Seriously, you guys?!

Mark 10:35–45 NRSVue

James 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.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But 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?” They 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, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So 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. But it is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

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Let us pray:

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Creator God, always show us the path to humility and servanthood. Help us always to look to the other and see someone who needs lifting up. May we strive to follow Jesus’ way. Amen”

“Are you kidding me, you guys?! Really? You are bringing this to me now?” I think that’s what most of us might say if the Zebedee boys had come to us with such a request. The Nerve! Right? (There is a dear friend of mine who calmly but firmly says, when people come to her with ridiculous off the wall things at inappropriate times: “NOW is NOT the time, and I am NOT THE ONE.”) And these guys come to Jesus with “We want you to do whatever we say.” In Matthew's version of this story, they seem to know that they might be on thin ice, because they get their MOM to ask Jesus for them. (Don’t believe me? Go look it up. Matthew Chapter 20, verses 20-28.) Jesus doesn’t take the bait, though, and asks them specifically what they want from him and they say they basically want to be his consiglieres, his primary advisers in the New World Order. And then, the rest of the disciples hear about it and they lose their minds all asking the same question we are, “Who are these guys?! The nerve!” It’s all a mess that Jesus now has to clean up. And he does so with poise and grace.

‌So, we need some context here. First, If you want to read a gospel that shows the determined foolishness of the human condition as demonstrated by the collective example of the disciples, Mark is your gospel. Time and time again, they are portrayed in the most dimwitted way. Sometimes it feels like you are watching an episode of The Three Stooges. At times, I think I can see “Yuck, Yuck, Yucks” on the page when the disciples are center stage in Mark. So we start there: Disciples, well-meaning buffoons. Check.

‌Now the context of the situation, last week, Pastor Chris gave us the good word about the Rich Young Man, which is in the verses just before this. I like to think of him as the bible’s version of a Bitcoin millionaire. “I’m totally down, dude, but like, seriously, do I have to sell the “Guini” [California accent]. The disciples are confused wondering if their sacrifices are enough to find favor with God and Jesus puts them at ease. Then while they continue on their way to Jerusalem, in verses 32-34 which the lectionary skips over, Jesus straight up tells them about what is going to happen in Jerusalem, his pending death and resurrection. So the disciples (remember the clueless Markan ones) misunderstand and take from his words that, at last, the big moment of justice making, the big Messiah, earthly-kingdom-Messiah-moment is near and James and John want a piece of the action. They want to get ahead of the curve and make sure they secure a place of importance in the new order.

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From Jesus’ vantage point, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem is about to take place. So, narratively, Jesus is going to be really stressed. His torture and death are just around the corner. And these two knuckleheads are worried about who gets to be the secretary of state? And then the other disciples get riled up as well. What about us? Jesus hasn’t left the earthly plane, and yet, we already get some good old church conflict with the same things that often cause church conflict today: ego, power, and jealousy.

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To the Zebedee boys, Jesus cautions them that they don’t really know what they are getting into and that if they mean to be at his right and left hand they will have to suffer as he suffers. And he welcomes them into the suffering servanthood that we heard about a few minutes ago in Isaiah. But as to the power. As to who will be in charge, Jesus says that’s God’s thing. Jesus lets them know that he is not here to cultivate power or put people in power, but to serve. He leaves power in God’s hands.

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But also, Jesus doesn’t chew them out. He just explains how things work and welcomes them into servanthood. Ultimately they didn’t get the answer they were looking for and were probably still confused.

Then to the other disciples, Jesus actually deploys an example of Luther’s eighth commandment strategy. The eighth commandment: Does anyone remember? “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor? Does anyone remember how Luther explained it?? “We are to fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead, we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.” That’s pretty amazing right? I wonder what life would look like if we always did that. It’s a political season… I wonder what our politics would look like if we always started with those assumptions??

The American Novelist, David Foster Wallace, in a speech he gave at Kenyon College in 2005 about living a compassionate life said:

[QUOTE]“If you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line—maybe she’s not usually like this; maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband, who’s dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicles department who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.” [END QUOTE] Is this a terrible person, or just someone who needs christian compassion? Is this person a good person who is just at their wits end? We can choose which way to look at them.

‌‌We are to fear and love God, we defer to and respect the way God works and we try to build up and defend our neighbors rather than speak ill of them. Jesus defends James’ and John's request to the disciples by framing it within the multicultural collective that they were. (Ancient Rome was full of lots of different cultures and beliefs not unlike our world here in Fort Bend County, America's most diverse county.) Cultures and traditions can be vastly different in a society like theirs and ours and our assumptions about people's actions can lead us to anger and misunderstanding. Luther takes his cue from Jesus when he crafts his statement about the eighth commandment. Give people the benefit of the doubt and lift them up. Don’t tear them down.

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Finally, Jesus tells the disciples that true greatness, true power, true influence comes not from position and scheming, but from servanthood and humility. Paul will tell us the same thing years later and the message is still just as true.

Philippians 2:4–11 NRSVue

Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name, so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What will you do when someone makes you flabbergasted, when they say something that makes you see red, when they ask you to do something that is preposterous, when they cut you off in traffic, when they are disrespectful? What would happen if you instead tried to hear them speaking well? If you instead assume that what they are saying or doing comes from a good place, with good intentions, even if it makes you want to poke your eye out? What would happen if we all assumed the best of all those around us and instead of trying to climb on top of the heap, instead of keeping up with the Joneses, instead of trying to win the argument? We are all people: Rich and poor, people of all kinds of genders and sexualities, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents…. What if we worked every day to be selfless servants, serving the neighbor, seeing them through the best possible lens, defending them, and lifting them up. No matter who they are. I wonder what could be… Amen.