Run to the Back of the Line

The text for Sunday January 28 is Mark 9:33-37. It's about competition, greatness, competitiveness, and my need to be better than you are. I don't think it's just a "guy" thing, because I hear moms really get competitive about their children's accomplishments or their taste in shoes and purses. We all think we have pretty good standards, opinions, tastes and value; a little better than yours. And we jockey subtlely and not-so subtlely about whose ___________ is better than whose. We argue about schools, restaurants, sports teams, music styles, regions of the country, etc. You name it, we argue about it.
Jesus takes the disciples to school, literally, (and us) when he walks home to Capernaum, into the house (probably Peter's), sits down as the rabbi-in-charge and summons all the disciples to him for a tutorial in greatness. Greatness, he says, begins by racing to the end of the line to serve the little ones. It's only from the vantage point fo the end of the line or the bottom of the ladder, that we can ever hope to see the little ones. Nobody up in first class looks back at the poor person in seat 67f. But you can bet the person in 67f sees everyone ahead of her!
We removed the communion table (altar) for this Sunday and instead put in things you "don't normally see", things belonging to the "little ones" around us: a child's school chair, a disabled person's cane, a worker's rake and gloves. You really only see them when you run to the back of the line.