Bambi Earns a Few Extra Bucks

Mark 8: 31-38

A sermon by John Thornburg

March 19, 2006/ Spring Valley United Methodist Church

I had a laugh that turned into a jolt yesterday. My wife and I saw an exhibit in Santa Fe, New Mexico entitled “Native Pop”, devoted to the attempt of modern Native American artists to express their feelings about being stereotyped.

The laugh came as I got a glimpse of a painting entitled “Bambi Earns a Few Extra Bucks.” In the painting, we see an art teacher and three children in a studio doing drawings of Bambi, the sweet little Disney deer, who stands placidly on the pedestal looking adorable.

The jolt came when the museum docent gave the background story on the painting. It seems that the art teacher in the painting is based on an Anglo woman who taught at the Santa Fe Indian School for years. Apparently, it had been her mission in life to try to teach the Pueblo children to draw and paint just like she did. But in the painting, we see all three children drawing Bambi in ways that reflect their own cultural uniqueness rather than in the Disney-esque representational style.

Since great art defies a single explanation, I can only tell you how I reacted. I felt that the artist had cared enough about himself and about me to say, “I won’t be what you want me to be.” The jolt was that though this artist had a sense of humor, the painting wasn’t funny.

Now imagine the jolt Peter had in the story we heard from Mark’s gospel. Things were going really well on the Jesus road show. The crowds were good, people were being healed, the street talk was positive. Then all of a sudden, a massive storm cloud hung over head, and the thunderstorm came in the words of Jesus, who said to the disciples that he would undergo great suffering, be rejected by the religious authorities, and be killed. He did also say that he would rise again after three days, but something tells me that the disciples didn’t hear that part.

Then Mark says something that I had never paid attention to until I read it this week. He says, “He [Jesus] said all of this quite openly.” Other translations say, “He spoke plainly.” That’s an understatement. It was a jolt. Kind of like the one I got at the museum, and for similar reasons, because Jesus was saying something very similar to the man who painted “Bambi Earns a Few Extra Bucks.” Jesus was saying, “I won’t be what you want me to be.”

Peter was very confused by this sudden announcement, and so, in contrast to Jesus who spoke openly, he took Jesus apart for a little sidebar conversation. This is one of the most poignant moments in the gospels, and yet we have to use our imaginations because none of Peter’s dialogue is recorded. I imagine Peter saying something like this:

“Jesus, help me out here. You’ve got the twelve of us, the Staff-Parish Relations Committee wants you to stay, we didn’t have any trouble with the Nominating Committee Report this year, we’re whittling away at the debt service and a good time was had by all at the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. Now what’s up?” Or words to that effect...

Jesus’ reply is something we don’t have to imagine because it’s all too plainly spoken. “Get behind me, Satan.” It was the jolt of Peter’s life. It’s like Jesus was saying, “Peter, you want me to be the smart bomb. You want me to seek out the evildoers and destroy them with surgical precision. But that is not who I am, and I won’t be who you want me to be.”

This is an incredible paradox. Peter says to Jesus, “I love you too much to let you die,” and Jesus responds, ”I love you so much that the only thing I can do is die.” Then Jesus says the thing that is near the top of everyone’s “Things I Wish Jesus Had Never Said” list, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

So, there’s going to be a jolt when anyone says, “I won’t be who you want me to be,” whether it’s that Native American artist, or Jesus, or anyone else.

But let’s move to the next step, namely, when the artist, or Jesus, or any one of us says, “This is who I am.” I’m so glad that the artist said, “I don’t do peace pipes and feather head dresses for the tourists. I am an artist with my own ideas and my own style and my own vision of the world.”

I’m so glad that Jesus didn’t say, “You know, Peter, you’re right, attendance is pretty good and we’re getting a lot of hits on the website and the people seem happy, so I’ll just do the healing ministry for now and let that other thing go.” Though it’s very hard to hear, I’m glad that Jesus was so clear about where he was going, and so dramatically clear that he wanted the disciples, then and now, to come with him.

Some of you know that I am now engaged in a project to help the young leaders of the new United Methodist Mission in Cameroon to develop their first hymnal. It’s as daunting as it is thrilling. It’s daunting because there is so much at stake. The pastors who are serving our congregations are, as Rev. Wes Magruder, our mission director says, mainly ‘exes.”

They are:

Ex-Catholics because they are too ritualistic

Ex-Pentecostals because they are too flighty

Ex-Presbyterians because they are too dead

Ex-traditionalists because they are too superstitious

Ex-Baptists because they are too confining

and Ex-Evangelicals because they are too leader driven

Because the congregations are so filled with ‘exes’, there is a pressing need to do positive identity formation; to be able to say “This is who we are.” Because Christians have always done a lot of their identity formation through singing, this project to produce a hymnal feels huge. But for the very same reason, it is thrilling to be a part of it.

Your pastor asked if I would speak today about mission as one of the spiritual disciplines; i.e., mission as something that brings you closer to God. I’m deeply aware that true mission in the 21st century must follow a pattern similar to the one found in today’s scripture. There must be moments when, like Jesus, we must say “I will not be who you want me to be”, and there must be moments when, like Jesus, we say, “This is who I am and where I am headed, and I invite you to come with me.”

To say that I am nervous about this hymnal project is an understatement, and much of my nervousness stems from an encounter Wes Magruder and I had at First United Methodist Church in Douala, Cameroon’s largest city. I spent last August in Cameroon and my purpose in that visit was to listen to as many congregations sing as possible, to encourage people in their singing and to learn the songs so I could teach them to people here in the United States. If I was going to advise and encourage the young leaders about the shape of a hymnal, I had to know what was already on the ground.

At First UMC, Douala, the day followed the established pattern; I listened to the choir sing and then taught them a few songs. There was plenty of energy in the room, but not all of it was positive. When I finished teaching a few songs, the pastor said to the congregation, “The missionary and our overseas guest have come a long way, so if there is anything you want to say to them, now is the time.” What followed was a very sobering lecture from the pastor, and then one from the lay leader, about how missionaries had promised so many things but never delivered on their promises. They then presented me with a list of the musical instruments, amplifiers and speakers they would need to do the ministry they felt called to do.

I have never felt so much like an ATM machine in my life. In the estimation of this pastor and his lay leader, my job was to get them things or money. I said to myself, “If this is the post colonial reality, I want no part of it.” When we finally got back to the car and saw First Church in the rear view mirror, Wes turned to me and said, “Welcome to my world.”

Then I realized that there were two sides to that coin. I was meeting and working with and singing songs with people who had real hopes and real dreams, and who worshiped a real God. So, I had to hear them saying, “We didn’t walk for an hour to entertain you or to undergird your stereotypes about us. We are real people with real dreams, so are you going to walk with us or not? Don’t just tell us that you are blessed by our singing!”

It was in that moment that real mission occurred. The Latin root for ‘mission’ is the verb which means ‘to send.” What happened in that uncomfortable moment in Douala was that God had sent us to each other so we could both learn something about ourselves, about each other, and about what God intended for our lives.

That’s what mission in the 21st century will be about; it will always be two-way. If it’s just ‘us’ taking something to ‘them’, it’s not mission. I even want to challenge the phrase I hear all the time from folks who’ve been on mission trips; “I received more than I gave.” While I do truly appreciate the sentiment behind that remark, I want to say, “Well, if you received more than you gave, then you didn’t bring much with you, and I’m not talking about money or bricks.”

There is no mission without jolt. Mission is about meeting people at their deepest level, offering ourselves without trying to protect our biases or securities, and receiving the joy and heartache of the other person on a level plain. And let us pray for each other that the jolts make it possible for us to walk together when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”