God helps those that help themselves

When I first started looking at our theme this week of, ‘God helps those that helps themselves’, I realized that there is a greater sense of nuance to it than maybe we have seen in previous weeks. It reminds me of a course I took in seminary on the 7 deadly sins. What I want to share with you about that class is that the premise was essentially that the 7 deadly sins are really only deadly when you take it to the extreme. For example pride is only bad when you make it all about yourself, but having pride or confidence that you can do something well is good for your self esteem. Or being a sloth is bad when you never do anything, but on the other hand taking time to rest and recuperate is not only important but also something God did at the end of creation. That is essentially how I see this particular theme playing out. We need to find the balance in this one and know when to apply and to know when it is unhelpful.

So let’s start with the gospel we have today and build from there to see all the aspects we need to see. Now the opening request from James and John seems rather ridiculous to ask someone. I say that because I know that whenever my girls ask me to do something I generally want to know like Jesus what it is that I am getting myself into before I agree to it until I know what they want. One commentary I read said that it evokes the earlier story of when John the Baptist is executed because Herod made almost this exact same offering to his daughter Herodias. Unlike Herod Jesus needs to know the request before he is able to grant it. What they want is essentially them helping themselves.

You see they have been a part of Jesus ministry for some time now and not only that but they have been a part of some things that not all the others were a part of except Peter. Perhaps they are trying to secure their position by helping themselves into positions of leadership and power. Perhaps they are trying to eek out Peter from the most important spots. The problem that arises is that they are seeking to lift themselves up above others and they are concerned about themselves over other people. It doesn’t seem too different than someone trying to climb the corporate ladder and doing whatever they can to secure their own position while ignoring the needs of others. This is where we can see clearly that Jesus nor God are interested in helping those that help themselves, and the reason Jesus gives is that they clearly don’t understand what it is that they are asking. They really don’t know the implications of what their request is so perhaps when we help ourselves even when we think it is good, it might not actually be good for us, for our neighbors, or for our relationship with God.

Now lets’ look at some examples where it seems that people are helping themselves. All we have to do is continue reading after our Mark text and we see a story of blind Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is insistent that Jesus come to him and tells Jesus plainly that he wants to see and Jesus says that his faith has healed him and he was able to see. We see this pattern emerge in multiple instances in the gospels. The woman who has been bleeding for years comes to Jesus essentially in secret and touches his cloak and is healed in Luke 8. We see in Luke 17, 10 lepers who seek to be healed by Jesus. All these people and lots of other examples are of people looking to help themselves and in return they are helped by God.

If we really look at these stories though, we can see that while they were seeking help for themselves, the help they pursued was the help of God. They weren’t helping themselves for the sake of lifting themselves up to be better than others or secure places of honor like James and John, they were seeking help to be healed, and not just physically but also restored to their communities. This wasn’t self interested for the sake of gaining wealth or status it was for their ability to once again be able to be a part of society and to avoid suffering. I believe this kind of God helping those who help themselves is the healthy balance we are looking for.

Now lets look at some other scriptures that might help us understand why this passage might not always be helpful or healthy to use. In Luke 5 we see a group of men bring a crippled man to Jesus and they even go so far as to take him up on the roof and lower him down on his cot to be healed by Jesus. Then there is the story from John 5 about a man who had been sick for 38 years and in a dramatic contrast to the crippled man lowered through the roof by a group of men this man very specifically says he doesn’t have anyone to help him. It is Jesus who comes to him to help him. Finally we have a story of the man possessed by the legion of demons in Mark 5. The man is not even in control of his own body or mind to be able to ask for help and Jesus heals the man. There are other stories like this in the gospels just like there are of those who do ask for help for themselves.

I share these stories of Jesus’ healings because as I hope you have seen by now that there are times when people for various reasons are not able to help themselves. They need someone else to step in on their behalf, either a family, friend or even a stranger to come and help them. Think of the parable of the good samaritan. So sometimes saying that God helps those that help themselves could be seen as condescending or even cruel at times and could be interpreted as saying that, ‘if you want God to help you then you need to show some self reliance first.’

To close us out today let’s go back to our story today about James and John wanting to lift/help themselves up to the right and left of God. Jesus doesn’t just end his conversation by saying you don’t know what you’re asking so drop it. He follows up the conversation by telling them that the rest of the world uses authority and positions to get places in this world, but that’s not how it is with Jesus and that’s not how it is with us. Jesus shows us that the way forward is a way of service. A way of not looking at ourselves but instead looking at our neighbor and serving them. Another way to to put it is the purpose is not to help ourselves so that God will help us individually, but that we should help the world by serving the world so that God may work through us to also help and heal the world. It moves us all from an inward and selfish focus to an outward and inclusive focus on making sure that God helps the whole world and not just what we want personally.

Does God help those who show initiative? Perhaps God does, and God is also for those who are the least of these in society and that while we should not neglect our own needs just as Christ came into the world to serve the world we too are called to follow in the path of Jesus and also serve the least of these so that not just us, but that the whole world may be blessed and experience the help and blessings of God for all the days that we and they have been blessed to live on this earth.