The Request of James and John

I love kids. If you don’t already know that about me, you will learn it soon. I love their imaginations and watching them learn and experience things for the first time. I love their silliness and the things they think are funny. I love their innocence and their ability to believe.

A few years ago, I got to do one of my favorite things--be a character in the daily skits for Vacation Bible School. It was a superhero-themed VBS, and I was a silly, wanna-be superhero named “Kitty Woman” who was stuck with another washed-up superhero named “Sir Dancealot” in the basement of superhero headquarters that was under attack by the “Doo Doo Dragon.” We had silly costumes, and the whole thing was just a lot of kid humor silliness. But the kids LOVED it. They were enthralled. They became so invested in the story line and the characters that the whole series of skits was real to them, especially the smaller kids, that they didn’t even realize I was Kitty Woman. Kids I spent lots and lots of time with came and told me all about what happened in the VBS skits without a clue that I was the character they were talking about. In fact, near the end of the VBS week, one little girl started to feel very confused, and she told her mom that she had heard Pastor Katie’s sound in the VBS skit :).

I thought this was hilarious, so I took it and ran with it. And when some kids did start to think that I was Kitty Woman, I told them that I had a twin sister named Kitty, but I had no idea what they were talking about. And you could just see in their eyes and hear in their voices that they weren’t sure if they believed me or not.

In their innocence and readiness to believe, kids are super susceptible to illusions that they take as reality. As they get older, they start to wonder if anything they thought was real was actually real. They wonder what is TRUE.

Worldly Illusion vs. Kingdom Reality

But as adults, we know what is real and what is an illusion, right? We knew right away that Kitty Woman was Pastor Katie. We can separate fantasy from reality, yet when Jesus came on the scene, he introduced a new reality that turned everything we knew as human beings on its head. Where we sought the reality of wealth, Jesus sought out the poor. Where we sought the reality of revenge and retaliation, Jesus preached turning the other cheek. Where we sought the reality of power and greatness, Jesus preached servanthood and slavery.

But really, the story of God is much about exposing the illusion of the world and calling people into true reality--Kingdom reality--where life and values look very different from the dominant culture. The embodiment of Kingdom reality is Jesus Christ. He lived and operated in a different realm of existence than everyone else did. You can see that as soon as you start to read about his life, and as believers, we are seeking to know and live the way of Jesus. This is reflected in the mission of Journey Community-- we are a community of people following the way of Jesus and learning to be present.

But I will be the first to admit that I don’t fully understand the way of Jesus. I look at his life, and I see him validating the wrong kind of people and invalidating the right kind of people and performing miracles and standing up to government officials and dying, and if I’m honest with myself, sometimes I have trouble translating that to my life and my context. Is anyone there with me? I mean, think about it. Even for those of us who have walked with Jesus for decades, doesn’t stuff happen in our politics and in our social systems and in our families and sometimes even within our own bodies that leaves us asking, “what in the world is the way of Jesus in this?” Please tell me that is not just me… We don’t always fully understand the way of Jesus.

But despite my incomplete understanding, I will also tell you that I have committed to spending my entire life learning and growing and allowing the life of Jesus to challenge and then change the life of Katie, and I hope that that is your commitment today as well. If it is, then you need to listen closely to the challenge that Jesus places before us today through .

The Request of James and John

35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him [Jesus]. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

39 “We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

James and John

Okay. So, let’s start with our main characters here. Who are these guys James and John who come to Jesus with this request? The text says they were brothers, the sons of Zebedee. They were part of Jesus’ close group of 12 disciples, and throughout the gospels we also see that, together with Peter, they were in Jesus’ inner circle. They were the ones who got to go with Jesus up the mountain when he transfigured before their eyes. They would be the ones who would go with him farther into the Garden of Gethsemane on the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested. They were men who were perhaps the closest to Jesus while he walked this earth, Jesus’ best friends.

