October 17, 2021 Sermon

Sermon title: "James and John Ask a Favor"

Scripture: Mark 10:35-45 

(Other lectionary choices include Job 38:1-7, Psalm 104:1-9, and Hebrews 5:1-10.)

Mark 10:35-45

The Request of James and John

35James 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." 36And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" 37And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38But 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?" 39They 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; 40but 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." 41When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42So 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. 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

In recent sermons you may remember that I mentioned this occasion of James and John asking a favor of Jesus. Now today we have the Scripture recommended by the lectionary. And it tells us that story. What is surprising to me is that the rest of the disciples didn't go their own separate ways right then! The Scripture says the rest of the disciples took offense, and I believe I would have, too! Imagine:  2 of the guys closest to Jesus are trying to set themselves up in what they believe will be the future kingdom! The answer Jesus gives them is filled with irony. I mean, JESUS knows what's going to happen to him, but THEY don't. Also, Jesus knows what is going to happen to THEM, but they don't! There is almost a little dark humor going on here. Listen to Jesus' words:  "The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized...." They don't know it yet, but what Jesus is saying is that the same thing that's going to happen to him (suffering and death) is going to happen to them. Gee, our loving Savior is choosing irony here and THEY DON'T KNOW IT! Wouldn't it have been better if Jesus had just come out and said, "Look! I'm going to die a terrible death and SO ARE YOU!"? Maybe he didn't come right out and say so because he knew they couldn't or wouldn't accept what he was talking about, and that is that the truly great must be willing to serve. A little bit later in the Scripture we have the Lord himself saying, "....whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all." Boy, those words must have been hard to hear! Jesus was turning the "normal" world on its ear, and somewhere along the way, the disciples had to realize that this is not what I signed up for!

Maybe Judas represents the point of view that a lot of them had:  Jesus is going to overthrow Rome, and we want to be part of that! But Jesus says several times that he is not a military leader like his ancestor David. What is amazing to me is that MORE of the disciples did not follow Judas. It would be interesting to know exactly when each one of them saw what Jesus was talking about:  take up your cross daily and follow me. Maybe it wasn't until he appeared to them after the Resurrection. By the way, according to tradition, every single disciple died a painful death, with the possible exception of John, who looked after Jesus' mother Mary. So somewhere on the way the disciples "got it"......but maybe it wasn't until after the Resurrection. And what is it that they "got"? That true greatness involves lowering oneself in service to others. True greatness involves thinking less of oneself, not how important one is. That was not how the world thought then, and it is not how the world thinks now. What's Jesus say in another context? He who would SAVE his life will lose it, but he who gives his life for MY sake and the Gospel's will FIND it. What a concept! You get your life back by GIVING it AWAY! Such thinking is so counter-intuitive -- I mean, it goes against our instinct for self-preservation. But that's what Jesus was talking about:  you want a full and meaningful life? Then GIVE it away in service to others!

The Scripture lesson for today ends with Jesus saying, "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." Where did Jesus get that phrase, "a ransom for many"? From the book of Isaiah, chapters 40-55. Scholars call this portion of the book of Isaiah "Second Isaiah" or "Deutero Isaiah". The first Isaiah lived in or around Jerusalem up until about 701 B.C. The so-called "Second" Isaiah appears to have lived around 550 B.C., or about 150 years later. We do not know his name, but his writings were put together with those of Isaiah of Jerusalem when the Old Testament was being compiled. Why? Maybe because what he wrote seemed to follow what the original Isaiah had said in the first 39 chapters of the book we know as Isaiah. But to the point:  the chapters 40-55 of Isaiah (what we call the Second Isaiah) have four servant poems in there, and chapters 52 and 53 have one called the Suffering Servant. I personally believe that Jesus knew about that poem, and I believe he thought that what the world needed then was somebody to be exactly like that Suffering Servant. Listen to this. (Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 – The Suffering Servant -- 13See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. 14Just as there were many who were astonished at him —so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals— 15so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. 1Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. 4Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. 9They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. 11Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.)

As some of you may have gleaned, I am a little bit of a maverick! Oh, I'm a Christian, and I think I believe most of the doctrines that the Church has hammered out over the last 2000 years or so! But I have always been more interested in the human side of Jesus rather than the divine. I am not denying that he was and is the God/Man, the Savior. But when I first read Isaiah chapters 40-55, I was stunned! I mean, those chapters and the Suffering Servant poem that we heard today were written over 500 years BEFORE the birth of Jesus! Early Christian writers, including some of our New Testament Scripture, looked to those chapters of the book of Isaiah and said, "Look! It was PREDICTED!" As I said, I'm a bit of a maverick, and I have a tough time saying that anything is PREDICTED in the Bible. I know, I know:  you have probably believed your whole life that the coming of Jesus was PREDICTED, and even some Scripture says that. But as you may have heard me say before, the Old Testament prophets were speaking to THEIR times, not some far off day in the future. True, they may have been truer than they knew. But at the time they wrote what they wrote, they were speaking to their own people and their own times. Maybe what they said and wrote -- or part of what they said and wrote -- would also be true at a later time. But primarily, I believe, the Old Testament prophets were speaking to their own times. 

You have just heard what your preacher believes, and he could be wrong! But what your preacher believes is that Jesus was aware of the Suffering Servant concept, and your preacher believes that Jesus thought that what the world needs now is "love, sweet love", as the song says, and he was going to be that love, the Suffering Servant that the Second Isaiah had talked about 500 years earlier. Why? Because Jesus saw that getting even, getting revenge, doesn't solve anything. What Jesus thought was needed was somebody who would take the blows and not try to retaliate.

As I was writing this, I thought about Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player to make it into the Major Leagues. The leader of the Dodgers at that time was Branch Rickey, and he had Methodist roots! When Robinson asked him if he wanted somebody strong enough to fight back, Branch Rickey said, "No, Jackie. I want somebody strong enough NOT to fight back." There's Jesus. There's the Suffering Servant. Be strong enough NOT to fight back. You want blood? Then take mine. Jesus wasn't the last person to be non-violent. Look at Mohandas Gandhi in the 1940's. When he was asked what would happen when he was beaten and maybe even killed, Gandhi said, "Then you will have my body. But you will not have my compliance."

I have always found it interesting that Gandhi the Hindu learned non-violence from Jesus the Jew. Or, at least, that is my assumption. Then Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a black American Christian, learned non-violence from Gandhi the Hindu. By the way, please keep in mind that all three of these people died for practicing what they preached. And their killers weren't "outsiders".... they were insiders. Jesus was betrayed by one of his own, Judas, and Gandhi was killed by another Hindu. Dr. King, an American, was shot and killed by another American.

Harlane sort of warned me not to make this sermon too complicated, and I hope I haven't done so. But the main point of today's Scripture reading, I believe, is be ready to serve, to give. DON'T be so ready to GET or to TAKE. And remember again that counter-intuitive idea of Jesus:  if you want a fulfilling life, give it away. If you try to SAVE your own life, you will lose it. Isn't that interesting? And do you believe it? Jesus gave everything and he was urging his followers to do the same. Can we do that and do we WANT to do that? Tough questions, and Jesus is asking each one of us if we're up to the challenge. Amen.

Pastor Skip