I’ll be riding shotgun
Shotgun
Time flies by in the yellow and green
Stick around and you'll see what I mean
There's a mountaintop that I'm dreaming of
If you need me you know where I'll be
I'll be riding shotgun underneath the hot sun
Feeling like a someone (someone)…
Shotgun is a George Ezra song that made the 2018 top 40. Riding shotgun used to describe the bodyguard that sat alongside the stagecoach driver. Armed with a coach gun the bodyguard sitting shotgun had to ward off bandits when the stagecoach drove through America’s Wild West. Today, shouting “shotgun” or “shotty” means you want the front seat in a car.
Shotgun wars have not died out from America’s Wild West. Shotgun wars are alive and regular in any suburban home with multiple children. Bring family members together in one vehicle and the fight for the front seat could result in sulking backseat passengers on a good day. On a bad day, blood and physical injury is the result of family shotgun wars, if, to secure your shotgun status, you accidently close the door on a rival sibling’s fingers.
Who won the shotgun wars in your family? Marius and I were devoted to our first pet, a Scottish terrier Themba. We had a tiny fiat uno with a 1400 engine. Marius would drive. Themba would ride shotgun. Heavily pregnant with twins I would be squashed into the backseat with a seatbelt barely making it across my body. Before I was pregnant, Themba and I did have a shotgun peace treaty whereby I was allowed to ride shotgun if he could sit on my lap.
The politics of riding shotgun are complex; several factors are considered: seniority, marital status, relationship with the driver, physical conditions, build and in patriarchal contexts – gender. In conservative cultures it would be unheard of for any women to ride shotgun if there was another adult male in the car.
The point is that the fight to sit in the front seat is perhaps a frivolous example of a wider and deeper human tendency: the concern to grab status, privilege, and power for oneself. As the song phrases it, “I’ll be riding shotgun” to feel “like a someone”.
Riding shotgun in Mark 9.30-37
The Gospel for this the 18th Sunday of Pentecost is Mark 9.30-37. We encounter Jesus overhearing the equivalent of a first century middle eastern shotgun argument among his disciples. The disciples’ fight for privilege, position, power, and importance occurs against a backdrop of their inability to understand the work of Jesus and his vision for the kingdom of God. Three times Jesus will predict his suffering and death; three times the disciples will fail to understand. Three times Jesus will use their lack of understanding as the basis for an essential teaching about what the kingdom of God is really like.
If Mark’s Gospel were a Netflix binge series, Mark 9.30-37 is about episode 5 of season 2. “Season 2” of Mark’s Gospel would begin in Mark 8.22 and end at Mark 10.52. Both episodes describe the healing of blind people. In 8.22, Jesus is outside Bethsaida. He takes a blind man aside and must heal him twice before he can see clearly. In 10.52, Jesus heals Bartimaeus; the man born blind. The blind men are symbols of the disciples’ (and our) inability to see Jesus clearly. Like the blind man in 8.22, the disciples will gradually see the different perspective that Jesus offers.
In response to the disciples’ argument for power, prestige and position, Jesus takes a child as a living symbol of the politics of the kingdom of God; the least, the last and the lost. Some interpretations suggest that the symbol of a child is to nudge us into childlike faith and trust. I disagree. The symbol of the child in the context of Mark is the ultimate symbol of the least, the last and the lost, one with no status, no agency, and no influence. The child is a symbol for anyone in society who is weak, vulnerable, with no power, one who is disabled by the powerful. For Jesus, it is those who are the most vulnerable, most ostracised, most powerless who are greatest in in the kingdom. Serving the least, the lost and the last is the avenue of salvation.
The take home message
The principle here is simple; design everything (buildings, public spaces, banks, organisations, groups, society, churches) with the most vulnerable and ignored as the central most important clients and everything and everyone will flourish. I have often said that Jesus is an unrecognised genius. What I am suggesting is that the resources Jesus offers are the greatest keys to authentic success. I believe that the principles Jesus offers can be implemented by all levels of society even without signing up to the church’s creeds and faith. If people want their businesses to flourish, if politicians want their states to be successful, if architects want their buildings to be brilliant, if we want the best possible society, the principles of Jesus are an invaluable resource, even without faith in Jesus.
Here are some examples of the success that is possible when the least and the last (not the powerful and privileged) are put front and centre:
1. Gravity Payment’s CEO Dan Price introduced a minimum wage of $US70,000 ($AU95,371) in 2015. He was ridiculed and even sued by his brother for this decision. Many were threatened by Dan Price’s move and promised it would never work. He took a pay cut to implement his policy. However, since then revenue tripled. Harvard Business School has researched Gravity and now offers the company as a case study for effective business.
https://www.newsweek.com/ceo-who-raised-company-minimum-wage-70k-says-revenue-has-tripled-1583610
2. We want the economy to grow as much as possible. What is the most cost-effective way to grow the economy? Noble prize winner Professor Heckman’s research is invaluable in proving that investment in early childhood education, from birth to five years, especially for the poorest of the poor, is the most cost-effective way to grow a country’s economy and reduce debt. https://cehd.uchicago.edu/?page_id=71
3. Another example of how placing people who experience exclusion or disability front and centre allows all to flourish (and the bottom line) is from research by the centre for inclusive design. Partnering with Microsoft and Adobe, the research shows that when products and services are designed with the needs of people experiencing poverty, disability or the effects of ageing in mind, four times the number of intended consumers are reached and profits are increased. When education adopted an inclusive process, an additional 228,000 tertiary qualifications were earned in Australia which in turn increased employment and salaries by $4.5 billion annually.
https://centreforinclusivedesign.org.au/index.php/the-benefits-of-designing-for-everyone-report/
The point about these examples is that by implementing Jesus’ principle of making the most vulnerable and the least powerful as your primary focus, we all flourish.
As we reflect on making the least, the lost and the last the greatest in our kingdom’s, perhaps we could consider that along with impoverished women and children, Mother Nature herself is extremely vulnerable. Here the message of Jesus is more urgent. Placing the most vulnerable front and centre, in this case, the environment, is urgent for our survival let alone for our flourishing. Yet the government continues to take the direction of the rich and the powerful. Santos and Chevron have been given millions in taxpayer grants for the illusory and non-existent “carbon capture and storage” systems. Chevron and Santos have failed to meet their targets with no penalty or fines. According to the Guardian Chevron released 10.2m tonnes of CO2 in 2019-20, making it Australia’s eighth-biggest emitter.
What is needed is structural change beyond the efforts of individuals, but individuals working together in a collective to effect broader societal change. To return to our opening image, our concern is more than who rides shotgun, it is to consider the comfort of those on the backseat who have less room and no control over the air-conditioning or radio choices or even those without access to a car at all. More than that we want to have has our litmus test for any decision, any policy, the benefit it brings to those who are most vulnerable.
23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus[c] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. 47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” 50 And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” 52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.