| Scriptures: | Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45 |
Years ago my brother, who was the CEO of a computer supply company, found himself on a trans-continental flight and seated next to a man who was the former Vice-President of the United States, Spiro Agnew. They introduced themselves at the beginning of the flight, enjoyed some conversation along the way, and as the flight landed and they were about to disembark Spiro Agnew shook hands with my brother and said, “It was very nice talking with you, Mr. Pomeroy.” John’s told that story for years. He was so non-plussed and astonished that Agnew, having heard his name once, remembered it for the five hours the flight took.
We do like to be recognized, don’t we? A fairly recent phenomenon is the practice that salespeople have of using our name – usually our first name, and I’m not always sure that I’m comfortable when a bank teller, looking at my deposit slip, says, “Thank you, Dave”. Somehow it seems a bit too familiar; the relationship between a customer and a salesperson perhaps ought to be something just a bit more proper. But sales psychology of recent years seems to bear out that hearing our name makes us feel special – feel recognized – and so we’re more likely to say “yes” to the sales pitch.
Andy Warhol famously said that everyone is entitled to 15 minutes of fame. But most of us long for more. And today, of course, with YouTube and FaceBook and Twittering it’s so much more possible to get your name, your face, your ideas out there to a public that just seems to be clamoring for more, more, more. And if you do something special to become recognized, there you are on CNN or the Today Show – just because the media have picked up what you have done and run with it. Of course, Andy Warhol may have been almost literally right about that “15 minutes of fame” – just look at Susan Boyle and how the surprising reaction to that marvelous singing voice turned just about the whole world’s attention toward her – only to have it fade back all too soon. It may be a cliché, but it’s all too true: fame is fleeting.
But the flip side of the ephemeral nature of fame is that fame can lead to power – especially power over others. That’s what happens to most people when they find themselves famous for a time – they are looked up to, and in such a state they find that they have a degree of power over others.
Was this the motivation behind this strikingly arrogant request from James and John? Were they secretly hoping that by getting on the good side of Jesus they would have more power and authority in the hierarchy of heaven?
Again, as we said last week, we have to look at the context. In the two verses just before the start of our lectionary passage Jesus for the third time in Mark foretells what is coming, and this time he does it with strikingly strong words: “’See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’” (vs. 33-34) After this shocking description the two disciples come to him with…what? – with a request to sit on his right and left hand in his glory? As Martin Copenhaver says, “Jesus has just laid before the disciples an unflinching account of what lies ahead…and these two seem to have heard none of it. Jesus did not promise them a triumphant parade when they arrived in Jerusalem, but a lynch mob. It goes without saying that when James and John made their request they did not envision that the ones who would end up on Jesus' right and left hand would be hanging on crosses.”
When Jesus first talks about his coming passion in Mark’s gospel Simon Peter rebukes him (we talked about that a few weeks ago). The second time the disciples jostle for position, arguing with one another over who is the greatest. And now this third time, it would appear, once again the disciples just don’t get it. Now it’s all about the glory that is to come, and how are we going to find the best way to take advantage of that?
James and John have an ambition – an ambition to have right of first place when Jesus comes into his glory. And so they first come to him somewhat slyly: “’Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’” Pretty open-ended request, that. And Jesus, quite rightly, wants them to be more specific. So, now they have to lay their cards on the table: “’Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’” Your glory. That’s what James and John think this is all about – that everything Jesus is doing will redound to his glory and that he’s going to be seated on some sort of magnificent high throne, and there they will be like royal courtiers sitting on either hand.
Here is what we like to call a “teachable moment”. Interestingly, though, for one of the few times in the gospels Jesus does not respond with a parable or with subtle indirection – no, he is very direct in his response to them. What they will have if he were to grant their request is no life of comfort and fame and glory but a life of discomfort and infamy with inglorious scorn heaped upon them. Comedienne Lily Tomlin once quipped, “I always wanted to be somebody. Now I realize I should have been more specific.” Well, James and John could identify with that plaint. Jesus tells them they can certainly be somebody in his world, but if they get their wish they might not like the specifics.
In fact, he asks them quite directly: “’Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the water that I am baptized with?’” Much too quickly and glibly they respond, “’We are able.’” We get that way, too, don’t we? Especially when we sing that old, beloved hymn as we did at the start of the service: “Lord, we are able. Our spirits are thine.” Well, before getting to the refrain in that hymn we ought to pause and look at what it is that Jesus is really offering – what are the specifics? What is the fame, what is the power that we will have?
