Sermon for 21st Sunday after Pentecost – Mark 10:35-45

NOTE – Accidentally cut off the beginning of the gospel, so here you go:

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Christians are weird. We’re the only people I know who take a torture device and turn it into jewelry. But here’s what’s weirder. A friend of mine recently told me about wanting to get a guillotine necklace. I remember thinking “oh, that’s weird!” But I guess it’s not any weirder.

Though a crucifix is strange. The cross was utter brutality. I think we forget how gruesome it was. Not just the crucifying, but all the scourging and whipping done beforehand. Now, I don’t love talking about this, and I’m sure none of you want to picture it. But it’s odd how much Jesus talks about it, and how hard we try to sanitize it. So maybe we don’t really understand the cross.

I don’t think the disciples got it either. Right before our reading, Jesus was telling them for the THIRD TIME about going to Jerusalem to be handed over, mocked, flogged, and killed. It’s gruesome, and the disciples have got to notice how distressed he is. So, what do James and John say? “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask.” What do you think was going on in Jesus’ head right then? [DISCUSS]

I’m amazed he asks them “What do you want me to do for you?” And out it comes, “Let us sit at your right hand and at your left, in your glory.” Like they’ve been itching and waiting for just the right moment to ask. What do you think was going on in James’ and John’s brains to ask such a thing? [DISCUSS]

“Crass” comes to mind. Mark also likes to show the disciples as not bright. But the more I think about it, it feels a little too simple to just call them crass or dumb. The question is just too outrageous. So I suspect there’s more to the story. Maybe it’s too unbelievable that Jesus would be crucified. He’s still walking and talking with them. He’s present. It’s hard to imagine him being taken away. And what about all his miraculous powers? A lot of folks out there still need healing and demons cast out. Jesus wouldn’t just abandon them like that, would he?

I think there’s something else that makes the cross seem far-fetched to them too. Remember the Transfiguration? When Jesus took James and John with him up a mountain to see that wild vision of Elijah and Moses talking with Jesus. They even heard God speak! That’s as glorious as it gets. And it gets better. Elijah never died. He just rides a flaming chariot up to heaven, so everyone’s waiting for him to come back. And then there’s Moses. Deuteronomy kills him off. But depending on how you read Hebrew, God doesn’t kill him. God tells him to go kill himself. Which is really sketchy for God. And you want to keep really close track of where you bury folks, because you have to find it again. To unveil the stone. To honor the ancestors. And Moses is about as important as it gets, but no one knows where he’s buried? So how do we really know if Moses actually died at all? Spooky! Anyway, I’m using way too many words to say that the Transfiguration doesn’t look like the cross. It looks like Jesus in a shimmering white robe ready to sit on a throne in glory.

So, why should we be surprised that James and John are obsessed with getting their seats of honor on Jesus’ glory train? The other disciples overhear and they’re furious, maybe just because James and John asked first. So Jesus warns all of them. “You know how the world works. Rulers lord it over their subjects. Their great ones are tyrants. But it is not so among you.” Now, it sounds like a backhanded compliment. Like Jesus saying “I know you didn’t just ask me that.” But that’s not it. Jesus is prophesying, and the disciples should be really terrified right about now. Because the cup Jesus is about to drink is the cup of suffering, and the baptism coming his way is a baptism of death by the cross. It’s so terrifying that Jesus asked his Father for a pass. And worse, he promises the same will happen to them too. Because powers and principalities aren’t going to stop at taking Jesus out of the picture. The disciples are all guilty by association, and they’re about to discover the targets on their backs. But they don’t understand any of this because they’ve divorced Jesus from the cross.

I think we do the same thing. How often do we use Jesus’ name like a weapon? Like we totally forget about self-sacrifice and what the cross really means. Just yesterday I saw a Facebook post. “I will not take a knee during the Anthem, I will say the Pledge of Allegiance with pride, and I will worship the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don’t like what America is all about then you’re free to leave!” Immediately followed by an ad for a book called “When Did Jesus Become Republican? Rescuing our Country and Values from the Right.” Maybe the only thing that’s good about social media is that both sides start to look alike after a while. We all use Jesus’ name to feel superior, or to win arguments, or to bait our enemies. It’s all about glorifying ourselves. While the world burns around us. We’re not building community. We’re just dividing and destroying ourselves while God watches.

But the good news is that God doesn’t just watch. God acts. God acts in the person of Jesus, “who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Jesus didn’t argue to win. He didn’t wield power, because that’s what tyrants do. So he did the opposite. He gave himself up to the cross, to suffer and die for the sake of his enemies, and for us. There’s no glory in the cross. The cross isn’t about winning. It’s about dying. But by his dying and rising we see his glory shine forth. The glory of his mercy and forgiveness redeeming us into a new creation. Where the mighty are brought down and the lowly are lifted up.

It reminds me of a story that we just read in the ministry class I’m taking. A deaconess named Karen Melang talks about a guy named Larry, who moved to Lincoln, NE. This moving made the local news, because Larry just happened to be the previous Exalted Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Reporters visiting him at his apartment wrote about the posters of Hitler, the swastikas, the hate literature, and all the needles. Not for drugs but insulin, because Larry was diabetic.

Not too long after, Michael and Julie Weisser met Larry. Not by choice. Michael and Julie are Jewish, and Michael is the Cantor of the South Street Temple. All of a sudden they start getting hate messages on their voicemail, and anti-Semitic tracts on their doorstep. Michael and Julie were pretty surprised, and pretty angry. They just happen to see the article about Larry moving to town and they put two and two together. Michael finds Larry’s number and starts calling him. “Who do you think you are? What kind of monster are you? Where do you get off throwing this garbage at us?”

And Larry loved confrontation. So the messages kept coming and Michael kept calling Larry. A vicious cycle. But after a while, Michael starts getting to know Larry. He finds out that Larry’s diabetes is progressing and now he’s stuck in a wheelchair. So Michael says, “You’re so dense. Don’t you realize that an invalid like you would’ve been one of the first to go in Hitler’s empire? You wouldn’t have been any better off than us.” Time goes on, and one day while they’re arguing on the phone, Julie tells Michael, “Ask him if he needs groceries. He might not be able to get out now.” Michael asks, and Larry says “yeah, I do.”

So they bring him groceries. Months go by. Larry becomes more incapacitated. Finally he can’t care for himself, so Michael and Julie move Larry into their home, and Julie actually quits her job to take care of him. One day, Larry calls the reporter that interviewed him when he first moved to town. Larry says he converted to Judaism. That he didn’t know how his hate was killing him, until he ran into Michael and Julie. That no one had ever loved him the way they did. When Larry died, both Christian and Jewish communities show up at his funeral. Because they saw God creating community out of hatred. All because Julie said “Ask him if he needs groceries.”

We know it doesn’t always go like this. Hate is strong. Sometimes our kindness gets exploited. But sometimes we might just see tyrants fall by the glory of God made manifest in a bag of groceries, and by faith that will be enough for us.