Proper 24B, October 21, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Hebrews 5:1-10 Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.
Mark 10:35-45 What is it you want me to do for you?
O generous God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
The Jesus I love was a master at asking questions, and perhaps the best one of all is: “What is it you want me to do for you?” In the Gospel passage from Mark that Susanne just read, James and John say, “teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus doesn’t say, “okay, sure!” or “you know I can’t agree to that,” or “are you kidding me?” or any number of things he might have said in response. He doesn’t answer with a statement. Rather, he asks, smiling I imagine, “What is it you want me to do for you?” “What is it you want me to do for you?”
They tell him – “we want to be right next to you all the way in your glory.” He cautions them and then asks a follow-up question: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” That means, are you able to suffer the consequences of being so close to me? Are you able to take the scorching heat of the Holy Spirit? Are you able to face into the whirlwind of the breath of God? They insist that they are able.
Jesus agrees – rather, in the story, he predicts that they will be able. (We know from biblical scholarship that this is a literary device because this passage was written after blessed James and John had met violent deaths themselves because of their commitment to following Jesus.) If I were subtitling sections of the Gospel of Mark, I’d call this the “be careful what you wish for” section. Perhaps they were as naïve as they appear in this story about the costs of the honor of following Jesus. Perhaps they didn’t know what they were in for (because who ever does?), but in the end, I believe they knew what Bishop Barbara Harris is fond of saying: “The power behind you is greater than the task ahead of you when you are responding to God’s call.”
The context of this passage of the Gospel reading is a big reality check. Jesus has assured his followers that they will receive fullness of life – sounds exciting! But then the very next thing Mark says is that “they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.” Jesus has told them at least twice before that when they get to Jerusalem he will be nailed to a cross – and now they’re headed right for Jerusalem. Anyone who saw it would marvel and anyone in their right mind, following Jesus, would be afraid. This is clear foreshadowing of the Passion.
Perhaps you’ve heard this Gospel lesson preached about in a way that chides James and John for wanting the best seats in the house, for elbowing their way to the front, for trying to get ahead – I know I have. But notice that Jesus doesn’t seem at all annoyed by James’ and John’s request – he’s just careful to clarify what it is they’re asking and then to clarify what is up to God to determine. Notice that Mark tells us about the anger, the indignation, of the other ten. The text doesn’t explain why they were angry. Perhaps they were angry because James and John had run ahead to talk with Jesus and got him to agree that they would share in his ministry. Perhaps they’re annoyed by James and John’s unchecked displays of desire. Perhaps they were angry because James and John were clearly not in their right mind if they were asking for what was about to happen to Jesus to happen to them as well; and the rest of the disciples were still trying to figure out how Jesus could avoid Jerusalem. I imagine if we did a little brainstorming, we could come up with any number of reasons that we think the ten might have been angry or indignant. We don’t really know what motivated any of them. My strong hunch is fear. They were afraid.
That’s interesting to me. So I wonder what this might be saying to us. What makes some unafraid part of us long to be right by Jesus’ side? What makes another part of us angry or indignant when we’re trying to follow Jesus and do the right thing, but we’re struggling? Often it’s fear.
Jesus’ response to the angry or indignant parts is a reminder about the way power is used in the world to promote fear. “The rulers of the Gentiles,” he says, “lord it over them and their great ones are tyrants over them.” It was like that in the ancient Roman socio-economic political system and it’s like that in our contemporary US socio-economic political system. “But,” Jesus says, “it is not [to be] so among you. In this community,” Jesus says, “we don’t lord power or control over others, we serve. In this community, we don’t get served; we sacrifice.” Jesus is reminding all who want to follow him that service is his glory. Sacrifice is his glory. In this beloved community Jesus is gathering, it’s not, “what are you going to do for me?” It’s, “what is it you would like me to do for you?”
I want to say something about sacrifice the way I understand it in the biblical narrative. The characteristics of biblical sacrifice are freedom and joy and a sense of complete peace. If you are making a sacrifice to God or because of God, and you don’t feel more free, more joyful, more peaceful, don’t do it! Whether your gift is your time or your talent or your money, the sacrifice desired by God is a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and it should feel thoroughly exhilarating. You know, in the last part of this Gospel passage, Jesus is saying that the Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many. I would love to help you get out from under the heavy, smelly theological blanket of expiatory sacrifice – that Jesus’ death was somehow making amends for the bad behavior of others — which got a dominant hold on Western Christian thought in the 11th century and is still messing us up. [1] The Greek word here for ransom is lutron, and it has to do with release, setting free. “In the first century, a slave or a prisoner of war was freed by means of a lutron.” [2] So here, lutron becomes shorthand for the redeeming work of God in setting all of the captives free. Free from what? Free from fear. Free from fear of powerlessness. Free from fear of death. Free from whatever fear binds or contorts or imprisons.
In the end of this passage, Jesus is instructing, “You are to behave as servants, as slaves.” But get this – slaves whose freedom has been won, captives whose ransom has been paid, prisoners whose bail bond has been posted – so cheer up! Imagine that Jesus is asking you. “What is it you want me to do for you?” Imagine that Jesus is asking all of us together, “What is it you want me to do for you?” Imagine knowing what to ask for and being brave enough to ask for it. Imagine being reminded the cup that we drink and the baptism with which we are baptized are the same cup and baptism of Jesus, with all the agony and all the glory. Imagine being told what it is that Jesus wants us to do for him – not because we have to, but because we’re free. We’re free. Feel how good it is to be free and imagine how we might respond, starting right now. The biblical testimony is that everything will turn out alright in the end. And if it’s not alright, then it’s not the end![3]
I want to remind you of a prayer written by Walter Brueggemann entitled, “On Generosity.”
On our own, we conclude
that there is not enough to go around
we are going to run short
of money
of love
of grades
of publication
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life
we should seize the day
seize the goods
seize our neighbor’s goods
because there is not enough to go around.
And in the midst of our perceived deficit:
You come
You come giving bread in the wilderness
You come giving children at the 11th hour
You come giving homes to exiles
You come giving futures to the shut-down
You come giving Easter joy to the dead
You come – fleshed in Jesus.
And we watch while
the blind receive their sight
the lame walk
the lepers are cleansed
the deaf hear
the dead are raised
the poor dance and sing.
We watch
And we take food we did not grow and
life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and gift and
families and neighbors who sustain us
when we do not deserve it.
It dawns on us – late rather than soon—
that “you give food in due season
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits
quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field to see
the abundance … mercy upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.
Sink your generosity deep into our lives
that your muchness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving, we may endlessly give,
so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder
without coercive need, but only love
without destructive greed, but only praise
without aggression and invasiveness…
all things Easter new…
all around us, toward us and by us
all things Easter new.
Finish your creation…in wonder, love and praise. [4]