to want it bad. You have to be patient, knowing it will take a long time, and be willing to stick with it until you’ve achieved your goals or come close. You have to be persistent. Just keep grinding away. You have to have perseverance, hanging touch in the face of setbacks. Resilience – accepting as a fact the inevitable failures you will experience along the way. And lastly, be relentless, setting your eyes on the prize and never wavering and striving toward your dreams.” It all sounds pretty darn exhausting to me. I like this notion of us discovering the great piece of Christ that we have inside of us and we radiate that. I think that’s greatness.

I’m going to read a couple things that my Bible commentator said. I love this part. The first thing that my favorite commentator says is this – “This episode shows the disciples’ incredible lack of perception.” He’s feinting here, that’s a very accurate way of saying that the disciples are being clueless. They have no concept of what’s happening around them in this particular episode. Jesus is preparing for the big end that’s coming and they’re arguing behind his back as to who is the greatest.

Now, about this child. “Jesus, in order to illustrate to the disciples what greatness is, takes a child from a household into his arms and tells the disciples that those who receive the child receive Jesus, and those who receive Jesus receive God.” Now, hear this. “The shocking element in this episode cannot be appreciated by modern readers.” That’s you and me, we’re the modern readers. We have a hard time appreciating this because, quote, “our social conventions have exalted childhood as a privileged time of innocence, and this romantic view is usually imported into these passages. However, the child in antiquity” – in Jesus’ time – “was a non-person. Children should have been with women, not hanging around a teacher and his male students.” This is shocking to the disciples. Of all the things that Jesus is saying – you want to be great? Be like this non-person. Couple more quotes. “This example treats the child, who is socially invisible, as the stand-in for Jesus, and in this passage in Mark the lesson about hospitality to the lowly is directed toward the disciples.”

Great. Greatness. What is it? It was the early 2000s, and I was serving a church in Akron, and I was asked to participate, with the University of Akron, in an event called Make a Difference Day. A bunch of universities throughout the United Stateshad picked the same day, they picked about six weeks out, and they organized Make a Difference Day. We did a bunch of mission projects on that day, and I participated. After Make a Difference Day some of us were invited to Columbus for a banquet, which was a lunch, to celebrate all these universities coming together to celebrate Make a Difference Day. And so I went, and I traveled down by myself, I was going to meet some people there. It was a big event, hundreds of people, I forget the hotel, in Columbus. I was taking an escalator up to where the banquet was, and I got to the top, and a guy walking along this way looked at me, smiled and said hello, and I said hello, and he kept walking, and I said to myself, “That’s Jim Tressel.” Now if you don’t know who Jim Tressel is, he had for a time the most important, powerful position in the state of Ohio. (laughter) He was head football coach at Ohio State, walking by himself. I said to myself, “I just said hello to Jim Tressel.” It gets better.

I went in, and I was at one of the tables in the front because the president of the University of Akron was part of our party. My seat was right there, the president of the University of Akron was right there, and sitting right there was Jim Tressel. I got to have lunch with Jim Tressel. This week I was wondering about greatness. I’m here to tell you, he was so down to earth, so friendly. He asked me a bunch of questions about me. Does anybody know the baseball player Al Oliver? He was at the table too. For those of you who don’t know, he was a famous Major League baseball player, played for the Pirates. Pirates are good, Steelers are bad. I got to talk with Al Oliver about my hero. I got to ask him questions about Roberto Clemente. Jim Tressel and Al Oliver, I’m focusing on Jim Tressel. I couldn’t wait to go home and tell Vicki that I had lunch with Jim Tressel. I know what I said to her. She said, “What was he like?” And I said – what did I say? He was great.

I don’t have a definition of greatness that I really like, but I know what a great friend is, because I’ve got some, and I know you do too. And I know what a great wife, what a great partner is. And I know what a great son is. And I know what a great church is. Greatness. I want to finish with this, I’ve read it before, I’ll read it again, and it’s by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s part of my funeral service, but it’s really for the living. And he ends by saying, I’m going to read that line but I’m going to change it a little for today. Ralph Waldo Emerson – “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the acknowledgment of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to give oneself; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is greatness.” Amen?