Some of you may have recognized the title of this morning’s sermon as the title of a renowned Abbott and Costello comedy routine about baseball, first performed on Vaudeville in the 1890s and later heard on the radio. In “Who’s on First?” we spin round and round in hilarious confusion as Abbott, the team manager, attempts to find out the status of the ball game from Costello, the peanut vender. At the heart of the comedy is confusion resulting from the ridiculous premise that the ball players actually have names such as Whose and What and I-Don’t-Know. Thus the question, “Who’s on FIRST?” is answered “WHOSE on first”…and “Who’s on SECOND?” is answered “WHAT’S on second.” Abbott and Costello go back and forth in rapid fire and, finally, there’s never an answer to any question... as “Who’s on first” and “What’s on second” and “I- Don’t-Know’s on third” get bantered endlessly around, and no one can figure out who’s where or what’s what.

I refer to this comedy bit this morning to pay homage to my favorite sport of baseball in the waning days of the season. But it’s also a way of helping us laugh for a moment at our often all-too-human need to know who’s on first and what’s on second and who’s on third. Or, as Jesus’ uncertain disciples put it in today’s reading from Mark: which one of us is the greatest?

The disciples have returned with Jesus and are at home in Capernaum, Mark tells us. Along the way, Jesus has been trying to teach them something they didn’t want to hear at all. He is trying to help them begin to understand that his way of being Messiah isn’t anything like what they had imagined or hoped. He isn’t going to be a king or rule an empire. He isn’t going to be the victor, the World Series winner, and the wearer of the championship ring. He isn’t going to sweep them into power on his coat tails. He isn’t going to lead a new super-power. He isn’t going to win at the popularity polls or be the richest man in the world. He will never be the most eligible bachelor or the Survivor. He won’t even be a best-selling author or an Academy Award-winning director or teacher of the year.

In none of these ways, you see, would Jesus ever be famous, would he ever be powerful, would he ever be important. No. He was God’s Messiah. And he was going to suffer and to die. His kingdom was of a very different sort. It wouldn’t matter who’s on first or what’s on second, because, in his new realm, everyone would have the same, equal access to mercy and to grace.

Ah, they wondered, but then, who of us is the greatest? That was still the only way they could imagine their world, with some on top and others beneath and most out of sight and out of mind.

“Who’s on first, Jesus?” Me?

You can’t blame them, really. They lived in a society that was very stratified. Everyone had his place. Having status and rank was everything. And even though these guys came from lower down on the totem pole, knowing where everyone was on that pole kept his world organized and functioning.

Years ago, a good friend of mine spent a year at a British University. True American that he was, he arrived in their midst as an ordinary Joe…one of the guys. But this placed these socially self-conscious Brits into a quite a quandary. They didn’t know him. They didn’t recognize his name. They didn’t know his parents or his grandparents. He spoke with a strange accent! And so, you see, they couldn’t determine his class, his status, his standing. They didn’t know where he ranked in their social hierarchy and, therefore, they didn’t know how they should relate to him.

This American didn’t translate into their British ranking system. But he was just one person, and likeable enough, so they solved the problem by arbitrarily assigning him a rank and status, so that they could associate with him…without disgracing themselves.

Jesus has something very different in mind for his new realm. No class. No ranking. No status. The greatest must be the least. No lording it over. No groveling down below. Who’s the greatest? You all are, he seems to say, and let me show you how. And he took a child—the word used in the text means that he actually hugged the child as a mother or father would—he hugged a little child and said: “In welcoming this child, you welcome me and you welcome the one who sent me.”

Who’s on first? We all are, all at the level of this little child.

To get the full impact of what he’s teaching us here, we have to remember that children did not have the privileged and pampered status that our kids now enjoy. No, in Jesus’ time, children were about the lowest of the low. In fact, in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, there’s just one word for both “child” and “servant.” A child was not valued, truly a nobody, with no legal rights, no privileges guaranteed by law, no social standing. What happened to children didn’t matter. And Jesus hugged one of those nobodies and said: “In welcoming this one, you welcome me. This is how you be great in my kingdom.”

In America, we do cherish our children and lavish things upon them. Some of our children, anyway. I heard a statistic this week that shocked me into remembering that even so, in this greatest country on earth, this super-power; we turn away and choose not to see what’s happening to large numbers of our children.

Are you aware that one-third of American eighth-graders do not finish high school? One-third of our eighth graders does not finish high school. Think what that means in terms of their lives, their families, and the communities they live in. Think what that means for their health, the children they will parent, and the fundamental level of prosperity and well being they will never know. As a nation, we’re treating these kids like nobodies, and I wonder what Jesus might want to say to us about them this morning?

Fortunately, some folks are thinking about this and working hard to create some new solutions. The New York City Department of Public Schools, working in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has developed a plan to create 200 small, rigorous and effective new high schools to replace the large, struggling schools of the current system. Research is showing that small schools, rather than small classrooms, can have a big impact in preparing students for college work and careers. One school which formerly housed 3,000 students is now organized into four small high schools, each creating a safer environment with graduation and college attendance rates of over 80 percent.

Bill Gates—who was raised Episcopalian--observed: “When a kid walks down a hall and encounters an adult, that adult will know his name...and be able to talk to them about his progress.”

Oh, I’m sure this approach will not be perfect. But Jesus didn’t ask us to be perfect nor to wait for the perfect plan before moving ahead. Instead he showed us how to be great in his kingdom, embracing a child and saying: this is how it works with me. To be a somebody, to be great, you have to embrace a nobody. We’re great when we’re all great. We’re important when everyone is important. Our billionaires are only as great as the values they live. Our Harvard PhDs are only as valuable as the eighth-graders at risk of dropping out.

You know, throughout these Fall months here at Santa Monica First, we’re celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of this sanctuary. We’ve said that sanctuary is a place, a holy place that nurtures a holy people. Sanctuary also has the meaning of a place that is safe. To find sanctuary is to find protection from threat, to be out of harm’s way. We use the word in this way, for example, when we speak of animal sanctuaries and bird sanctuaries where certain species or groups of animals and birds are protected and nurtured.

We can see this concept of sanctuary in Jesus’ actions today, as his very arms provide sanctuary for child, a defenseless nobody, one of society’s most vulnerable members. Welcome this child, he says, receive this child, nurture this child, provide them sanctuary, and you’ll be doing the work of my new kingdom.

To be his disciples, our arms and hearts and minds must open to embrace the nobodies of this world. Our ministries must provide sanctuary to any who are lost or vulnerable. Our mission must reach out to see and find and provide for the least of our brothers and sisters. Our minds must embrace any who are at risk and seek ways to keep them safe. Our sense of ourselves—our importance, our standing—can only be measured through our commitment to give our lives for others, in the manner of Jesus, our Savior and our Humble King.

In this way, we are all great in his kingdom. And in the embrace of his sheltering love, everybody is an important somebody.

Who’s on first? We’re all on first, together.

Thanks be to God. Amen.