I don’t know if any of you have ever wondered this, but I have always wondered how the other disciples felt about Jesus having an inner circle that didn’t include them. If I had been one of the 12 but not one of the 3, I think I might have been a little jealous or felt a bit inferior to Peter, James, and John. And if I had been one of the 3, I think I might have had a little superiority complex going on. I probably would have thought pretty highly of myself. Maybe this group dynamic was what caused the argument about which of them was the greatest just one chapter earlier (). Jesus put the kabosh on that kind of talk right away. He said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” ().

After that argument, we have the story of the Rich Young Ruler that Pastor Jonathan talked about last week where this great, powerful wealthy man walked away from Jesus disappointed because his worldly illusion greatness and moral superiority were not enough to inherit kingdom reality life. And you’ll remember that that story ended with Jesus’ Kingdom reality truth that “many who are first will be last, and the last first” (), pretty much the same thing he had said to the disciples after their previous argument, and then he pulls the disciples aside to tell them in graphic detail some of the things that are going to happen to him once they reach Jerusalem. He will be betrayed, condemned to death, mocked, spit on, flogged, and killed.

Then here we are at today’s story, at the end of , where James and John corner Jesus and basically ask him for a carte blanche request. Do whatever we ask of you, oh powerful genie. It seems so nervy and ridiculous. I can't think of many, if any, situations where I would feel comfortable putting myself out there like that, but not only do they do it, they do it to JESUS. What?! He must have been so frustrated and perturbed at them. I'm going to give my life for you, isn't that sufficient? You want a carte blanche request too?

But Jesus responds by saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the scripture doesn’t give us much insight into how Jesus said that, but I imagine that it had a tinge of sadness and pain to it because he knew full well what they were about to ask him for. He knew how naive they were and how deeply they misunderstood his mission and purpose on earth. Despite his very recent attempts to tell them differently, they still think that his Messiahship is going to land him in a place of political power when they get to Jerusalem.

So they make their request: “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” This implies a royal throne with the places of highest honor on either side. James and John do truly believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior, the Rescuer. That belief is pure, and in this moment, they are expressing their desire to honor Jesus as the Messiah. But James and John are still operating under the worldly illusion of what power and greatness is, so they believe that Messiah Jesus is going to establish a political throne, and they selfishly hope that throne will bring them honor as well. “The brothers hope to honor Jesus while honoring themselves. How easily worship and discipleship are blended with self-interest; or worse, self interest is masked as worship and discipleship” (Edwards, 322).

And this is where I feel a Holy Spirit punch in the gut because it is so easy for even my purest, most genuine acts of worship and devotion to the Lord to be obscured by some self-driven motive. If I am really honest, that is frequently the case. For all of my shock and horror and criticism of James and John and their shameless audacity in their request of Jesus, how many times do I actually worship and serve the Lord for his glory alone without any unspoken hope that I’ll get a little glory out of it too?

Fostering Part 1

By this point, most of you know that I am a foster parent. A little over 3 years ago, I started to consider fostering as a way for me to have a family, which, by the way, is a terrible reason to be a foster parent, but I was unmarried with a great desire for a family, so I did it. The thought of helping children and families was just a fringe benefit of going the foster route, but it was definitely not my primary motive. So I started in on the many hours of training that you have to do to be licensed as a foster parent in the state of Texas, and in that process, the Lord started opening up my eyes to our community’s great need of people to love and defend vulnerable children, to parent them therapeutically so that they can experience healing from the complex trauma that they have experienced. And the Lord started to awaken in me a passion to serve and minister to children through the foster care system. I may have even adopted that as my vocalized purpose in fostering at that point. This was a way that I could serve and honor and worship the Lord by investing in the lives of children in the hopes of impacting my community. It all sounded so good. But when the kids started coming, I quickly began to realize how clouded my motive was with self--with my desire to have a family, to be a savior, to be an awesome parent whose kids are great (which makes me look even better because my kids come from hard places). My motive was like this quagmire of worship and self-interest.

