Some three Sundays ago we arrived at that point in Saint Mark’s Gospel which is called his Little Catechism (starting at Chapter 9, verse 30 and going to the end of Chapter 10).  . . . Saint Mark begins his Little Catechism by observing that Jesus said, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”  This saying, Mark tells us, resulted in the disciples having a squabble over who was greatest among the elect of God’s Kingdom.  . . . The squabble prompted Jesus to say that the measure of a sacred life worthy of Heaven is not the personal greatness necessary to attain it; . . . rather, the measure of a life worthy of Heaven is that it has the character of Humility; . . . that a child of God appropriate and manifest God the Father’s uncommon love.  . . . And then Mark’s Little Catechism goes on to teach us that the character of Humility consists of three things.  . . . First, Humility consists of moral and spiritual Chastity; . . . that you must become Detached from relying upon the power of the world, or the power of your own flesh, or the power of the devil to overcome evil and save your soul; . . . you must become Detached from relying upon the power of the world to affirm you and make you feel good about yourself, nor must you expect your flesh to do the trick, and the devil is definitely a resource you don’t want to try.  . . . Instead, Jesus tells us (in Mark’s Little Catechism); . . . Jesus tells us a soul that is Humble chooses to be Obedient to the Heart of God as it is revealed in the spirit of His commandments.  A soul that is Humble chooses to be Obedient to the Heart of God, Who formed us in His Image . . . and made us sacred creatures and stewards of His Creation.  . . . And then, last Sunday Saint Mark’s Little Catechism tells us about a rich man who comes to Jesus and tells Him that he has fastidiously kept all the commandments of God to the letter; that he gives alms and is hospitable to strangers . . . and still he does not feel as if God will receive him into eternal life.  . . . And Jesus says, “You lack one thing.  Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me!”  . . . But the man cannot do it.  He loves his religion which gives him the assurance of material, moral, and intellectual superiority; . . . the rich man loves his religion more than God.  And so, Jesus said to us last Sunday that the third essential for a Humble character is Simplicity: . . . to manifest the Father’s uncommon love by employing our possessions and intellect for no other purpose than to do good.

    So!  This is the counsel of Jesus contained in Saint Mark’s Little Catechism:  that a Christian Character worthy to be received into God’s Kingdom is Humble, . . . and that Christian Humility consists of three things:  moral and spiritual Detachment, material and spiritual Simplicity, . . . and Obedience to the Heart of God.

    Which brings us close to the end of Mark’s Little Catechism.  And near the end of Mark’s Little Catechism we read something very familiar.  We read the very words with which the Little Catechism began.  Reading from Chapter 10, verses 32 through 34, Saint Mark writes that Jesus says to His disciples,

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.”

And, as you have heard today, the response of James and John to these words of Jesus is to interpret them as an opportunity to apply for most favored disciple status.  . . . And just as at the beginning of Mark’s Little Catechism, the audacity of James and John sets the disciples to squabbling again.  . . . And what Saint Mark is trying to show us by his account of the two squabbles . . . is that whenever the Church and Her people do not live sacred lives which are Humble in character; which are not disciplined by material and spiritual Simplicity, moral and spiritual Detachment, and Obedience to the Heart of God . . . we squabble!  A Parish that will not be disciplined by Simplicity, Detachment, and sacred Obedience . . . will simply disappoint Jesus by squabbling.  . . . And so, Saint Mark’s Little Catechism says that Jesus has counseled the Church . . . and counsels this Parish . . . that we must remember that we are baptized into His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  We drink from the cup of Christ’s suffering; . . . we drink from the cup of Christ’s suffering in order to remember that Christ’s suffering has set us apart from the profane world and its profane ways of doing business.  Jesus says to us,

whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for [the] many.

. . . “the Son of man . . . came . . . to give his life as a ransom for [the] many.”  The biblical scholar C.S. Mann observes that the term “the many” is a technical term.  It doesn’t simply refer to a lot of people, . . . nor does it suggest that Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for everyone!  “The many”, as Saint Mark uses it, is a technical term; it has a particular meaning:  “ ‘The many’, ” Mann writes, “ ‘The many’ . . . has a long ancestry as a term for the Covenant people” (Mark, The Anchor Bible, Vol. 27 [1986], p. 416); that is to say, it refers to those people who have set themselves apart from the world’s way of doing things in order to belong to God . . . and do things God’s way.  And so, Mann translates Mark’s account of Christ’s saying to the Twelve to read that “the Son of man . . . came . . . to give his life as a ransom for the community.”  . . . And what is the covenant which makes us a sacred community?  . . . We witnessed Gwen and Grey and Galina and Roman ratify that covenant for themselves and become adult members of this parish community a mere four weeks ago.  They affirmed their Baptismal Covenant.  Renouncing the world, the flesh, and the devil, they turned to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour in Whom they put their entire trust and love.  . . . And so, . . . Mark’s Little Catechism teaches us that by our baptismal covenant with God . . . Jesus represents us on the Cross, . . . so that we, Christ’s Community (the many for Whom Jesus is the ransom Who gives us entry into God’s Kingdom); . . . we, Christ’s Community, have been endowed with power and authority to represent Jesus to the world.  But what we represent is not a profane business plan by which to achieve an advantage over the infidels, Jesus tells us; . . . what we represent to the world is the Father’s desire that all of humanity drink from the Cup of Jesus, which is His elixir for the cure of Original Sin.

    The Prophet Isaiah says of Jesus,

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many [and there’s that technical term for the Covenant people -- the Community of Faith] . . . by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous

You are among the many who are accounted righteous; . . . you are a Community of God’s righteousness; endowed with power and authority to entice the world to embrace the Cross and become one of Christ’s “many”.  And it is done, Saint Mark tells us in his Little Catechism; . . . the power and authority to faithfully represent Jesus is attained by sacred lives that are simple, chaste, and obedient to God.