The Strange Road to FIRST

Well, there you are again, friends. This is Dicphoth, a story from the road and we are on the edges of a late summer afternoon thunderstorm. Perhaps you can hear that thunder rolling in the background. If you had any idea how much money I had to pay to get that sound effect. Well, nothing. Here on God's Green Earth, we get all kinds of phenomena that are amazing to hear and see and sometimes be a part of. I was thinking the other day about a time in my life when Ruth and I were in Washington, DC. It was back in the late 90s and a moment that I had when I was thinking about what it meant to be great in that town. There are a lot of people who think they are great and many of them are. But there is a passage where Jesus is talking to his disciples and he has made the turn, if you will, he is coming back from the north down through Galilee and he is heading towards Jerusalem and his death and resurrection and he has this conversation in a house and cappurnianly on the shore of the sea of Galilee. I don't know. It might have been, well, I think it was springtime. There might have been a thunderstorm in the offing. I think it probably felt a little bit like thunderstorm to the twelve who were with him because he challenges them. This is what it says in Mark 9. They came to cappurnian, verse 33, when he was in the house he asked them, what were you arguing about on the road? They had just come from this time when Peter James and John had gone with Jesus to the top of a mountain that was this glory experience, if you will. The other nine were in the valley. I don't know what they were arguing about on the road. Could have been why you and why didn't we get to go and how come you got to go? Well, I'm the oldest, I saw them first or whatever it was. They asked them what you were arguing about on the road, but they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest sitting down Jesus called the twelve and said, anyone who wants to be first must be the very last. This idea of who's the greatest came home to me when I was sitting in the late 90s in the senate dining room with the senate chaplain Richard Hauverson and some friends from the west coast, three or four friends, and at the next table there was a group of folks sitting with, I think it was Senator John McCain at the time. In the middle of our meal, they got up and left with the exception of one man, the large African-American man, powerfully built, and I had told my friends, I said, whatever you do in the senate dining room because that's not our usual place to have lunch, just try not to gawk, right? You know, that's just sort of that because there are people to gawk at, right? Anyway, this tall African-American man got up and walked behind my chair, and as you got behind my chair, one of my friends saw who it was and jumped up and stuck his hand out and said, champ, how on earth are you? What's the good word? And he grabbed his hand and the champ looked at him and said, are you with these people? And he said, yes. And he said, the good word is you need to pick up the check, pick up the bill. And he walked on and my friend had shaken the hand of Muhammad Ali in his fifties. As a young man, he was caches clay and as a teenager, he won prizes and all of that. Later he became Muhammad Ali and was heavyweight champ of the world. And then I think maybe in his late thirties or in his thirties, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and that's where he was when we saw him. He was in his mid fifties. He died at the age of 74. Somebody tagged him along the way early on with goat, G period, O period, A period, T period and it stood for greatest of all time, champ, you're the greatest of all time. And here was a young man in his prime who if he put a thunderous to right to your chin, you were gone, okay? Now we say that about a lot of sports figures now, but what does it take to be the greatest? And Jesus speaks to that very clearly when he says anyone who wants to be the first must be the very last. I have to confess, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be first, whether it's in a foot race or in basketball or in a math test or in a writing contest. So what's the point here? What must Jesus be saying? Because the usual way to greatness is to outpower the other person or jockey for position or in some cases by any means, right, wrong, illegal, immoral, whatever. But Jesus is making a point about the kingdom of God, about his rule and authority. And he just simply says, if you want to be first, you need to be the last of all, must be the last of all is the phrase. I don't know anyone who gets out in the morning and says, I just like to be last. I just like to be the tail end of the parade. I don't know anybody who does that. But his point is, I believe, what appears to be first may not be that and what appears to be last may not be that and he'll amplify it and we'll get into that in our next podcast. But my wife Ruth, when we first married, she brought certain values to the dinner table, certain language even. I remember early on, she said, come to the table, I'm taking up the food. I'm a guy from East Oakland, I wasn't sure what taking up the food meant. I said, where did you get that phrase? She said, from my grandparents who were Hoosiers, my grandpa and grandma were born in a little tiny town in southern Indiana in Clay County. The town was called center point and it aptly described this little tiny town. But apparently that's the way they talked about putting the food on the table. We're taking up the food or taking it up from the stove and putting, I don't know. The other thing I found out once we had children and grandchildren, specifically with the grandchildren, is that when we had family gatherings, her dictum was children eat first. We eat last. I said Ruth, where did you get that eating last part? Because I kind of like eat first. And she said, from my grandfather, George Harvey Presswell, I said, why? And she related the story that his father had died when he was three, when George Harvey was three. And a few years later, his mother remarried, but it was a difficult relationship with his stepfather. And so at eight, he took whatever few things he had and went across town to his grandparents' house, where it was a better environment for him. So he found shelter there and care. But the challenge was that he always ate leftovers in the kitchen when everyone else was done. So he ate last. And he determined that when he had children or grandchildren, that they would not eat last. It's one thing to be forced to eat last, at least you're eating. It's another thing to voluntarily go last or be last in the traffic line if you pause to let somebody in. It's amazing how they wave and respond. If you are going into a store and you pause to let somebody go ahead of you, it's amazing the response if you're standing in the checkout line of the grocery store. If you let someone go ahead, they have fewer groceries. It's amazing, but there's a motif that here is the creator of the universe who in a few weeks will end up where only servants and criminals end up on a Roman cross. He takes the last position so that we who are last can actually go first. Sitting here on a cool and windy and thundering summer afternoon, I find that fascinating and encouraging to think about it. That's it for now. We'll catch you next time. This is Dick Foth with stories from The Road. God bless. Bye-bye.