Challenge of Self-Evaluation

And I would be remiss if I didn’t stop here and emphasize that this is a challenge that the way of Jesus is placing before each of us today. When you offer your acts of worship to the Lord, what is the true motivation of your heart? Even things that start out as pure offerings can easily become polluted by our need to satisfy the worldly illusion--our desire for approval or fame or power or recognition--and a hundred other self-driven things. In the quiet moment of self-examination, the Holy Spirit can reveal the motives of our hearts, and he wants us to position ourselves so that we can hear him. For some of us, the Holy Spirit may already have placed his thumb on an issue within us. Don’t dismiss that, ask the Lord to reveal it to you fully.

So we’re going to stop right now, in the middle of our time together, and humble ourselves for a few moments of quiet where I want you to think about some of your primary acts of worship and service to the Lord. I want you to ask him to search you and know your heart and reveal to you any pollution of self.

MOMENT OF SILENCE

So now what? I know that the Lord was faithful and will continue to be faithful to reveal the hidden motives of our hearts as we seek him and listen to him, but then what? When I put myself in Jesus’ shoes in the story with James and John, I imagine that he is irritated and angry and frustrated with me, but that’s another worldly illusion. Hebrews chapters 4 and 5 say that, like the earthly High Priest, Jesus “deals gently with those who are ignorant and going astray” and is able to “empathize” with us because he was flesh too and understands our weaknesses. Jesus knows James and John are well-meaning but fueled by the selfish desires of the worldly illusion. I think it was in kindness that he said to the brothers, “You have no idea what you are asking... Can you drink to the dregs the wrath of God for the sin of all mankind? Can you submerge yourself in the heavy, sin-sludged baptismal water of the world's rebellion?” They think they can, but that's because they think the cup they are drinking is the cup of conquering victory.

At this point in the story, it seems almost as if their conversation is interrupted by the rest of the disciples who have figured out what James and John are doing and are upset about it. The text says that they were “indignant.” Maybe they were thinking, “James and John, Jesus just talked to us about this one chapter ago. Have you been listening to anything he has been saying?!” But probably more likely, their own selfish ambition fuels their indignation. “Why didn't we think of this first? Do they think they’re better than us?”

And Jesus sees this root of self in all of them. He sees them operating in the worldly illusion of greatness, so he gathers them in for a crucial lesson in kingdom reality. He says, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

“Look at your leaders,” Jesus says. “Look how they exercise power over you. Look how they flaunt their authority and abuse their power and soak in every moment of perceived greatness. That is not kingdom reality. In fact, in my Kingdom, those leaders are completely powerless. In true reality--the realm where I am Lord--the greatest thing that could ever be done for all of humanity will come not when life is clung to as a means of becoming great by standing on top of people, but rather when life is poured out in loving service for others. And the cost of this service will be (at the very least uncomfortable) but more likely it will be great suffering, pain, and loss of life.”

Jesus understands what they don't--that when they do come to a point of grasping the significance of his life and death, they will indeed share in the sufferings of the cup and the baptism as they follow the way of Jesus because the way of Jesus is the way of suffering.

Now we experience all kinds of suffering in our lives--health difficulties, broken relationships, depression and anxiety, grief and loss, financial hardships, persecution for our faith--and I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that I have all the answers for why we suffer. But I am going to tell you what I have learned about people and what I believe the Bible teaches us about suffering. I have learned that people don’t like to suffer. In fact, the kingdom reality of suffering is met with a powerful worldly illusion of ease and comfort, and that is what we want. Even subconsciously, we try to protect ourselves from pain, sometimes at all costs. In my life, I have found myself becoming so overwhelmed and uncomfortable by the suffering in the world that I stopped watching the news because I wanted to protect myself from experiencing it even second hand and feeling helpless to do anything about it.

