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Pentecost 21B
October 17, 2021
Mark 10:35-45
INTRODUCTION
For the past few weeks, we have been following Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem – a journey which he knows, and we know, will culminate with suffering and death on the cross. All along this journey, Jesus has been offering some very difficult teachings, to which we have been privy over the past month or so of Sundays. Teachings like, sell everything you own and give it to the poor, and cut off your limbs if they cause you to stumble, and be prepared to leave everything, even your families, and some tough teachings on divorce. Week after week, we’ve been squirming in our seats! Week after week we have been confronted with how difficult it is to be a disciple of Christ!
This week is no exception. Directly before this passage, Jesus has predicted his suffering and death on the cross for a third time, and then we will see James and John respond by completely missing the point (for the third time), and asking Jesus if they can sit by his side in his glory. Little do they know what they are asking! And so Jesus will put them in their place, telling them that his glory looks a lot less like what the world says power is, and a lot more like serving others.
Our first two readings will set this up for us, giving us a glimpse of what it means for Jesus to be an obedient servant of God. All of these readings compel us to ask ourselves, as hopeful disciples: what might be required of us to be disciples of Christ? Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Big news at the Rehbaum house: both of our kids can now ride two-wheelers without training wheels! Last weekend, we all went to the school parking lot, and the kids, trembling, gave it a go. Five minutes later, they were both flying across the parking lot, and I’m pretty sure they also both grew about three inches. Certainly, their countenance did. By the next day, they were riding down the street, easily taking the turns, checking both ways at corners, completely confident in themselves and their abilities. Such confidence can be terrifying for a parent (lots of shouting, “But please be careful!!”), but also is really cool to watch. They believe now that they can do ANYTHING!
The disciples in today’s Gospel lesson had a similar confidence about themselves. Although of all the Gospels, Mark portrays the disciples as the dumbest and densest, James and John, the sons of Zebedee (otherwise known as the sons of entitlement, you can see why…) seem to think they are something pretty special. “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you!” they demand of Jesus. Jesus expresses quite a bit of patience, I think. Where I might say, “Ah! Who do you think you are?” Jesus responds with what I’ve always imagined to be a touch of good humor, the sort of amusement a parent might have when a child makes an unexpected request. “What is it that you want me to do for you?” he asks (probably thinking, “Well this oughta be good…”).
And then the request: “We want to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Awfully forward request, if you ask me. They have no idea what they are asking, as Jesus points out! Do you know what this entails? Jesus asks. Can you live this life? Are you able to drink of the cup I drink – the same cup, mind you, that Jesus himself prayed would pass over him a while later in the Garden of Gethsemane. Are you able to be baptized with the same baptism I am baptized with? And they respond with a confident, if naïve: “We are able.”
We are able. There’s the no-training wheels confidence again! Nothing holding these guys back! But really, are we so different? We are a self-sufficient people, after all, a society built upon the power of the individual and the assumption that we can do anything we dream of, as long as we work hard. We are able to make plans, and carry them out – this ability to plan ahead, in fact, is what separates us from animals. And so we pay into retirement, we buy groceries for several days in a row, we put enough gas in the car to last the whole road trip. We make plans, and stick to them as long as they are working out for us.
But, as “able” as we may fancy ourselves to be, how often our self-set paths to glory get derailed. How often we are on a path knowing just where we’re going, and then suddenly we realize that we are left with nothing, no devices, and are completely lost. How often our plans of success, our plans of achieving glory, turn into journeys of suffering and loss.
Michael and I watched a show some years back, about a young woman whose plans get utterly destroyed. In the pilot episode, a sweet, idealistic, 26-year-old woman named June moves from Indiana to New York City, with her life well on track. She’s engaged to the man she’s been dating since she was 14, she’s landed her dream job that has also provided her with an amazing apartment overlooking the city skyline… Her life plan is right on track: start a career, get married at 26, have her first child at 28. But then she arrives at her first day of work to find the company has shut down due to its scamming owner. With her job also goes her apartment. Soon thereafter she discovers her fiancé has been cheating on her with several women. Believe it or not, this is a comedy: hijinks ensue as she tries to get her life back in order, and come to terms with the fact that her life plan is completely shot.
On TV, this can be a comedy. But it’s not so funny for us when our real-life plans and dreams are derailed. We can plan all we want, we can demand positions of glory all we want, we can insist that “we are able” and ride on down the street with no training wheels all we want, but ultimately we have no way of keeping our plans for success and glory from turning into paths of suffering. And our plans may be very noble indeed! June wanted to start a career and a family by the time she was 30. The disciples wanted to sit by Jesus’ side in eternal glory. But to our dismay, even these noble plans may not look exactly as God intends for them to look. And suddenly we are walking down a path we have never seen before, and don’t necessarily want to be on, and don’t know where or how it ends.
There is a wonderful prayer by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, that, every time I read it, really hits home for me. It goes like this: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude)
And that really nails it, doesn’t it? We don’t know where we’re going. We aren’t able, on our own. All we can do, with God’s help, is trust, even in the darkest valleys, even on the most ominous and unclear paths. All we can do is walk that path in trusting confidence, desiring God’s will, not our own.
When “we are able” to do that, an amazing thing happens. Suddenly, where we had previously felt powerless and fearful, now we do have power, but it is not the power to enact our own plans. Rather, it is the power of Christ. It is the power to walk in the path of the one who came not to be served, but to serve. The one who gave everything he has and is for the benefit of each of us.
James and John ask to sit by Jesus, one at his right hand and one at his left, in his glory. “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus tells them, and they don’t. Because Christ’s glory isn’t what they think it is. Christ’s glory becomes apparent on the cross, where he is crucified with two common criminals – one on his right, and one on his left. Are you willing to do this? Jesus asks. Are you able to follow me here? To serve as I have served? To give as I have given? To be the self-sacrificing servant of God that I am?
In a sermon Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote on this text, he likens our human need for glory to “the drum major instinct.” But for Christians, that is not what it means to be great. King says, “Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important – wonderful. If you want to be recognized – wonderful. If you want to be great – wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness... You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.” (MLK, “Drum Major Instinct.”)
And we can. We are empowered for that in our baptism – the one Jesus was baptized with. We are strengthened for that by the sacrament – the bread and cup that Jesus offers us. In Christ’s name, and by the grace of God, “we are able” to follow in the God-given path of the one who came to serve us all, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us pray... Lord, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, down paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us the faith to go out in good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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