This week we had a meeting to pick out some of the music we will be using in the coming weeks, and in preparation for that task I’d previously roughed out a preaching plan until the Christmas season so we could make it all fit together in some coherent way, to have some thematic consistency between the music and the Bible readings and where we are in the Christian and secular calendars. But I have to tell you, I find that one of the great challenges in preaching is just in choosing the Scripture reading, which is why I think some of us default to the lectionary.
Years ago, I took a preaching course from the late Haddon Robinson, the American preacher, author, and educator who regularly made a showing on the various lists of influential and effective preachers that you occasionally come across in church circles (as if there’s a competition!). I know that I found him to be an extraordinarily gifted preacher and a fine teacher. Few of his students would dare step into the pulpit unless they’d first been able to answer that most important question for those of us attempting to understand a piece of Scripture: what was the original author trying to say to the original audience. During a break in one of our classes I approached him with a problem I’d been struggling with. It was to do with thematic preaching and how do you pick a Bible reading when you want to preach on a theme, such as preaching on forgiveness, or living a just life, or humility, or countless other possibilities? How do you pick a piece of Scripture and know that it will ultimately take you to your thematic goal? I remember him pausing and then shaking his head as he told me that he didn’t know. You always just start with the text and it will go where it will, and you just hang on for the ride, or to put a Gospel of John / Holy Spirit spin on that, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”1 And like the rich man—in the portion of Mark’s Gospel a little before this morning’s reading—the rich man whom Jesus loved, but had been told by Jesus to sell all he had, to give to the poor, and then to follow … well, after Haddon replied, “Phil’s countenance fell … and he went away sorrowful.” And yes, my experience has been this: I never really know exactly where a Bible reading is going to lead me when I sit down to read a text, never mind work on a sermon, and to assume otherwise is fraught with peril.
Even at this late date in my career, I think I know where I’m going when I start, but I’m just about always surprised by where things eventually end up, and this week is no exception to that. The passage seemed fairly benign when I chose it a few weeks ago, but the good news we encounter in this part of the Gospel of Mark is also hard news.
Have you noticed how, as you listen to the story unfold in the 4 gospels, the disciples so often don’t “get it,” how they miss the point that Jesus is trying to make? Honestly, I find this both alarming and comforting. I’m disturbed because they don’t get it and yet Jesus is standing right there before them, they’re hanging out with him for years on end, speaking the same language, a part of exactly the same culture—no translation required! On the other hand … well, it does give me some small comfort in explaining a little of my own misunderstanding some 2,000 years later, something beyond my own weakness, stubbornness, and shear cussedness. While he’s surely for us, there’s something in Christ that’s just at odds with some element in all of us, and while we’re drawn to him, he says things that take us to strange and head-scratching places.
Today’s text is a good example of the disciple’s propensity for missing the point. At this juncture in Mark’s Gospel, the disciples have now on the third occasion where Jesus tells them that he’s going suffer and die and each time they’re unable to come to get their heads around what Jesus says. You’ll remember that on the first such occasion Peter—the closest and theoretically the one of the 12 with the most insight—he rebukes Jesus for his revealing that he’s going to die and on the second occasion the disciples get lost in the weeds trying to figure out which one of them is the greatest. Today’s account happens just before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem for his final week, and by this point all the 12 have surely figured out that something big is going to happen and Jesus explicitly and precisely predicts for this third time his death. The brothers James and John—like Peter, they were a part of his inner circle of confidants and presumably as much in the know as any of them—they approach Jesus and ask him, “Do for us whatever we ask of you …” which is akin to those occasions when someone asks you that unsettling question, “Hey, can you do me a favour?” without first giving you some vague sense of what the agreement is going to cost. That can be a test of a relationship, right? Jesus neither agrees nor disagrees to their request but fairly asks for some more information, replying with, “So what do you want?” They in turn tell him that they want to be on his right and left sides in glory … to which Jesus says, “I love you both, but you really are idiots.” No, he doesn’t say that, but I do wonder if he might have thought it!
But let’s take a step back for a moment. Jesus has just told them what’s coming: condemnation, mockery, spitting, flogging and death and yet they’ve somehow impressively managed to not hear that. To then make this even more uncomfortable, we readers already know how this story unfolds, we know that James and John won’t be with Jesus at his moment of glory, and yes, that’s exactly how the writer of the Gospel of John often refers to Jesus’ crucifixion—his “glory.” The irony, of course, is that it’s not James and John who’ll eventually be hanging there beside him, but two nameless criminals sharing his “glory.” Is that really what they want? Do they have a clue as to what they’re really asking? How can they miss this? He’s just shared with them this most painful prophecy, he’s just said he’s going to die and his best friends can’t or won’t hear it. To compound matters they ask him for a form of honour. It comes across as a kind of a, “Hey, I hear you’re going to die—can you lend me 50 bucks?” kind of conversation. But Jesus rolls with it …and he’s immensely kind and gracious to these two key leaders of the church-to-be. He says to them, “You don’t really know what you’re asking, do you?—you think you can do what I’m about to do?” They—the gormless lads they are—they say, “No problem.”