But this is not the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is not comfortable. It is not easy. And I am going so far as to say that it invites and then embraces suffering. We don’t understand why we suffer when it comes on us in a way that is out of our control, so we would never purposefully put ourselves in a position where pain and suffering is likely or inevitable. Yet this is exactly what Jesus did and how he lived.

And I ask myself, WHY? Isn’t that the million dollar question? Why did Jesus live that way? Why did he perform miracles and healings that would deliberately challenge the religious leaders and catch the ear of the Gentile leaders who would then want him dead? Why did he choose some of his closest friends knowing they would betray and deny and abandon him?

Fostering Part 2

Very early in my fostering journey, I encountered what I felt was incredible pain and suffering. I received my first placement, a 3-week-old baby girl on January 3, 2017, and she stole my heart instantly. I just knew that God had brought her to me to be adopted into my family. So many, including myself, prayed over that child fervently, and I knew that once we got through all of the fostering hoops she would be mine forever. I loved her with abandon. And after a very short 7 weeks, I watched that sweet little baby and all her stuff get loaded into a small brown sedan and be driven away from my house and moved into the care of a grandmother, where I would never see or hear anything about her again, and I was heartbroken. Heartbroken doesn’t even do it justice. It was as if my child had died, only the pain was different because she was alive but I had no idea if she was safe and okay, and if she wasn’t, there was nothing I could do about it.

And through that great loss and period of grief in my life, I found myself asking a lot of why questions. I found myself angry with the Lord for taking that little girl from me and allowing her to go to a place where she might not be safe or healthy or given what she needs to thrive. And I heard the response of the Lord to Job in his great suffering ():

4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you understand.

5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

6 On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone—

7 while the morning stars sang together

and all the angels j shouted for joy?

And on and on… I am not God, and suffering leads me to a deeper acknowledgement and understanding of that because sometimes things just don’t make sense to us. And when that confusion bows to the mystery and sovereignty of God, we are stepping into Kingdom reality by looking more like the last, more like servants and slaves.

And the Lord began exposing and purifying the motives of my heart because in Kingdom reality, my home, my parenting, and my life are not my own, and they are not the salvation of children. In Kingdom reality, every child that comes through my doors belongs to God, the Father to the fatherless and the Defender of orphans and widows, and God is bringing wholeness and restoration to families that I have no clue about. I have to foster because caring for vulnerable children is the heart of God and is part of the Holy Spirit’s mending work in the world, not because it satisfies a need or a desire within me or makes me look good--that’s worldly illusion stuff.

And when we look at Jesus’ life and suffering and we read passages like that says, “Son though he was, [Jesus] learned obedience from what he suffered” (vs. 8), we see that suffering, especially suffering for the sake of others, purifies and shapes us like Jesus by putting us directly in the way of Jesus.

I hope this morning that you haven’t heard the Lord say, “You’re a follower of Jesus? Then I’m gonna make you suffer…” I hope what you have heard him say is, “You’re going to suffer, but I suffered unto the death not that you might suffer, but that your sufferings might be like mine.” Purifying, redemptive, transformative suffering. Sacrifice that pours itself out for the sake of others because that is where the way of Jesus leads.

We’re going into our time of communion together this morning, but I am calling you to a serious account before you partake. For some of you who find yourselves in a place of suffering right now, the question is, am I willing to drink this cup and be baptized with this baptism in order to step into the Kingdom reality way of Jesus? Am I willing to open myself and my suffering up to the Lord, who is God, and allow him to shape me and bring glory to himself alone however that may look? For others of you who find yourselves in a place of ease and comfort right now, the question is, am I willing to invite the suffering of the cup into my life for the sake of others and because that is how Jesus lived? Am I willing to put myself and my stuff out there in a way that will likely result in pain for me but pain for the sake of others?

Before we share in communion together, I want to allow us some space to process some of these questions through with the Lord. You are welcome to pray in your seat or at the altars, and after a few minutes, we will move into our communion time.

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