And, of course, you already know where this is going. Fame, power, glory for Jesus mean becoming a servant, even a slave. That’s not what we want to hear. That’s not what James and John wanted to hear. Nor is it what the other ten disciples want to hear. Oh, they have their ambitions, too. The ten are indignant at James and John when they hear that the two brothers have already put in their bid for the best seats in the new rule of God. Evidently, the ten were just as interested in rank and place as the two who had just asked Jesus for the best cabinet posts. The ten, like James and John seem eager for place, status, seats on thrones. They, too, want to be famous – to be “Number 1”.
Back in the 1970s the then American Lutheran Church produced a series of four half-hour programs that were widely syndicated called “We’re Number 1?” – with a question mark at the end. In a playful way these programs sought to counter the notion that we are more important than anyone else – that to put ourselves forward as number 1 is to diminish the community that is God’s family. I remember that one of the programs featured Terry Bradshaw, then at the height of his fame as quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he talked about how with all his celebrity he still found it much more important to respect your neighbor – that there is more to the world than being great or famous.
So, how do we measure greatness? What is it like to be famous on Jesus’ terms? It’s right there, isn’t it, in our passage: “’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.’” Jesus’ ambition, unlike that of the disciples, is to give his life away. And that is what he does…..quite literally. That’s the meaning in the last line of our text: “’…and to give his life a ransom for many.’”
Martin Copenhaver, again, a UCC minister, tells this story about a church that he had served:
“In one New England church I served, some of the older members could remember a time when wealthy families would send their servants to help cook church suppers alongside those who did not have servants to send. By the time I came to the church these stories were repeated with some amusement, but similar confusions continued. According to the bylaws of the church the deacons were charged with spiritual leadership of the congregation. At one of the deacons meetings, someone complained that instead of being true to this high and momentous charge, deacons spent too much of their time delivering food to the homeless shelter and washing dishes after communion. How could they tend to important spiritual matters when they were occupied with such mundane tasks? ‘I feel like a glorified butler,’ one of the deacons complained.
“So together we looked at the Book of Acts, where the word deacon first appears. There we discovered that the apostles commissioned the first deacons so that there would be someone to take food to the widows! They were indeed butlers, charged with the mundane task of delivering food, and also glorified because that simple act was an important expression of Christ's self-giving love. In this realm, everything is turned upside down, and many of our usual assumptions begin to shake loose. To lead is to be a servant. The place of greatest honor is not at the head table but in the kitchen. The greatest reward is not a gold watch but a dish towel.”
What a terrific image that is! I hope you remember it the
next time you have a dish towel in your hands (of course, in today’s world
where most people have dish washing machines, maybe that’s yet another symbol
that is going the way of modernity). Martin Luther King, Jr., as he so
often did, says it quite well:
“Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to
have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb
agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by
love.”
Jesus has given us a new definition of greatness, a whole different way of looking at becoming famous. Being famous is usually associated with upward mobility. But as that wonderful Christian mystic Henri Nouwen writes: "The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which the world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. . . . It is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest."
Even more than that, Jesus has modeled for us what this means. His purpose in life was to serve, and in so doing he gave his life as a ransom for us, setting us free. We are, therefore, in that most wonderful of all Christian paradoxes, “free slaves”. We find in the gospel both comfort and challenge.
This was not an easy thing for the disciples to hear, and I doubt that it is for else as well. The road that leads to glory with Jesus, sitting at his right and left hands, leads along the Via Dolorosa – the way of the cross. There is no scenic route to Jerusalem. Our reading from the book of Hebrews suggests this as well: if Jesus is the true and final high priest who achieved glory through the scandal of the cross and who was perfected through suffering, it is no different for those who want to know life as his disciples – for you and for me.
You know, the more I preach through the gospel of Mark with these Year B lectionary texts the more I realize what a hard and harsh gospel it is – how uncompromising it is. Sorta makes me understand why the Biblical compilers in the 4th or 5th century put Matthew first, even though it was written several years after Mark, with its beautiful nativity stories, elegant parables, and ending with a Great Commission. But as Ernesto Tinajero, a rather new writer who has written a lot for Sojourners magazine, has so aptly and pithily said, “If you read the Bible and it does not challenge you, then you are reading yourself and not the Bible.”
We do have one advantage over the disciples in this story; we can see how they are getting it wrong. We know from all of our Biblical reading about Jesus’ ambition to give his life away in order to reconcile the whole world to God. We know that his ransom has freed us to become servants. And we know how to act on that knowledge. Go forth, sisters and brothers, to be famous in the world as Jesus taught us to be famous – for his sake and the gospel’s.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
October 18, 2009