And by the way … isn’t “gormless” a great word.? I thank my mother for introducing it into my vocabulary—it’s a UK word, I know—and it means someone who just doesn’t understand, who’s a wee bit slow on the uptake. I encourage you to use it this week if it’s a new one to you … but not in reference to this sermon, okay?
The gormless James and John just don’t get it, and Jesus prophesies—and I suspect a little wistfully—that they indeed will be following him down this particular road, for there’s usually a cross of some sort for those who choose to follow him. But then, enigmatically, he says that the glory they’re asking for is something that’s granted by someone else. Predictably, the other disciples get their shirts in a knot about this request—I mean who are they? Chopped liver? So there’s all sorts of grumbling and muttering, and Jesus intervenes. He says, “Come here and listen carefully: “You’ve all seen how godless rulers throw their weight around”—they’re living under the boot of Roman occupation, remember—“…and you’ve seen how power corrupts.” He says, very positively: “With you it’s going to be different—if you want greatness, then it’s going to be found in servanthood.”
Oh.
The one thing you can’t accuse Jesus of is lack of clarity in advertising. He’s quite clear about what to expect if you’re going to follow him … follow him—and let me underline this word—and follow him successfully. This brings me to the difficulty in today’s reading: what does success look like in the Kingdom of God? As best as I can tell from Jesus’ words, it’s carrying a cross and it’s servanthood and we in the church today have had no less trouble hearing that than have James and John, truth be told. What does a successful church look like? Leave us alone long enough and we’ll be defining success in all sorts of ways that don’t sound a lot like the way Jesus defined it. Christian history is replete with such examples—probably as much locally as it has been elsewhere and in different times—which is precisely why the Church, when she’s on her game—makes a concerted effort to spend a lot of time looking Jesus’ way, always looking for him to the point of being irritatingly repetitive, I know. But we do that because experience has shown us that we get into no end of trouble when we look elsewhere. We look to him because he embodies exactly what he teaches, exemplifies exactly how we’re called to be, lives out the story we’re invited to write our names into as well.
That story has something to do with serving. That story is best illustrated in the last line of Gospel reading which reveals Jesus describing his mission amongst us, coming not to be served, to but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for us. That’s where it begins: with him, and not with us. You know, if there’s anything more freeing ... well, this sure works for me. It begins with him, which is so critically important to remember when he asks of us what seems so impossible for us: service, the giving of our time and talents and resources, the loving of the unlovable, the forgiving those who hurt us so badly, not turning our relationships into transactions of, “I’ll do this for you if you do this for me.” Those things become reality, because as I heard someone put it, when we follow Jesus, we don’t become God’s helper, but God becomes our helper. As always, we’re called to get the order of things right, because it makes the world of difference. I know I need help—I can’t do enough in my own strength or wisdom or talent—I need help from outside of my own resources. And so, Jesus serves his people, grants us what we can’t muster up on our own, giving his very life to serve us, “a ransom for many,” literally, our purchase price, something that grants freedom.
The mechanics of that are fertile ground for theological conversation and theories of how this “ransom for many” thing works are numerous and useful. But while the issue has its mysteries, what Jesus’ own words assure us is that somehow in that act of Jesus’ self-giving, something was opened up for us. Success was completely redefined and what seemed insurmountable became an abundant life. What does success look like for us? In this church? As individuals? Lots of different things, I suspect—as many as there are people here. But whatever it is for you, and whatever it is for us … it’ll be identified by its humility, by its emphasis on serving and servanthood. And frankly? Successfully embracing servanthood’s tough, because it truly begins where gratitude and applause end, because it’s most typically, out of sight.2 Successful discipleship points to the cross and honours the one we are delighted to call “Lord.”
The good news is that through the Helper that Jesus left his people—through the power of the Holy Spirit—this amazing transformation is wholly possible and it happens over and over and over again. I’ve no doubt that you’ve seen it here over and over again. Quite wonderfully, it even occurred to … James and John. James’ transformation was just as Jesus prophesied—according to the tradition, he experienced a baptism like his, drank from a similar cup. James witnessed to the faith in such a way that he was martyred—put to the sword, according to tradition—his being the only one of the 12 whose martyrdom is recorded in the New Testament.3 A most painful success story, but a success story, nonetheless.
His brother John, on the other hand … well, the tradition suggests that he actually lived to a great age—again, according to tradition, the only one of the 12 who would not be martyred. His ministry was dissimilar to James’—the baptism and the cup were a bit different, but oh, what a magnificent witness, all the same. Indeed, he left us with some of the most powerful writing and images in the New Testament, thoughts and teachings that feed us and lead us still. In 1st John he writes, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another,” and then later on, “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” This, from the one who wanted greatness.
And I think he found it.
“… whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Such is success in the Kingdom of God. Amen.
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2 Timothy Keller, Ministries of Mercy 3 Acts 12:2