A VERY DIFFERENT WORLD

Mark 10: 13-16

It has won numerous awards and has been on the New York Times Bestsellers list for two and a half years. It is a book about a very different world; in the beginning, the country he visits is very different place from America; and as the man brought change to Pakistan and Afghanistan, we rarely hear today about the different world over there that he succeeded in creating.  Greg Mortenson is the man that David Oliver Relin writes about in that book called THREE CUPS OF TEA. Mortenson had been an avid mountain climber all his life, having scaled Mt Kilimanjaro at age 11. No one younger had ever made it. Twenty-four years later, he decided to climb the next highest mountain in Pakistan. He spent seventy-eight days on the mountain, not quite reaching the summit. He had trained for over a year and still he ended up exhausted and emaciated. He was in danger of dying. Villagers from a local community called Korphe took him in, cared for him, and nursed him back to health.  When he was going to depart, he asked to see where their children learned. He was taken to a dirt plateau where students wrote their assignments out with sticks in hard ground. “What you need is a school,” he said. “Yes Dr. Greg” the Balti master replied. “A school is what we need.” “I will see to it that you have a school” he said. Later he wondered how he could have spoken so boldly. Then he knew: he would do it to honor his young epileptic sister who had died a year earlier. “I’ll do it to honor Christa.” he said. Greg Mortenson has currently spent over 16 years in the regions considered to be the front lines of terror. He is an American who believes that education will help lift people from ignorance and poverty to new places of dignity. So far he has helped natives build 64 schools to help educate over 26,000 students. He is proud that 16,000 over them are female, for other brutal leaders forbade the education of girls. He survived an eight day armed kidnapping by the Taliban, and he later survived a kidnapping by organized terrorists in northwest Pakistan. He escaped Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under a pile of putrid animal hides, a place where no human thought another one could survive. He has also received hate mail from Americans for helping to education Muslim children. But to the people in those villages, Greg Mortenson is a living hero; he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders. They love him, protect him, and welcome him. And he says he has consumed gallons of tea to do it!  He learned that negotiations are done differently in that culture: everything in America seemed rushed to him, whereas in Pakistan, everything took time. He learned how to be welcomed by following the customs of the Baltis including this ritual described by a tribesman: “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die.” Building relationships had to happen first. Then—together with the money from generous people and the labor of locals—on the rock of relationships they built schools, and bridges.

Greg Mortenson is a hero, but he is just a man. One man, or one woman, can do something for others. The Lord Jesus was busy teaching in Galilee and Jerusalem about not forgetting those who society marginalized. Like some groups today, in his society women were less valued and were not allowed to be educated except by their husbands.  Like some countries today that do not have Medicare, Medicaid or appropriate laws, a man could leave a woman on just his spoken word; if that happened she would have no income and no education. Widows found themselves without means as well. In today’s text, however, Jesus speaks up for another group: children. In the Biblical accounts, do you notice some gospels only count how many men are present at gatherings? No women or children are counted. Yes, children mattered if there were chores to do. Also girls would be domestically trained while boys were trained in Torah. Yet Jesus is perhaps one of the only men they have met who will not only acknowledge children, but welcome them and, as a rabbi, bless them. In the middle of a group of men and some women, Jesus has children surround him. The disciples, not as enlightened as their leader, wanted to shoo the children away. “Do you want to shoo away my examples of how to enter the Kingdom of God?” Jesus challenges them. You enter the Kingdom by welcoming people such as these!”

Today Jesus is not in Galilee; he is sitting here—perhaps cross-legged—on this platform with the table before him. He is glad to see men here who are disciples or seekers; he is pleased to see women here who seek to follow him too; but he is delighted with the children who are here, learning about taking faith into their world; who are tucked under the arm of a loving parent or grandparent, and who need all the help they can get. Like children, those who enter God’s Kingdom have to admit we need all the help we can get. Long before a man learned the meaning of three cups of tea and made a difference to hopeless people, faithful Jews and then a Savior taught others what was meant by cups of wine, and unleavened bread. Come to this meal where relations in heaven and earth are both restored and remembered.

Jeffrey A. Sumner                                                  October 4, 2009